How to read this page

An Intertextuality Pair — one connection between two passages, shown as linked verse cards: the Later text and the Earlier text it quotes, alludes to or echoes. The Significance essay explains why the link matters and where it points in Christ.

Reference Type— how explicit the link is: Quotation, Allusion, or Echo
Connection Method(s)— how it carries meaning: e.g. Typology, Promise-Fulfillment, Analogy, Longitudinal Theme
Found via— where the connection was identified, e.g. the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge or an Anchor-Text Network

Graph View — tap the constellation icon in the top bar to see this page's connections as a web of light: gold points are passages, and the coloured threads are the connection types. Click any type in the graph's own legend to filter it in or out, and use the expand control for the full-screen night sky.

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Intertextuality Pair

Isaiah 40:3 → Exodus 23:20

Allusion

Later text

Isaiah 40:3BSB

A voice of one calling: "Prepare the way for the LORD in the wilderness; make a straight highway for our God in the desert.

Earlier text

Exodus 23:20BSB

Behold, I am sending an angel before you to protect you along the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared.

Significance

Isaiah 40:3 calls for preparing "the way for the LORD" (דֶּרֶךְ יְהוָה, derekh YHWH) in the wilderness, echoing Exodus 23:20 where God promises to send an angel "before you to protect you along the way (בַּדֶּרֶךְ, baderekh)." Both passages envision divine passage through the wilderness, but with a crucial development: in Exodus, God sends a messenger ahead of His people through the wilderness; in Isaiah, the wilderness itself must be prepared for the LORD's own processional return to His people. The image shifts from God guiding Israel through the desert to the desert being transformed into a royal highway for God's own advent, with valleys raised and mountains leveled (40:4).

Found via: Keil and Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament (1866)
Reference Type: Allusion
Connection Method(s): Typology + Longitudinal Theme

▸ A Voice Crying in the Wilderness

Linked Mentions 5

Trajectory Tables 4

Anchor Texts 1

Isaiah 40:3 — A Voice Crying in the Wilderness

Isaiah 40:3 → Exodus 23:20

Significance

Related Anchor-Text Networks