Way

Scripture pictures life as a road. Yahweh has his own ways, and he sets a path before those who would follow him; alongside it runs another way, smooth at its start and harsh at its end. Travelers are weighed by the road they choose. The figure threads through the Psalms and the Prophets, surfaces again in the wisdom literature, and arrives at a person — Jesus, who declares himself the way and opens a new and living way through his flesh.

The Ways of Yahweh

The first way named in the figure is Yahweh's own. His ways are perfect, tried, and a shield (Ps 18:30). He is righteous in all his ways and gracious in all his works (Ps 145:17). All the paths of Yahweh are loving-kindness and truth to such as keep his covenant and his testimonies (Ps 25:10).

These ways are not within reach of human reckoning. "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your⁺ ways, and my thoughts than your⁺ thoughts" (Isa 55:9). Paul echoes the same recognition: "Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past tracing out!" (Ro 11:33).

Their reach is also cosmic. Habakkuk recalls of Yahweh, "[His Speech] stood, and measured the earth; He looked, and drove apart the nations; And the eternal mountains were scattered; The everlasting hills bowed down; His goings were [as] of old" (Hab 3:6). Daniel, a pagan king brought low, comes to confess them too: "all his works are truth, and his ways justice; and those who walk in pride he is able to abase" (Da 4:37). The same praise rises in the closing visions: "Great and marvelous are your works, Yahweh, the God of hosts; righteous and true are your ways, King of the nations" (Re 15:3).

The ways of Yahweh are also a moral test for the traveler. "Who is wise, that he may understand these things? Prudent, that he may know them? For the ways of Yahweh are right, and the just will walk in them; but transgressors will fall in them" (Ho 14:9).

The Path of the Just

Out of those divine ways comes a road set down for the upright. "The way of the just is uprightness: you who are upright direct the path of the just" (Isa 26:7). Wisdom teaches it: "I have taught you in the way of wisdom; I have led you in paths of uprightness" (Pr 4:11). To grasp righteousness is to grasp this road: "Then you will understand righteousness and justice, And equity, [yes,] every good path" (Pr 2:9).

The road grows brighter as the traveler walks: "But the path of the righteous is as the dawning light, That shines more and more to the perfect day" (Pr 4:18). Yahweh himself shepherds the journey: "He restores my soul: He guides me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake" (Ps 23:3). The psalmist asks for the same direction: "Make me to go in the path of your commandments; For in it I delight" (Ps 119:35), and trusts where the road ends: "You will show me the path of life: In your presence is fullness of joy; In your right hand there are pleasures forevermore" (Ps 16:11).

The pull of the road draws the nations toward Zion: "And many peoples will go and say, Come⁺, and let us go up to the mountain of Yahweh, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion will go forth the law, and the word of Yahweh from Jerusalem" (Isa 2:3). And the road must be kept clear for the weak as well as the strong: "and make straight paths for your⁺ feet, that that which is lame not be turned out of the way, but rather be healed" (Heb 12:13).

When Israel after the fall of Jerusalem comes asking how to live, the prayer falls into the same shape: "that Yahweh your God may show us the way in which we should walk, and the thing that we should do" (Jer 42:3).

The Way of Holiness

The prophets sharpen the road into a particular highway. "And a highway will be there, and a way, and it will be called The Way of Holiness; the unclean will not pass over it; but it will be for [the redeemed]: the wayfaring men, yes fools, will not err [in it]" (Isa 35:8). What follows guarantees its safety: "No lion will be there, nor will any ravenous beast go up on it; they will not be found there; but the redeemed will walk [there]:" (Isa 35:9).

Jeremiah issues a parallel call to find an older but identical road: "Thus says Yahweh, Stand⁺ in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way; and walk in it, and you⁺ will find rest for your⁺ souls: but they said, We will not walk [in it]" (Jer 6:16). The good way is offered; the response refuses it.

The Way That Seems Right

Running alongside the path of the just is another road. It is plausible at first sight: "There is a way which seems right to a man; But its end are the ways of death" (Pr 14:12). It looks correct to the one walking it: "The way of a fool is right in his own eyes; But he who is wise harkens to counsel" (Pr 12:15). And it begins easy: "The way of sinners is made smooth without stones, And at its end is the pit of Hades" (Sir 21:10).

Its travelers are described by their gait. They are "crooked in their ways, And wayward in their paths" (Pr 2:15). "The way of the wicked is disgusting to Yahweh; But he loves him who follows after righteousness" (Pr 15:9). "Good understanding gives favor; But the way of betrayers is hard" (Pr 13:15). And the road has no peace in it: "The way of peace they don't know; and there is no justice in their goings: they have made crooked paths for themselves; whoever goes in them does not know peace" (Isa 59:8).

The deeper indictment is a refusal to be turned. The covenant warns of the man who, hearing the curse, "blesses himself in his heart, saying, I will have peace, though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart" (Deu 29:19). Jeremiah finds the same heart in his own generation: "But they didn't listen, nor incline their ear, but walked in [their own] counsels [and] in the stubbornness of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward" (Jer 7:24).

The New Testament holds the same picture and makes it Christological. The Ephesians once "walked according to the age of this world, according to the prince of the powers of the air, of the spirit that now works in the sons of disobedience" (Eph 2:2). Paul weeps over those whose walk makes them "the enemies of the cross of Christ" (Php 3:18). Peter recalls the past walking of the Gentiles "in sexual depravity, erotic desires, winebibbings, revelings, carousings, and horrible idolatries" (1Pe 4:3), and warns of those who "walk after the flesh in the desire of defilement" (2Pe 2:10) and "in the last days mockers will come with mockery, walking after their own desires" (2Pe 3:3). Jude carries the same warning: "in the last time there will be mockers, walking after their own ungodly desires" (Jud 1:18).

The Wayfarer

On these roads moves a recurring figure — the wayfaring man. The book of Judges sets the scene plainly: "And he lifted up his eyes, and saw the wayfaring man in the street of the city; and the old man said, Where do you go? And where do you come from?" (Jdg 19:17). The wayfarer is identified by the road, not by a city.

Jeremiah longs to become one to escape the betrayals around him: "Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging-place of wayfaring men; that I might leave my people, and go from them! For they are all adulterers, an assembly of betraying men" (Jer 9:2). And he uses the same image to describe a strangely absent God: "O you hope of Israel, its Savior in the time of trouble, why should you be as a sojourner in the land, and as a wayfaring man who turns aside to tarry for a night?" (Jer 14:8).

The Way of Holiness, when it comes, is built for these travelers — even fools among them — to walk without erring (Isa 35:8).

Christ the Way

The figure resolves into a person. To Thomas's question about the road, Jesus answers, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life: no one comes to the Father, but by me" (Joh 14:6).

Hebrews holds the figure together with the priestly geography of the tabernacle. While the first tabernacle still stood, "the Holy Spirit this signifying, that the way into the holy place has not yet been made manifest" (Heb 9:8). What that older arrangement could not open, Christ has now opened: "by the way which he dedicated for us, a new and living way, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh" (Heb 10:20). The way into the holy place is no longer a corridor of stone but the body of the Son.