Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Isaiah 42:18
Hear, ye deaf; and look, ye blind, that ye may see.
18. look and see are distinguished as in 2Ki 3:14; Job 35:5, &c.; the former is to direct the gaze towards, the latter to take in the significance of an object.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
18 25. An expostulation with Israel for its insensibility to the privileges it has enjoyed. The passage is of considerable interest for the light which it throws on the sense in which the title “Servant of the Lord” is to be understood. The discrepancy between the description in Isa 42:1-4 and that here given is at first sight perplexing. There the Servant is spoken of as the perfect and successful worker for God, here he is addressed as blind and deaf and altogether unfit for Jehovah’s purpose. Yet it is extremely unnatural to suppose that the writer applies the term to two entirely different subjects. To suggest, as the prophet’s meaning, that the inefficient Servant is to be replaced by another, who shall accomplish the work in which the former has failed is perhaps the least satisfactory of all explanations, and misrepresents the teaching of the prophecy. That the subject here addressed is Israel in its actual present condition is beyond dispute; hence Isa 42:1-4 must also be regarded as in some sense a description of Israel. The contrast, in short, is not between the false servant and the true, the one a nation and the other an individual, but between Israel as it really is and Israel according to its idea. Indeed it would seem that what the prophet wishes his people to lay to heart is just this contrast between its ideal calling and its actual accomplishments; and this is more intelligible if the ideal has been already depicted, and is still present to the writer’s mind.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Hear, ye deaf – This is evidently an address to the Jews, and probably to the Jews of the time of the prophet. He had been predicting the coming of the Messiah, and the influence of his religion on the Gentile world. He had said that God would go forth to destroy the idolatry of the pagan nations, and to convince them of the folly of the worship of images, and to confound them for putting their trust in them. He seems here to have recollected that this was the easily-besetting sin of his own countrymen, and perhaps especially of the times when he penned this portion of the prophecy – under the reign of Manasseh; that that generation was stupid, blind, deaf to the calls of God, and sunk in the deepest debasement of idolatry. In view of this, and of the great truths which he had uttered, he calls on them to hear, to be alarmed, to return to God, and assures them that for these sins they exposed themselves to, and must experience, his sore displeasure. The statement of these truths, and the denouncing of these judgments, occupy the remainder of this chapter. A similar instance occurs in Isa. 2, where the prophet, having foretold the coming of the Messiah, and the fact that his religion would be extended among the Gentiles, turns and reproves the Jews for their idolatry and crimes (see the notes at that chapter). The Jewish people are often described as deaf to the voice of God, and blind to their duty and their interests (see Isa 29:18; Isa 42:8).
And look … that ye may see – This phrase denotes an attentive, careful, and anxious search, in order that there may be a clear view of the object. The prophet calls them to an attentive contemplation of the object, that they might have a clear and distinct view of it. They had hitherto looked at the subject of religion in a careless, inattentive, and thoughtless manner.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Isa 42:18-20
Hear, ye deaf
Divine expostulation
Thus the Lord expostulates with His ancient people, and thus He has reason to expostulate with us.
1. We are deaf, in a spiritual sense, when we do not attend to the Divine admonitions, or give earnest heed to the word of instruction; and we are blind, in the same sense, when we do not perceive the glory of the Gospel, and the force and beauty of Divine truth.
2. Before one step in the way of salvation can be taken, this hindrance must be removed. The eyes of the blind must be opened, and the ears of the deaf must be unstop, pad. Hence there is a call to the deaf to hear, and to the blind to look that they may see. This is like the command of our Saviour to the man with the withered hand, to stretch it forth, and implies that this deafness and blindness was their fault, as well as their misfortune. In dependence upon His promise they ought, therefore, to stir themselves up to the discharge of their duty.
3. That the nations who have not the light of the Gospel should want spiritual senses is no wonder; but that those who are, by profession, the servants of God, and His messengers, or those to whom His messengers are sent, and perfectly instructed, should be blind and deaf, is much to be lamented.
4. The sincere followers of Christ whose eyes and ears He has opened to attend to His saving instructions; who love the Gospel, and have been led by it to repentance, faith and newness of life; who do not habitually neglect, but rather prize the ordinances of religion, and the means of grace; even these may be charged with not exercising, as they ought, the spiritual senses which God has given them. (W. Richardson.)
The ear and the eye as symbols
With a bold freedom do the writers of both the Old and New Testaments fasten the attention upon the sense of hearing. Throughout, the ear is the symbol of obedience. As by its common use the sense is the medium of interpretation of sounds, whether of nature or of the articulate expression of fellow-men, so, by further reference and deeper analogy, it stands as the avenue through which Divine communications may pass to the soul,–it may be in a still small voice. One might suppose, considering the high esteem in which obedience is held in the sacred polity of Israel, considering that obedience is ever regarded in the Old Testament as the test of national and individual loyalty to Jehovah, that the metaphor of the ear would occur more frequently than that of any other sense. Yet it is not so. A glance at any serviceable concordance will show that it is from the eyesight that evangelist and apostle, as well as psalmist and prophet, are furnished with their most telling spiritual illustrations. The reason for this is plain. If the sacred penman made the sense of hearing his object-lesson, it could only be one. It could only help him to emphasise the single conception of the duty and blessing of learning to obey. With the eyesight the manifold character of the teaching answered exactly to the complex faculties of the organ of vision. A concordance, better still an intimate knowledge of Holy Scripture, suggests obedience as the primary lesson of the Old Testament. The metaphor of the ear when found in the New Testament is commonly discovered in a setting of some Old Testament passage. Another illustration is wanted, correspondent to the greater fulness of a fresh revelation; and this illustration, common indeed to both covenants, is eyesight. (B. Whitefoord.)
Look, ye blind
Eyesight
Intelligence and candour, receptiveness and perseverance, faith, hope and charity–such are some amongst the many lessons inculcated through and in the possession of sight. (B. Whitefoord.)
The open eye
The spiritual eye is not the victim of accident or senility, although its clearer powers of vision may often be marred by sin and hampered by indolence. The spiritual eye is an open eye, full of meaning and purpose, cleansed by the tears of penitence, lighted up by faith end love, The eye is open; but not of that pitiful kind that is recognised as vacant. It is bright with significance, clear in its aim, strenuous and persevering in its direction. It has certain characteristic ranges of vision, and these, so Scripture and experience alike teach, are threefold.
I. IT LOOKS INWARD. It contemplates the soul. The eye first marks the worst within, an evil so general, so potent, that the main feeling is one of despair. It may now see the best that lies also within. For here, in the human heart, it perceives the work of the Holy Spirit.
