An highway shall be there. — The raised causeway, as distinct from the common paths. (See Judges 5:6.) We are still in the region of parables, but the thought has a special interest as a transition, at the close of the first volume of Isaiah’s writings, to the opening of the second. The use of the road has been referred, by some interpreters, to the return of the exiles from Babylon. Rather is it the road by which the pilgrims of all nations shall journey to the mountain of the Lord’s house (Isaiah 2:1).
The way of holiness... — The name of the road confirms the interpretation just given. There was to be a true Via Sacra to the earthly temple, as the type of that eternal Temple, not made with hands, which also was in the prophet’s thoughts. Along that road there would be no barbarous invaders polluting the ground they trod, no Jews ceremonially or spiritually unclean. The picture of the heavenly Jerusalem (Revelation 21:27) into which “there entereth nothing that defileth,” presents a like feature. It shall be for them, i.e.... It is appointed for those, for whosoever walketh therein (the Hebrew verb is in the singular). Then, in strict order, comes the final clause: Even the simple ones shall not lose their way. A curious parallel is found in Ecclesiastes 10:15, where “he knoweth not how to go to the city,” is one of the notes of the man who is void of understanding.