A voice cries in the wilderness: "Prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God" (Isaiah 40:3). The Aggadat Bereshit connects this voice — the herald of the return from Babylon — to the word of God that came through the prophet Haggai in the second year of King Darius (Haggai 1:1). The return from exile is being orchestrated by the same voice that created the world. The prophet is not announcing a political development. He is announcing a divine re-entry.
"Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain" (Isaiah 40:4). The rabbis read this geography spiritually: the valleys of despair become navigable; the mountains of pride and empire that blocked the way become flat. The obstacles to redemption are not primarily military or political — they are the internal distortions that make the path back to God seem impassable.
And then the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all flesh will see it together (Isaiah 40:5). Not just Israel. Not just the returnees from Babylon. All flesh. The revelation that accompanies the return from exile is the revelation that ends history's long argument about who God is and what God does. The voice in the wilderness is not speaking only to the exiles. It is speaking to everyone who has been watching from the outside, wondering whether the God of Israel would keep His word.