II. IT LOOKS OUTWARD. It looks upon the world–
1. Of nature.
2. Of humanity.
III. IT LOOKS UPWARD–Godward. Nor is the upward look of the soul to God merely a passing act of worship (Psa 25:15), but the very foretaste of His favour and aid. It is only the heart which is pure of earthly aims and hopes that shall at last reach the perfect vision of God. (B. Whitefoord.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
O you, whosoever you are, whether Jews or Gentiles, which shall resist this clear light, and obstinately continue in your former errors, attend diligently to my words, and consider these mighty works of God.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
18. deafnamely, to the voiceof God.
blindto your duty andinterest; wilfully so (Isa 42:20).In this they differ from “the blind” (Isa42:16). The Jews are referred to. He had said, God would destroythe heathen idolatry; here he remembers that even Israel, His”servant” (Isa 42:19),from whom better things might have been expected, is tainted withthis sin.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Hear, ye deaf; and look, ye blind, that ye may see. Jarchi and Kimchi think these words are spoken to Israel, who, as Aben Ezra says, were deaf and blind in heart; but they are rather an exhortation to the Gentiles that remained impenitent and unbelieving, and who were deaf to the voice of the Gospel, and blind as to the knowledge of it; and the purport of the exhortation is, that they would make use of their external hearing and sight, which they had, that they might attain to a spiritual hearing and understanding of divine things; “for faith comes by hearing, and hearing the word of God”, Ro 10:17 to hear the Gospel preached, and to look into the Scriptures, and read the word of God, are the means of attaining light and knowledge in spiritual things; and these are within the compass of natural men, who are internally deaf and blind.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
The thought which connects the second half with the first is to be found in the expression in Isa 42:16, “I will bring the blind by a way.” It is the blind whom Jehovah will lead into the light of liberty, the blind who bring upon themselves not only His compassion, but also His displeasure; for it is their own fault that they do not see. And to them is addressed the summons, to free themselves from the ban which is resting upon them. “Ye deaf, hear; and ye blind, look up, that ye may see.” and (this is the proper pointing, according to the codd. and the Masora)
(Note: The Masora observes expressly , omnes caeci raphati et pathachati ; but our editions have both here and in 2Sa 5:6, 2Sa 5:8, .))
are vocatives. The relation in which and stand to one another is that of design and accomplishment (Isa 63:15; Job 35:5; 2Ki 3:14, etc.); and they are used interchangeably with and (e.g., 2Ki 19:16), which also stand in the same relation of design and result.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| The Blindness of the Jews. | B. C. 708. |
18 Hear, ye deaf; and look, ye blind, that ye may see. 19 Who is blind, but my servant? or deaf, as my messenger that I sent? who is blind as he that is perfect, and blind as the LORD‘s servant? 20 Seeing many things, but thou observest not; opening the ears, but he heareth not. 21 The LORD is well pleased for his righteousness’ sake; he will magnify the law, and make it honourable. 22 But this is a people robbed and spoiled; they are all of them snared in holes, and they are hid in prison houses: they are for a prey, and none delivereth; for a spoil, and none saith, Restore. 23 Who among you will give ear to this? who will hearken and hear for the time to come? 24 Who gave Jacob for a spoil, and Israel to the robbers? did not the LORD, he against whom we have sinned? for they would not walk in his ways, neither were they obedient unto his law. 25 Therefore he hath poured upon him the fury of his anger, and the strength of battle: and it hath set him on fire round about, yet he knew not; and it burned him, yet he laid it not to heart.
The prophet, having spoken by way of comfort and encouragement to the believing Jews who waited for the consolation of Israel, here turns to those among them who were unbelieving, for their conviction and humiliation. Among those who were in captivity in Babylon there were some who were as the evil figs in Jeremiah’s vision, who were sent thither for their hurt, to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth, for a reproach and a proverb, Jer. xxiv. 9. In them there was a type of the Jews who rejected Christ and were rejected by him, and then fell more than ever under the curse, when those who believed were inheriting the blessing; for they were broken, and ruined, and remain dispersed unto this day. Observe,
I. The call that is given to this people (v. 18): “Hear, you deaf, and attend to the joyful sound, and look you blind, that you may see the joyful light.” There is no absurdity in this command, nor is it unbecoming the wisdom and goodness of God to call us to do that good which yet of ourselves we are not sufficient for; for those have natural powers which they may employ so as to do better than they do, and may have supernatural grace if it be not their own fault, who yet labour under a moral impotency to that which is good. This call to the deaf to hear and the blind to see is like the command given to the man that had the withered hand to stretch it forth; though he could not do this, because it was withered, yet, if he had not attempted to do it, he would not have been healed, and his being healed thereupon was owing, not to his act, but to the divine power.
II. The character that is given of them (Isa 42:19; Isa 42:20): Who is blind, but my servant, or deaf as my messenger? The people of the Jews were in profession God’s servants, and their priests and elders his messengers (Mal. ii. 7); but they were deaf and blind. The verse before may be understood as spoken to the Gentile idolaters, whom he calls deaf and blind, because they worshipped gods that were so. “But,” says he, “no wonder you are deaf and blind when my own people are as bad as you, and many of them as much set upon idolatry.”
1. He complains of their sottishness–they are blind; and of their stubbornness–they are deaf. They were even worse than the Gentiles themselves. Corruptio optimi est pessima–What is best becomes, when corrupted, the worst. “Who is so wilfully, so scandalously, blind and deaf as my servant and my messenger, as Jacob who is my servant (ch. xli. 8), and as their prophets and teachers who are my messengers? Who is blind as he that in profession and pretension is perfect, that should come nearer to perfection than other people, their priests and prophets? The one prophesies falsely, and the other bears rule by their means; and who so blind as those that will not see when they have the light shining in their faces?” Note, (1.) It is a common thing, but a very sad thing, for those that in profession are God’s servants and messengers to be themselves blind and deaf in spiritual things, ignorant, erroneous, and very careless. (2.) Blindness and deafness in spiritual things are worse in those that profess themselves to be God’s servants and messengers than in others. It is in them the greater sin and shame, the greater dishonour to God, and to themselves a greater damnation.
2. The prophet goes on (v. 20) to describe the blindness and obstinacy of the Jewish nation, just as our Saviour describes it in his time (Mat 13:14; Mat 13:15): Seeing many things, but thou observest not. Multitudes are ruined for want of observing that which they cannot but see; they perish, not through ignorance, but mere carelessness. The Jews in our Saviour’s time saw many proofs of his divine mission, but they did not observe them; they seemed to open their ears to him, but they did not hear, that is, they did not heed, did not understand, or believe, or obey, and then it was all one as if they had not heard.
