The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare you the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.
All Commentaries on Mark 1:3 Go To Mark 1
Jerome
AD 420
The quotation is made up from two prophets, Malachi and Isaiah. From the first part: “Behold I send my messenger to prepare the way before me,” occurs at the close of Malachi. But the second part: “The voice of one crying,” etc., we read in Isaiah. On what ground then has Mark in the very beginning of his book set the words: “As it is written in the prophet Isaiah, Behold I send my messenger,” when, as we have said, it is [in part] not written in Isaiah at all, but in Malachi, the last of the twelve prophets? Let ignorant presumption solve this nice question if it can. I will ask pardon for being in the wrong….
The apostle has not rendered his original word for word, but using a paraphrase, he has given the sense in different terms.
