compare Matt.
xii. 22: [Greek: tote prosenechthe auto daimonzomenos, tuphlos kai
kophos. kai etherapeusen auton, hoste ton tuphlon kai kophon kai lalein
kai blepein.] _Spiritual_ dumbness is the incapacity for the praise of
God which, in the time when salvation is withheld, so easily creeps in,
and which is removed by the bestowal of salvation. The words: "For in
the wilderness," &c., state the ground of the leaping and shouting,
point to the bestowal of salvation, which forms the cause. The _waters_
are the waters of salvation, compare remarks on chap. xii. 3. The words
contain, moreover, an allusion to Exod. xvii. 3 ff.; Numb. xx. 11,
where, during the journey through the wilderness, salvation is
represented by the bestowal of water. The desert here is an image of
misery.

Ver. 7. "_And the scorching heat of the sun becomes a pool, and the
thirsty land, springs of water; in the habitation of dragons shall be
their couching place, grass where formerly reeds and rushes._"

"The scorching heat of the sun," stands for "places scorched by the
heat" ("parched ground," English version). The passage chap. xlix. 10,
forbids us to explain it by _mirage_, the appearance of water. The
suffix in [Hebrew: rbch] refers to Zion. Dragons like to make their
abode especially in the waterless wilderness. The circumstance that
Zion has there her couching place, supposes that it has been changed
into a garden of God; while, on the contrary, in chap. xxxiv. 13, it is
said of the world that "it becomes an habitation of dragons." Besides
the dry land, the moor-land which bears nothing but barren reeds, shall
undergo a change; nourishing _grass_ is to take its place; [Hebrew:
Hcir] has no other signification than this.

Ver. 8. "_And a high-way shall be there, and a way, and it shall be
called the holy way; an unclean shall not pass over it; and it shall be
for them, that they may walk on it, that fools also may not err._"

"The way" is the way of salvation which God opens up to His people in
the wilderness of misery; comp. chap. xliii. 19: "I will make a way in
the wilderness, rivers in the desert;" Ps. cvii. 4: "They wandered in
the wilderness, in the desert without ways," where the pathless
wilderness is the image of misery; [Pg 163] Ps. xxv. 4; xxvii. 11,
where the ways of God are the ways of salvation which He reveals to His
people, that they may walk in them. The way is _holy_ (comp. remarks on
chap. iv. 3), because inaccessible to