III. The care God will take of the honour of his own name, notwithstanding their blindness and deafness, especially of his word, which he has magnified above all his name. Shall the unbelief and obstinacy of men make the promise of God of no effect? God forbid,Rom 3:3; Rom 3:4. No, though they are blind and deaf, God will be no loser in his glory (v. 21): The Lord is well pleased for his righteousness’ sake; not well pleased with their sin, but well pleased in the manifestation of his own righteousness, in rejecting them for rejecting the great salvation. He speaks as one well pleased, ch. i. 24: Ah! I will ease me of my adversaries; and Ezek. v. 13, I will be comforted. The scripture was fulfilled in the casting off of the Jews as well as in the calling in of the Gentiles, and therein the Lord will be well pleased. He will magnify the law (divine revelation in all the parts of it) and will make it honourable. The law is truly honourable, and the things of it are great things; and, if men will not magnify it by their obedience to it, God will magnify it himself by punishing them for their disobedience. He will magnify the law by accomplishing what is written in it, will magnify its authority, its efficacy, its equity. He will do it at last, when all men shall be judged by the law of liberty, James ii. 12. He is doing it every day. What is it that God is doing in the world, but magnifying the law and making it honourable?
IV. The calamities God will bring upon the Jewish nation for their wilful blindness and deafness, v. 22. They are robbed and spoiled. Those that were impenitent and unreformed in Babylon were sentenced to perpetual captivity. It was for their sins that they were spoiled of all their possessions, not only in their own land, but in the land of their enemies. They were some of them snared in holes, and others hidden in prison-houses. They cannot help themselves, for they are snared. Their friends cannot help them, for they are hidden; and their enemies have forgotten them in their prisons. They, and all they have, are for a prey and for a spoil; and there is none that delivers either by force or ransom, nor any that dares say to the proud oppressors, Restore. There they lie, and there they are likely to lie. This had its full accomplishment in the final destruction of the Jewish nation by the Romans, which God brought upon them for rejecting the gospel of Christ.
V. The counsel given them in order to their relief; for, though their case be sad, it is not desperate.
1. The generality of them are deaf; they will not hearken to the voice of God’s word. He will therefore try his rod, and see who among them will give ear to that, v. 23. We must not despair concerning those who have been long reasoned with in vain; some of them may, at length, give ear and hearken. If one method not take effect, another may, and sinners shall be left inexcusable. Observe, (1.) We may all of us, if we will, hear the voice of God, and we are called and invited to hear it. (2.) It is worth while to enquire who they are that perceive God speaking to them and are willing to hear him. (3.) Of the many that hear the voice of God there are very few that hearken to it or heed it, that hear it with attention and application. (4.) In hearing the word we must have an eye to the time to come. We must hear for hereafter, for what may occur between us and the grave; we must especially hear for eternity. We must hear the word with another world in our eye.
2. The counsel is, (1.) To acknowledge the hand of God in their afflictions, and, whoever were the instruments, to have an eye to him as the principal agent (v. 24): “Who gave Jacob and Israel, that people that used to have such an interest in heaven and such a dominion on earth, who gave them for a spoil to the robbers, as they are now to the Babylonians and to the Romans? Did not the Lord? You know he did; consider it then, and hear his voice in these judgments.” (2.) To acknowledge that they had provoked God thus to abandon them, and had brought all these calamities upon themselves. [1.] These punishments were first inflicted on them for their disobedience to the laws of God: It is he against whom we have sinned; the prophet puts himself into the number of the sinners, As Dan 9:7; Dan 9:8. “We have sinned; we have all brought fuel to the fire; and there are those among us that have wilfully refused to walk in his ways.” Jacob and Israel would never have been given up to the robbers if they had not by their iniquities sold themselves. Therefore it is, because they have violated the commands of the law, that God has brought upon them the curses of the law; he has not dropped, but poured upon him the fury of his anger and the strength of battle, all the desolations of war, which have set him on fire round about; for God surrounds the wicked with his favours. See the power of God’s anger; there is no resisting it, no escaping it. See the mischief that sin makes; it provokes God to anger against a people, and so kindles a universal conflagration, sets all on fire. [2.] These judgments were continued upon them for their senselessness and incorrigibleness under the rod of God. The fire of God’s wrath kindled upon him, and he knew it not, was not aware of it, took no notice of the judgments, at least not of the hand of God in them. Nay, it burned him, and, though he could not then but know it and feel it, yet he laid it not to heart, was not awakened by the fiery rebukes he was under nor at all affected with them. Those who are not humbled by less judgments must expect greater; for when God judges he will overcome.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
VS. 18-25: BLINDNESS AND BONDAGE THROUGH UNBELIEF
1. The deaf are commanded to “hear”; the blind to “look” that they may see what God is doing, (vs. 18).
2. The “servant” now in view (vs. 19-22) is Israel – the nation that refused the mission to which they were appointed, because they were too preoccupied with their own narrow interests.
a. Considering the high privileges Israel has enjoyed, in covenant-fellowship with her Maker, the blindness of the heathen is nothing compared to hers.
b. Israel was called to be God’s messenger to the nations, and was divinely equipped for that high and holy mission.
c. But, she was not alert to her opportunities, and refused to heed the commandment of her God, (vs. 20).
d. Thus, it pleased the Lord to magnify His word (upholding its honor) in delivering up His rebellious people to disciplinary judgment; they became captives, exiles and prisoners – with no one to plead for their restoration, (vs. 21-22).
e. Though verse 22 may have immediate reference to the Babylonian captivity, the ultimate imprisonment, from which deliverance must come before the fullness of . life may be experienced, is that of death; deliverance means resurrection and restoration, (Isa 49:24; Psa 79:1-5; Psa 79:9-11; Psa 102:12-13; Psa 102:16-22; Psa 69:33-36).
3. Is there anyone in Israel who will pay attention to this prophetic warning, so as to conform his heart his will and his way to God’s order? (vs. 23). Let it be remembered that this was written BEFORE the Babylonian captivity!
4. Israel must understand that Jehovah Himself has turned them over to robbers, for a spoil; it is because of their SIN – the disobedience of their faithless hearts!
