Christ the LORD’s Servant
42
📚“See my servant 📖,whom I uphold;
my chosen one, in whom
my soul delights 📖.
I have put my Spirit 📖 on him.
He will bring justice 📖
to the Gentiles 📖.
2 📚He will not shout or raise
his voice or cause it
to be heard in the street.
42:2 When He comes He will not fulfill God’s purpose by noisy endeavor, but quietly and gently.⚜
3 📚A bruised reed 📖 he will not break,
and a smouldering wick
he will not put out.
He will faithfully bring forth justice.
4 📚He will not fail or be discouraged
until he has established justice
on the earth;
and the islands 📖 will wait for his law 📖.
42:4 Nothing will turn Him from doing God’s work and finishing it. This work has to do with the whole earth (v 1) and not with the one small nation of Israel. Establishing justice on earth indicates removal of injustice, a just and righteous kingdom that will take in the whole world (v 1; Isa 11:3-5). This is something God’s people long to see, have never seen, but will one day see.⚜
5 📚Thus says God the LORD,
he who created the heavens
and stretched them out,
he who spread out the earth
and what comes out of it,
he who gives breath
to the people on it,
and spirit to those who walk
on it:
6 📚I the LORD have called you 📖
in righteousness,
and I will take your hand
and keep you,
and give you as a covenant
for the people,
as a light 📖 for the Gentiles,
7 📚To open blind eyes,
to bring prisoners out of prison,
and those who
sit in darkness out
of the dungeon.
8 📚I am the LORD 📖.
That is my name,
and I will not give my glory
to another,
nor my praise to carved
images.
42:8 See Isa 48:11. ⚜
9 📚“See, the former things have
taken place,
and I declare new things.
42:9 God, Who knows the future as well as He does the past has no difficulty declaring things to come (Isa 46:10). Much of what we have in Isaiah and the other prophets is just that (2 Pet 1:21). This is part of the glory He will not share with idols (Isa 41:21-23).⚜
Before they spring forth
I tell you about them”.
Praise to the LORD
10 📚Sing to the LORD 📖 a new song 📖,
and his praise
from the end of the earth,
you who go down to the sea,
and all that is in it,
the islands and their inhabitants.
11 📚Let the wilderness
and its cities,
the villages where Kedar lives,
raise their voice;
let the inhabitants
of the rock 📖 sing,
let them shout from the top
of the mountains.
12 📚Let them give glory
to the LORD,
and declare his praise
in the islands.
13 📚The LORD will go forth
like a mighty man,
he will stir up his zeal like
a warrior 📖.
He will cry out, yes,
roar a battle cry.
He will prevail against
his enemies 📖.
14 📚“I have kept silent
for a long time.
I have been still and
restrained myself.
Now I will cry out like
a woman in childbirth;
I will both gasp and pant.
42:14 God speaks in the language of men to convey something to men He could not otherwise convey. The picture is of anger suppressed for a long time until at last it painfully bursts forth (compare Isa 63:3-4).⚜
15 📚I will lay waste mountains
and hills,
and dry up all their plants,
and I will make the rivers islands,
and dry up the pools.
16 📚And I will bring the blind 📖
by a way they did not know.
I will lead them in paths
they have not known.
I will make darkness light 📖
before them,
and crooked places straight.
These things I will do
for them,
and not forsake them 📖.
17 📚Those who trust in carved
images will be turned back,
they will be put to great shame,
those who say to cast
metal images,
‘You are our gods.’
Israel’s spiritual blindness
18 📚Hear, you deaf;
and look, you blind,
that you may see.
19 📚Who is blind,
but my servant? or deaf,
as my messenger whom I sent?
Who is blind as he who is
at peace,
and blind as the LORD’s servant?
20 📚You see many things,
but you do not observe them;
his ears are open,
but he does not hear”.
21 📚The LORD was well pleased
for his righteousness’ sake
to make the law 📖 great
and honourable.
22 📚But this is a people robbed
and plundered.
All of them are snared
in holes,
and hidden in prisons.
They are for prey,
and no one rescues them;
for plunder,
and no one says, “Restore”.
42:22 The Assyrians had taken the northern kingdom into exile, and plundered Judah (Isa 8:7-8; 10:5-6). The Babylonians later took Judah into captivity (Isa 39:5-7).⚜
23 📚Who among you will give
ear to this 📖?
Who will hear and
pay attention for the time
to come?
24 📚Who gave Jacob as plunder,
and Israel to the robbers?
Was it not the LORD,
the one against whom
we have sinned?
For they would not walk in his ways,
nor were they obedient to his law.
25 📚Therefore he has poured
on him the fury
of his anger,
and the strength of battle;
and it has set him
on fire all around,
but he did not understand 📖;
and it burned him,
yet he did not lay it
to heart.