Quotes & Notes on:     Mark 1:3   

• John Wesley's Notes:
  (No comment on this verse).
   

• The Fourfold Gospel:

   The voice. Isa 40:3,4, quoted from the Septuagint. The words were God's, the voice was John's. So Paul also spoke (1Th 2:1-13). It was prophesied before he was born that John should be a preparing messenger for Christ (Lu 1:17).
  
  Of one crying in the wilderness. This prophecy of Isaiah's could relate to none but John, for no other prophet ever made the wilderness the scene of his preaching. But John always preached there, and instead of going to the people, he compelled the people to come out to him. John was the second Elijah. The claims of all who in these days profess to be reincarnations of Elijah may be tested and condemned by this prophecy, for none of them frequent the wilderness.
  
  Make ye ready the way of the Lord. See also Isa 35:8-10. Isaiah's language is highly figurative. It represents a band of engineers and workmen preparing the road for their king through a rough, mountainous district. The figure was familiar to the people of the East, and nearly every generation there witnessed such road-making. The haughty Seriramis leveled the mountains before her. Josephus, describing the march of Vespasian, says that there went before him such as were to make the road even and straight, and if it were anywhere rough and hard, to smooth it over, to plane it, and to cut down woods that hindered the march, that the army might not be tired. Some have thought that Isaiah's prophecy referred primarily to the return of the Jewish captives from Babylon. But it refers far more directly to the ministry of the Baptist; for it is not said that the way was to be prepared for the people, but for Jehovah himself. It is a beautiful figure, but the real preparation was the more beautiful transformation of repentance. By inducing repentance, John was to prepare the people to receive Jesus and his apostles, and to hearken to their preaching.
   

• Treasury of Scripture Knowledge:

   Isa 40:3-5; Mt 3:3; Lu 3:4-6; Joh 1:15,19-34; 3:28-36
   

• Robertson's Word Pictures:
  The voice of one crying (phonê boôntos). God is coming to his people to deliver them from their captivity in Babylon. So the prophet cries like a voice in the wilderness to make ready for the coming of God. When the committee from the Sanhedrin came to ask John who he was, he used this very language of Isaiah (Joh 1:23). He was only a voice, but we can still hear the echo of that voice through the corridor of the centuries. Paths straight (eutheias tas tribous). Automobile highways today well illustrate the wonderful Persian roads for the couriers of the king and then for the king himself. The Roman Empire was knit together by roads, some of which survive today. John had a high and holy mission as the forerunner of the Messiah.
   

• William Burkitt's Notes:

  Here note, 1. The title given to John the Baptist: he is called a Voice, in respect of his ministerial office, which was to speak forth, to promulge and publish, the doctrine of salvation.
  
  2. The quantity or kind of this voice, a crying voice, the voice of one crying.
  
  This implies, 1. His earnestness and vehemency his zeal His and fervency, in preaching. When we lift up our voice, and cry aloud, we speak with earnestness and fervour. When our own hearts are warmly affected with what we preach, we may hope to affect the hearts of our hearers. Why has God commissioned men rather than angels, to be the preachers and dispensers of his word, but because we can speak to and treat with sinners more feelingly and more affectionately than the angels can?
  
  2. This crying of the holy Baptist in his preaching, implies his liberty and boldness, as well as vehemency and earnestness, in delivering of his message. The lifting up of the voice in speaking, argues boldness and courage in the speaker; as, on the contrary, the depressing of the voice showeth timorousness.
  
  Learn hence, That the ministers of the word are to use both zeal and earnestness, and also courage and boldness of spirit, in delivering the word and message of God, not forbearing to reprove sin, not concealing any part of God's truth, for fear of men's displeasure.
  
  Observe, 3. The sum and substance of what he cried, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight; that is, "Make ready yourselves, prepare your own hearts, to entertain the doctrine and glad tidings of the gospel." It is a metaphorical speech, taken from the custom of loyal and dutiful subjects, who, when their prince is coming to lodge in their city, prepare and make ready the way for his coming, by removing every thing that may obstruct or hinder his progress.
  
  Learn hence, That man's heart by nature is very unfit to embrace and entertain the Lord Jesus Christ. We have naturally no fitness, no disposition, no inclination, to believe in him, or to submit unto him.
  
  2. If ever we desire to entertain Christ in our hearts, we must first prepare and make fit our hearts for the receiving and embracing of him. For though the preparation of the heart be from the Lord, yet he requires the exercise of our faculties, and the use of our endeavours.
  
  He prepares our hearts, by enabling us to the preparation of our own hearts. This is done by getting a sight of the evil of sin, a sense of our misery without Christ, an hungering and thirsting desire after him, and true faith in him. Christ will lodge in no heart that is not thus made ready to receive him.
   

• Family Bible Notes:

  John the Baptist. Mt 3:1-12. For the reception of spiritual blessings, preparation is needful; and those things which tend to hinder men from feeling this, and making preparation, should be carefully avoided.
   

• 1599 Geneva Bible Notes:
  (No comment on this verse).
   

• People's New Testament Commentary:

  (No comment on this verse).
   

• Albert Barnes' Commentary:

  (No comment on this verse).
   

• Jamieson-Faussett Brown:

  The second of these quotations is given by Matthew and Luke in the same connection, but they reserve the former quotation till they have occasion to return to the Baptist, after his imprisonment (Mt 11:10; Lu 7:27). (Instead of the words, "as it is written in the Prophets," there is weighty evidence in favor of the following reading: "As it is written in Isaiah the prophet." This reading is adopted by all the latest critical editors. If it be the true one, it is to be explained thus--that of the two quotations, the one from Malachi is but a later development of the great primary one in Isaiah, from which the whole prophetical matter here quoted takes its name. But the received text is quoted by IRENÆUS, before the end of the second century, and the evidence in its favor is greater in amount, if not in weight. The chief objection to it is, that if this was the true reading, it is difficult to see how the other one could have got in at all; whereas, if it be not the true reading, it is very easy to see how it found its way into the text, as it removes the startling difficulty of a prophecy beginning with the words of Malachi being ascribed to Isaiah). For the exposition, see on JFB for Mt 3:1; JFB for Mt 3:11.
   

• Spurgeon Commentary on Matthew:

  (No comment on this verse).
   

• Spurgeon Devotional Commentary:

  (No comment on this verse).
   

• Adam Clarke's Commentary:

  (No comment on this verse).

   

• Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary:

   (No comment on this verse).