5. But Israel is stubborn; the visitation of divine judgment has taught her nothing!
a. She refused to admit the reality of her transgressions.
b. Though burned by the fire of divine vengeance, she “laid it not to heart”!
c. No wonder her desolation has been so prolonged! and that she still has not been restored to the bond of fellowship from which she fell through her willful rebellion!
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
18. O ye deaf, hear, and ye blind. He now employs these words, “blind” and “deaf,” in a sense different from that in which he formerly employed them, (verse 16,) when he metaphorically described those who had no understanding, and who were overwhelmed by such a mass of afflictions that they were blinded by their sorrow; for here he gives the name of blind to those who shut their eyes in the midst of light, and do not behold the works of God; and the name of deaf to those who refuse to hear him, and sink down into stupidity and slothfulness amidst the dregs of their ignorance. He therefore condemns the Jews for “blindness,” or rather, in my own opinion, he condemns all men; for, while he directly reproaches the Jews because “in hearing they do not hear, and in seeing they do not see,” (Isa 6:9; Mat 13:13,) yet this applies in some measure to the Gentiles, to whom God revealed himself by his creatures, on whose hearts and consciences also he impressed the knowledge of him, and to whom he had made and would still make known his wonderful works. By demanding attention, he pronounces that there is nothing that hinders them from comprehending the truth and power of God, except that they are “deaf and blind.” Nor is this unaccompanied by malice and ingratitude; for he openly instructs them concerning his power, and gives them very striking proofs of it; but no one gives attention to his doctrine or to his wonderful actions, and the consequence is, that they are willingly “blind.” Thus the Prophet shews that the fault lies wholly with men in not perceiving the power of God.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
BLIND IN THE SUNLIGHT
Isa. 42:18-20. Hear, ye deaf, and look, ye blind, &c.
Thus the Lord expostulates with His ancient people, and thus He has reason to expostulate with us. We succeed them, both in religious privileges and in the abuse of those privileges. Where does the light of the Gospel shine more clearly? But do we excel other people in knowledge and virtue, in faith and patience, in temperance and goodness, as we surpass them in the means of acquiring these Christian graces? No! There is here no one who could challenge the justice and propriety of this expostulation, if it were addressed to him. In our text we have
I. A DESCRIPTION.
Deaf, blind, &c. We are deaf, in a spiritual sense, when we do not attend to the Divine admonitions, or give earnest heed to the word of instruction; blind, when we do not perceive the glory of the Gospel, and the force and beauty of Divine truth. This description is
1. Absolutely true of most men. The ignorance of numbers who constantly enjoy the best religious instruction is far beyond what any person can imagine who has not made it a matter of special investigation. Nothing they have ever heard or seen during their attendance upon the ordinance of religion has made any effectual impression upon them. The first principles of Christianity are unknown to them. They have never learned to understand what is meant by repentance, faith, holiness, the Divine character or their own, the evil of sin, the extent of their own sinfulness, or even what is required of them in the common duties of life. Yet some of them delude themselves with the hope that there is before them a future of eternal blessedness! They are not all equally ignorant. Some of them amidst the light of the Gospel and the sound of religious instruction occasionally receive a little. But the whole truth they will not receive. Many doctrines and precepts of Christianity oppose their passions and prejudices, and therefore against these they obstinately close their ears and shut their eyes.
2. In some measure true of all men. The sincerest followers of Christ may be charged with not exercising, as they ought, the spiritual senses which God has given them. The best Christians would have been better still, if they had never, by their siothfulness and inattention, lost the benefits conveyed by the means they have been favoured with (H. E. I. 25702584, 26542658).
As far as this description is true of us, our condition is a terrible one.
1. It is the result of sin. Is it not a terrible sin even to be heedless of the messages sent us by Almighty God? But many have deliberately shut out the rays of the Sun of righteousness, because light was troublesome, and would not permit them to enjoy those works of darkness on which they were bent.
2. While it continues, all the means intended to deliver us from sin will fail to benefit us. As the most-improving advice given in conversation is useless to a deaf person, and the most delightful objects are displayed to no purpose before the blind, so the word of truth is preached in vain to those who have neither ears to hear nor eyes to see its meaning and excellency. Before one step in the way of salvation can be taken, this hindrance must be removed.
3. Our condition is nearly hopeless, and tends to become absolutely hopeless. [1381]
4. We ought to be ashamed of it. You ought to be ashamed of your ignorance of Christianity in a Christian country, and still more ashamed and humbled for the cause of it, which is always sloth, stubbornness, or self-conceit.
5. We ought to be alarmed on account of it. For the reason already giventhat our condition tends to become a hopeless one. And also because the penalty of wilful blindness in the midst of sunlight is consignment to eternal darkness and woe.
[1381] When the habit of inattention is formed, or mens minds are so armed by prejudice as to be determined not to hear or embrace certain truths which are offensive, their condition is nearly hopeless. He who does not use his spiritual senses, and keep them in constant exercise, must expect to find them impaired, and, in time, lost. Those congregations which have long enjoyed a sound and animated course of instruction without any particular benefit, become in the end more stupid and hardened than those which have not been so favoured. What can be said or done to do them good, which has not been repeatedly tried in vain? As time and increasing years have a happy effect in strengthening and confirming good habits, so they have a still more powerful influence in confirming bad ones. So that those persons who suffer their passions and prejudices, their disrelish for the word of truth, their blindness and inattention, and all their other inveterate habits to accompany them till the decline of life, are likely to lie down with them in their graves, and to be found encumbered with them on the morning of the resurrection.Richardson.
II. AN ADMONITION.
There is a call to the deaf to hear, and to the blind to look that they may see. This is like the command of our Saviour to the man with the withered hand to stretch it forth, and implies that this deafness and blindness was their fault as well as their misfortune. Every command of God is accompanied with grace and strength. He requires nothing of His people but what He has promised to enable them to perform. In dependence upon His promise, they ought therefore to stir themselves up to the discharge of their duty. The spiritually deaf should endeavour to open their ears to instruction, the spiritually blind to open their eyes to that wondrous display of grace which the Gospel exhibits. The effort will be as successful as that of the man to stretch out his withered hand, when it is made in obedience to the Divine command, and in dependence on the Divine blessing. [1384] And when this fatal obstruction is removed, and we have got ears to hear and eyes to see, the means of grace and salvation will have their proper influence.William Richardson: Sermons, vol. i. pp. 470482.
[1384] See Dr. Bushnells admirable sermon, Duty not Measured by Ability, in The New life, pp. 253266.
CHRIST A LAW-MAGNIFYING SAVIOUR
Isa. 42:18-21. Hear, ye deaf, and look, ye blind, &c.
