Comentario sobre Isaías 40:4

Every valley shall be raised and the mountain shall be lowered, thus resulting in a smooth, even, and easily traversed road.

"Every valley". He is describing how the path that is remembered which the children of exile will return on will be a straight path; the valleys and ridges will not delay them. Although it will be said that it will not be like the normal actions of the world that at the time that they want to straighten the way and a mountain and a hill and a valley is found in front of it, that then the mountain soil will travel into the valley, until the mountain is lowered and the valley is raised, in a way that according to nature a mountain and a hill will first be forced to be lowered, and because of this the valley will be filled. But if it will be that it is not by the way of nature, it will start out "Let every be raised," from itself, and afterwards, "Every hill and mountain be made low"....

"The rugged ground". Isolated, and it is from the topic of the ambush 'but the far end of it was on the west.' (Joshua 8:13), which fenced the circular road that surrounded the counterpart with deception or action with slyness, and thus the place they were at was called ridges, which are raised humps attached together (from 'The breastpiece shall be held in place' (Exodus 28:28)), until you have to go around and encircle the road, which is a place of rugged ground.

Every valley shall be exalted. Every valley that is now low, shall then be exalted. The word גֶּיא valley is not in the construct state¹²From this remark it appears that I. E. read גֵּיא, and thought it therefore necessary to explain the difference between this word, used, as it seems, in the absolute state, and the same form 22:1 and Ez. 39:11 used in the construct state. No remark would have been required if I. E. had before him the reading גֶּיא adopted in the printed editions of the Bible. as in 22:1, and Ez. 39:11. It is, however, possible that it is in the construct state and some genitive is to be supplied; comp. מִלֵּיל (21:11).¹³See c. xv., Note 1.

and the close mountains Heb. רְכָסִים, mountains close to each other, and because of their proximity, the descent between them is steep and it is not slanted, that it should be easy to descend and ascend. ([The word] רְכָסִים is translated by Jonathan as ‘banks,’ an expression of height like the banks of a river.)

"Let the rugged ground". Here is the way they would want to straighten the rugged ground, that the path is curved because there are many small rigid hills that they need to go around, so surely they will have to start by putting the ridges into a plain, and then the rugged ground will become level from itself. But if it will be not by the way of nature, let first the "Rugged ground" become level before the ridges go away, and afterwards, "And the ridges will become a plain".

העקוב The crooked. It is the opposite of מישור straight; comp. עקוב deceitful¹⁴That is crooked in the figurative sense, the opposite of ישר upright or straight. (Jer. 17:9).

close mountains Heb. רְכָסִים. Comp. (Ex. 28:28) “And they shall fasten (וְיִרְכְּסוּ) the breastplate.”

והרכסים And the rough places. Comp. מרכסי from the crookedness of¹⁵A. V., From the pride. (Ps. 39:21)

a champaigne Canpayne in O.F., a smooth and even terrain.