“Make a straight highway for our God”
A voice of one calling: 'Prepare the way for the LORD in the wilderness; make a straight highway for our God in the desert.' (Isaiah 40:3 BSB)
What it sounds like today
A poetic call to get ready spiritually.
The cultural key
The image is literal roadwork done for royalty. In the ancient Near East, when a king (or the image of a god) was to travel or make a triumphal entry, gangs of workers went ahead to construct a 'processional way': filling in valleys, cutting through or leveling hills, clearing rocks and straightening the route so the royal cortege could advance smoothly and with dignity. Isaiah takes that scene and applies it to God Himself; the exiles are told to build a highway through the desert for the LORD to lead His people home in a new exodus. 'Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain made low' (40:4) is the language of this construction crew. The Gospels then hear John the Baptist as this 'voice,' preparing people's hearts for the coming of the Lord. The modern reader hears vague spiritual readiness; the first hearers pictured a road crew laboring to level the way for a king.
Recovered meaning
Preparing 'the way' is the ancient practice of building and leveling a road ahead of a travelling king, filling valleys and flattening hills. Isaiah casts God's coming as a royal procession for which such a highway is built, the image the Gospels give to John the Baptist.