I. THE NAME HERE GIVEN TO SINNERS (Isa. 42:18). Equally applicable to all unconverted men.
1. Naturally deaf. Do not hear the voice of Providence, of Christ, of pastors (Psa. 58:4).
2. Blind. This word is constantly used in the Bible to describe the stupidity of unconverted souls (Mat. 15:14; Mat. 23:26; Mat. 23:17; Rev. 3:17). They do not see the depravity, &c., of their own soul, the beauty, &c., of the glorious Sun of Righteousness, the path they pursue, leading to hell. Hear, ye deaf; and look, ye blind. Those who are deaf and blind are generally the least attentive. Attend, for God calls upon you! But you say this is a contradiction, If I am deaf, how can I hear? If I am blind, how can I look? Leave God to settle that difficulty, only listen and look up. There is truly no difficulty about it.
II. THE OBJECT POINTED TO. Who is blind, &c. Every expression here evidently points to Christ. [1387]
[1387] This by no means certain. The preacher will remember that concerning this passage diametrically opposite views are held by different commentators. The remarks of Birks and Cheyne are here given as specimens.
Birks:Vers. 1821. These words are commonly applied to the Jewish people. Of recent critics, Dr. Henderson, almost alone, refers them to the Messiah. But his exposition of them as ironical, or the language of the Jews, is open to very weighty objection. On the usual view, the title the Servant of God, would be used twice emphatically, and in close connection, in two different senses. The objection is only strengthened by the fruitless attempt to join Messiah and the nation together, in both places, as the common subject. The title perfect cannot be applied, without great violence, to those whose sin is denounced in the same context, and belongs naturally to our Lord alone.
The guilt and shame of the people are here enforced by direct contrast with the true Israel, the Prince who has power with God. Blind and deaf in spirit, not in their outward senses, they are to fix their eyes on Him, that sight and hearing may be restored. Theirs was the blindness and deafness of idolatry and self-righteous pride. He, too, is blind and deaf, but in a sense wholly opposite, by unspeakable forbearance and grace. So Psa. 38:13 : I as a deaf man heard not, and I was as one dumb that openeth not his mouth. The Gospels renew the same picture (Joh. 8:6-11). It is the same with the divine perfection in Balaams message: He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath He seen perverseness in Israel. The person named is the Messenger whom the Lord was about to send (Joh. 10:36). He is the Perfect One, alone pure and sinless; the Lords servant, whose gentleness and patience have been described before, and who is to set judgment in the earth. On this view the repeated question, Who is blind as He? has a deep significance. Where sin has abounded grace still more abounds. The marvel of Israels blind idolatry and unbelief is to be surpassed by a greater marvel of love and grace in Israels Redeemer, who sees as though He saw not, and hears as though He heard not, when He visits His people in great mercy to pity and to save.
Ver. 20. The blindness of this Servant of the Lord is now explained, with allusion to the promise (Isa. 35:5): Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped. It is the free choice of patient love. He can open the ears of the deaf, but refuses to hear the sounds of strife and violence. Every sense is awake for mercy. He gives voice, hearing, sight, to the dumb, the deaf, and the blind, but deaf and dumb Himself in refusing to judge when He comes to save. Thus men are blessed, God is glorified, and the excellence of Gods righteous law of perfect love is for ever revealed.Commentary, pp. 218, 219.
Cheyne:Vers. 1820. We are confronted here with an at first sight perplexing discrepancy, viz., that whereas in Isa. 42:1-7 the Servant is introduced as an indefatigable worker in Jehovahs cause, and as especially appointed to open blind eyes, in Isa. 42:19 we find My Servant and My Messenger described as spiritually blind and deaf. This, however, is one of those apparent inconsistencies in which Eastern poets and teachers delight, and which are intended to set us on the search for a higher and reconciling idea. The higher idea in the case before us is that the place of the incompetent messenger shall be taken by One both able and willing to supply his deficiencies and to correct his faults. Israelthe people being as yet inadaquate to his sublime destinyJehovahs own elect, shall come to transform and elevate the unprofitable servant.
Ver. 18. Hear, ye deaf ] Jehovah is the speaker. He has before Him a company of spiritually deaf and blind. Surely (we may suppose Him to make this reflection) they are not all stone-deaf; some may be able by exerting the power yet graciously continued to them to hear God speaking in history and in prophecy (comp. Isa. 42:23)!Thus it would almost seem as if Jehovah Himself had assumed the function of opening blind eyes, previously ascribed to the Servant. But there is no real discrepancy. The operations of Jehovah and of His Servant are all one; Jehovah must nominally interpose here in order that the incompetence of His people-Servant may be exposed, and the necessity for another Servant, springing out of but far worthier than Israel, be made clear.
Ver. 19. Who is blind but my Servant?] The blind and deaf Servant means the people of Israel, regarded as a whole, in its present state of spiritual insensibility. Jehovah is sometimes described anthropomorphically as saying, or, more fully, as saying to His heart, i.e. to Himself (Gen. 8:21). It is such a saying that we have here. Jehovah sadly reflects, Who among earths inhabitants is so blind and deaf as Israel, my servant? Strange fact! The servant, who needs a sharp eye to catch the least gesture of his master (Psa. 123:2)the messenger, who requires an open ear to receive his commissions, is deaf! To interpret Who is blind, &c. of Jesus Christ, as if the guilt and shame of the people[were] here enforced by direct contrast with the true Israel, the Prince who has power with God, and as if the true, no less than the phenomenal Israel, could be called blind and deaf with reference to His slowness to take offence (Prof. Birks), is to go directly counter to Biblical usage (see Isa. 6:10; Jer. 5:21; Eze. 12:2; Zec. 7:11). In fact, the only passages quoted in support of this far-fetched view are Psa. 38:13, where the sin-conscious Psalmist resigns his defence to God; and Joh. 8:6-11, where the Saviour (if this interpolated narrator may be followed), under exceptional circumstances, refuses an answer to His persecutors.Commentary, vol. i. pp. 259, 260.
1. My servant (Isa. 42:1, cf. Isa. 52:13; Isa. 53:2; Luk. 22:27; Php. 2:7). He came not to do His own will, but the will of Him that sent Him.
2. My Messenger (Job. 33:23; Mal. 3:1). God sent Him.
3. He that is perfect. He did no sin, &c.
4. Blind and deaf (also Isa. 42:20). This describes the way in which He went through His work in the world (same as Isa. 42:2; and Psa. 38:13-14; Isa. 53:7). He was blind to His own sufferings. He was deaf: He seemed not to hear their plotting against Him, nor their accusations, for He answered not a word (Mat. 15:13-14).
III. THE WORK OF CHRIST (Isa. 42:21). This is in some respects the most wonderful description of the work of Christ given in the Bible. He is often said to have fulfilled the law (Mat. 3:15; Mat. 5:17). But here it is said, He will magnify the law, &c. He came to give new lustre and glory to the holy law of God, that all worlds might see and understand that the law is holy, &c. He did this
1. By His sufferings. He magnified the holiness and justice of the law by bearing its curse. He took upon Him the curse due to sinners, and bore it in His body on the tree, and thereby proved that Gods law cannot be mocked. Learn
(1.) The certainty of hell for the Christless.
(2.) To flee from sin. [1390]
[1390] Compare other translations of this verse. Cheyne: Who is blind but my servant? and deaf as my messenger whom I send? Who is blind as the surrendered one? and blind as the servant of Jehovah? Arnod: Who is blind, but my servant? or deaf, as my messenger that I would send? Who is blind as Gods liegeman, and blind as the LORDS servant?See also the translations by Alexander and Delitzsch.
2. By His obedience. He added lustre to the goodness of the law by obeying it. Learn the true wisdom of those who love Gods holy law (Psalms 19)
IV. THE EFFECT. God is well pleased.
1. With Christ.
2. With all that are in Christ.
CONCLUSION.He that wrought out this righteousness invites you to get the benefit of it.R. M. MCheyne: Sermons and Lectures, pp. 349355.
THE LAW MAGNIFIED BY THE REDEEMER
Isa. 42:21. The Lord is well pleased, &c.
God may be said to make the law honourable by everything by which He shows His own great respect to it. In every government, the sovereign is the fountain of honour: in the Divine government, God is the fountain of all honour. Whatever shows Gods respect to it, magnifies the law. The law is magnified when either the precepts or penalty of it are fulfilled, when the commands or threatenings of it are satisfied. The work of redemption magnifies Gods law:
I. By the perfect obedience that Christ gave to the commandments of it. What is meant by His obedience to it? In ourselves, holiness and obedience to the law are but one and the same thing; but it is not so, it was not so always, as to Christ Before He came to the world He was perfectly holy; but that holiness could not be called obedience. It was when Christ took on Him our nature that He fulfilled our law. It was our duty that He performed, and our righteousness that He fulfilled, as well as our sins that He bore.
How much this obedience magnified Gods law as to the commands of it, will appear when we consider the following properties of it:
1. It was perfect obedience. He continued in all things written in the book of the law to do them.
2. It was the obedience of the most glorious person that could be subject to the law.
3. It was obedience performed by express Divine appointment.
4. It was obedience performed in a low condition; which served to show, that obedience to the law in any rank or station is honourable.
5. It was an obedience of universal influence as to the example of it.
II. By the perfect satisfaction He gave to the threatenings of it. He bore the penalty of it, by His sufferings and death. Three things show the importance of keeping up the authority of the law:the Author of the law, the matter and end of it, and the kingdom that is commanded by it. Notice the properties of Christs suffering the penalty of the law.
1. It was a real execution of the law. The law was given by Moses, but fulfilled only by Christ.
2. It is a total execution of the law. No other punishment of creatures shall be called such. It is of Him only that it can be said that he made an end of sin, of the punishment of it.
3. It was an execution of it upon the most honourable person that could suffer. All the other persons that ever suffered for sin on earth or hell, principalities and powers of darkness, were but mean, low, vulgar, in comparison of this King of kings and Lord of lords.
4. It was also an execution of it upon the nearest relation of the Judge. The relation between God and Christ is expressed in the analogy between a father and a son. But the relation between a father and a son is nothing to that between God and Christ. This serves to show the righteousness of the law. If a judge executed the law only upon his enemies, he might be called partial; but if he executed the law upon those he cannot be said to have any hatred to, that shows him to be actuated by the purest justice and righteousness (H. E. I. 374383).
III. The work of Redemption magnifies the law, as it is a work of infinite love. Everything that hath the nature of a motive to strengthen obedience magnifies the law. Favours, as well threatenings, are motives to excite to obey Gods law; and this is the greatest favour, and is one of the chief motives to stir up to obedience and restrain from evil. Threatenings are not the only motives to stir up to obedience. Gifts from the lawgiver are also motives to obey the law.
What can be more fit to magnify a law of love than a work of infinite love? If we considered this, we would see nothing a greater motive to establish the law. The law of God commands us to love God, and the work of redemption is the greatest motive to love Him. The law of God commands us to glorify Him: the work of redemption shows us the brightest manifestation of His glory.
IV. The work of redemption magnifies the law by the reward of obedience. The law is honoured, not only when obedience is performed, but when obedience is rewarded. Every person thinks himself honoured when he is obeyed, but doubly honoured when obedience to him is rewarded. The honour that was done to Christ is done to the law; and not only all the honour that was done to Jesus Christ, but all the gifts that His people get by being united to Him for the sake of His merits, that is, for the sake of His obedience to the law. This, indeed, may make us admire the wisdom of God, that the honour that is done to the criminal is done to the law; for the sinner that believes in Christ is made righteous through His righteousness, and the law is always honoured by the blessedness of the righteous.
V. The application of the work of Redemption through the Spirit magnifies the law. The law is magnified by everything that puts disgrace upon sin. That which puts disgrace upon sin puts honour upon obedience. We are justified by faith in Christs righteousness; and by the Spirit we are enabled to render obedience.
IMPROVEMENTS:
1. Every one who despises the law despises Christ.
2. God, having magnified His law so wondrously, will have us always stand in awe of it.
3. We should take encouragement to ourselves, if we truly repent of our sins, if we truly see our need of Christ, to hope for mercy, because justice is so gloriously satisfied.
4. We should be adoring the wonderful, immense wisdom of God in the work of redemption, the manifold wisdom of God, the many attributes manifested in it.John Maclaurin: Select Works, pp. 242271.
Among all the obscurities about the prophetical writings, the simple fact that there is a mysterious prophetic personage is plain and obvious. He is introduced in the beginning of this chapter in a very solemn and impressive manner. Who this is, it may sometimes be found difficult to determine. Jesus is the key to the interpretation. That this chapter belongs to Christ, would seem to admit of very easy proof: just by the Bible interpreting itself (Mat. 12:17-21; Mar. 1:11; Mar. 9:7). This passage is spoken of Christ.
I. A preliminary observation or two.
1. With respect to the law. It is a word used in Scripture in two ways.
(1) As a universal thingthe moral law.
(2) As a limited thingthe ceremonial institutions, given to a particular part of mankind, and for a particular time.
2. To magnify the law and make it honourable cannot mean that Messiah was to produce any change in itthat what He did was to perfect the law itself; as if the law had any defect about it. The moral law, necessarily resulting from the Divine perfections and government, is incapable of improvement. Christ did not do anything in the way of enlarging the ceremonial law.
3. We cannot suppose that this means, that there was to be any change effected in the conceptions of God about the lawthat the work of Christ was intended to affect the Divine mind in relation to it.
4. It must signify the manner in which created minds were to be affected by it. Something was to be done, by which there should be a certain impression with respect to law, produced upon the minds of the intelligent universethat should, so to speak, give body and substance and visibility to Gods own conceptions about His law.
II. The necessity for this. If sin had never entered into the universe, Gods law would always have been a sublime and grand thing in the estimation of that universe. And if when sin was permitted to enter the universe, the penalties and sanctities of the law had been carried out fully and literally, then law would always have been magnified; it would then have been always a great and glorious thing. But if there is to be the fact, that there are sinners and violators of law, those that on just principle are exposed to the penalty, and yet they are to escape, and to be treated as if they were actually righteous, &c., then law so far seems to go for nothing,there is danger of a certain effect being produced upon the minds of Gods creatures, injurious to His character, and government, and law. And, therefore, there was a necessity in the nature of things, that this escape from penalty and punishment should not only be agreeable to the principles of law, but that there should be a manifestation of that: that something shall be done, the moral effect of which upon the minds of Gods rational creatures shall be equivalent to the impression which would have been produced by the literal carrying out of the principles of law itself. The work of Christ does this, and this prophetic declaration is realised.
III. The manner and way in which this thing, thus necessary, was done.
1. Christs teaching always maintained the authority of the law (Mat. 5:17).
2. His personal character magnified and honoured it. He was made under law, and obeyed it, and never wished to be free from it (Heb. 7:26).
3. But these are but preparatory to that one great act which was the consummation of His workHis propitiatory sacrifice; in which, in a certain sense, He stood forth, as it were, bearing the penalty of the moral law, and in another sense manifesting the substance and casting a light and glory upon the ceremonial. (Heb. 2:14-17.) There was a substitution in two senses:
(1) of person
(2) of sufferingproducing an impression upon all moral nature of Gods regard to His own authority, and His determination always to act in harmony with law.
4. His people are redeemed unto obedience (Tit. 2:14; Rom. 8:3.) Hence, saints love the lawrespect itrejoice in it.
The substitutionary work of Christ expounds those many representations of Scripture, harmonising with the text. The private and personal affections of our nature are not enough as an analogy to the work of God. The case of the king of Babylon and Daniel will illustrate the whole of this subject (Daniel 6. See also, H. E. I. 376, 383, 391).Thomas Binney: The Pulpit, vol. 40, pp. 234240.
THE HONOUR WHICH THE GRACE OF THE GOSPEL REFLECTS UPON THE HOLINESS AND AUTHORITY OF THE LAW.
I. It is necessary to have clear views of the characteristics and operations of the two dispensations.
1. The Law of God is simply the revealed will of the Creator. First proclaimed when the first intelligent creature was formed, and it requires from all moral beings unqualified and instant submission. This Law made known to man at his creation, revealed anew at Sinai, renewed and confirmed by Christ. No intelligent creature exempt from it. Disobedience involves condemnation and ruin, arrays God against transgressors. Thus it was with angels who sinned, with Adam, and is with man now. The holiness, faithfulness, authority of this law can never be annulled. It is the law of God, not of Moses.
2. The Gospel is a free offer of actual and finished salvation to man, who is under condemnation of law. It is a remedy for existing, actual evil; restores the transgressor of the Law, not by annulling, but by fulfilling the Law for him; announces a Saviour who has assumed the sinners place, and rendered for him the satisfaction and obedience required by Law.
The same Divine Being who gave the Law also gave the Gospel. No inconsistency or change in Him.
II. Consider the direct assertion of the textthat the righteousness of Christ magnifies the Law and makes it honourable. Gospel teaching does not set aside the Law or subvert moral obligations. In preaching justification through grace, we establish, confirm, and honour the Law. For we announce a salvation provided by God, in which He is well pleased; which satisfies every legal demand; makes the sinner secure; and infinitely glorifies the Divine character.
1. The Gospel honours and magnifies the Law by the voluntary obedience of Jesus. The Law is honoured by the obedience of angels, would have been honoured by mans obedience; but the submission and obedience of Christ magnifies it even more highly.
2. By the voluntary sufferings of Jesus. If all the transgressors of the Law had been punished, the Law would have been honoured. It was more honoured when God Himself consented to bear its penalties. Christs sufferings the same in nature as those which unpardoned sinners endure. Those sufferings were a perfect satisfaction to the violated Law (H. E. I. 377383).
3. By requiring every sinner, as a condition of pardon, to acknowledge his guilt in breaking the Law, and his desert of condemnation under its sentence.
4. In the new obedience rendered by those whose hearts have been renewed.
These the truths which the apostles preached, for which the Reformers died, without which the Gospel cannot triumph over error and sin.Stephen H. Tyng, D.D.: The Law and the Gospel, pp. 374390.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
c. SIGHTLESS SERVANTS
TEXT: Isa. 42:18-25
18
Hear, ye deaf; and look, ye blind, that ye may see.
19
Who is blind, but my servant? or deaf, as my messenger that I send? who is blind as he that is at peace with me, and blind as Jehovahs servant?
20
Thou seest many things, but thou observest not; his ears are open, but he heareth not.
21
It pleased Jehovah, for his righteousness sake, to magnify the law, and make it honorable.
22
But this is a people robbed and plundered; they are all of them snared in holes, and they are hid in prison-houses: they are for a prey, and none delivereth; for a spoil, and none saith, Restore.
23
Who is there among you that will give ear to this? that will hearken and hear for the time to come?
24
Who gave Jacob for a spoil, and Israel to the robbers? did not Jehovah? he against whom we have sinned, and in whose ways they would not walk, neither were they obedient unto his law.
25
Therefore he poured upon him the fierceness of his anger, and the strength of battle; and it set him on fire round about, yet he knew not; and it burned him, yet he laid it not to heart.
QUERIES
a.
Who are the blind of Isa. 42:18-19?
b.
How did Jehovah make the law honorable?
PARAPHRASE
People of God, servants of Jehovah, open your ears and listen; open your blind eyes and see what I am showing you. But then, who in all the world is as blind as My servant Israel or as deaf as Israel who was sent as My messenger in the earth? I repeat, the blindness of Israel who is supposed to be allied to Me in friendship and peace, supposed to be My confidant, is incredible! You see much but you do not keep what you see; you listen to many things but you do not obey them. To display His own righteousness, Jehovah was glad to give to Israel a great and glorious revelation of Himself in His law. And yet, His greatness and gloriousness is not reflected in this people of the law for they are a people robbed, enslaved, imprisoned, trapped, fair game for all their enemies and, having refused Him, there is no one to protect them. Oh, isnt there just one of you who will listen to Me and My prophet? Isnt there one who will learn from all the instruction and experience of this nation and obey and avert the ruin that awaits disobedience? Dont you know Who let Israel be robbed and hurt? Was it not plain to you that it was Jehovah? It was the Lord this people sinned against when they refused to walk in His ways and did not obey His law. On account of this disobedience God poured out upon Israel His divine fury in war and other calamitiesstill Israel refused to recognize that this was chastening from Jehovah.
COMMENTS
Isa. 42:18-22 INCREDIBLE: That the servant in this section is Israel cannot be denied when the reader sees the context. The servant could not possibly be the Messiah for it is said of the servant here that he is blind, deaf, observes not, hears not, is robbed, plundered, none delivers, etc. In Isa. 42:19 the servant is meshullam, the Hebrew word translated at peace, a derivative of shallom. Keil and Delitzsch say it is the passive of the Arabic muslim, one who trusts in God, or the surrendered one. This characterization of what God intended Israel to be in servanthood intensifies the contrast with what Israel is portrayed as being. That Israel should be so blind is incredible. Jehovah has the prophet repeat the rhetorical question for emphasis! (see Jer. 18:12-13; Amo. 3:9-10).
Israel had been privileged to see many things. Israel had the law of God revealed in human language to read and study; he had the record of the historical deeds of Gods miraculous deliverances and chastenings upon his nation. But Israels response did not match his opportunity. Israel did not keep what he saw and heard. In Isa. 42:20 two fundamental Hebrew words are used; shemor (from shemar) meaning to keep, and shama, meaning to obey or hear. To the Hebrew, hearing was equivalent to obeying. When a person did not obey, he had not heard!
It was Jehovahs good pleasure to magnify the manifestation of His character and demonstrate the gloriousness of His nature through His holy law. This was the sovereign way God chose to exhibit His holiness to man providing man with a motive and means of partaking, through faith, in that holiness. The law of God was holy and good (cf. Rom. 7:12), it was the free rebellion of man against what he knew to be holy that was wrong, not the law (cf. Rom. 7:13-14; Rom. 8:3). The law of God, humbly believed and obeyed, would have driven the Israelites to trust in the promised and typified mercy of God to comeand that is just where God could have saved them and used them as servants. But, incredible as it was, they chose to trust in alliances with Egypt and Assyria, to worship heathen gods, and as a result enslaved themselves under Assyrian tribute (see comments chapter 7). They would, in another generation or two of rebellion against the law of God, make themselves easy prey for the Babylonian captivity.
Isa. 42:23-25 INCORRIGIBLE: The question of Isa. 42:23 is a wish that one might be found among the nation (cf. Jer. 5:1-2) who will hear and obey. Is there not one who will learn from history and prepare themselves for the judgment that is to come upon this nation? Have they all forgotten that it was Jehovah who gave their forefathers over to judgment and chastening (cf. Amo. 4:6-12). It is interesting to note that the Hebrew word shama is translated obedient in our English version of Isa. 42:24. The Hebrew word translated law, is torah. The nation, for the most part, was incorrigible. They deliberately and obstinantly chose not to walk in the ways of Jehovah (cf. Jer. 6:16-19). They refused to learn from the history of their rebellious ancestors in the wilderness wanderings and the days of the Judges. Time and time again God chastened Israel by slaughter of war, destruction of her cities, drought, pestilencestill Israel knew it not. It was not a lack of an authentic historical record of Gods divine deedsit was a moral unwillingness to accept it.
QUIZ
1.
What are the reasons the servant of these verses cannot be the Messiah?
2.
How is Israel characterized in Isa. 42:19?
3.
What did Israel do with the many things he had been privileged to see and hear?
4.
What did the law manifest?
5.
Did Israels rejection of the law mean the law was not good?
6.
Did Israels incorrigibleness stem from lack of ability to know about Gods chastening?
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
(18) Hear, ye deaf . . .The words form the beginning of a new section. The prophet feels or sees that the great argument has not carried conviction as it ought to have done. The people to whom Jehovah speaks through him are still spiritually blind and deaf, and that people is ideally the servant of the Lord (Isa. 41:8), in whom the pattern of the personal servant ought to have been reproduced. (Comp. Joh. 9:39-41.)
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
18. General message.
Hear, ye deaf look, ye blind The thoughts expressed in Isa 42:17-25 are all coherent, though quick leaps are apparent, as is usual with Isaiah under excited emotion. The words “deaf,” “blind,” imply quite the same moral state. They apply to less instructed Gentiles, but more to the wayward Israelites both yet confused by the pronounced utter failure of the idol system.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
The Sad Present State of God’s Servant, The Seed of Abraham ( Isa 42:18-25 ).
The glory of the future is now brought down to earth by a recognition of the present condition of God’s servant. In contrast to the glorious future depicted for the Servant, ‘his’ present condition is seen as disastrous. The advancement of God’s purposes through Abraham have almost come to a halt. Abraham is not advancing forward triumphantly in his seed, instead they are stumbling along blindly (what a contrast to Isa 42:16) unable to help themselves, never mind others. God’s Instruction is not being magnified, it is being ignored.
Isa 42:18
“Hear you deaf ones, and look you blind, that you may see.”
So God calls on the spiritually deaf and blind to recognise their true situation. Let them hear. Let them see. For only then can His purposes can go forward.
Isa 42:19-20
“Who is blind, but my servant?
Or deaf as my messenger whom I send?
Who is blind as my dedicated ones?
And blind as Yahweh’s servant?
You see many things but you do not observe them.”,
His ears are open but he does not hear.’
The sad present state of ‘the servant’ as represented by Israel is being brought out as God addresses the world. It is done in such a way as to emphasise to the world why they have no messenger, while at the same time stressing to the servant his true condition, that he is culpably blind.
He first speaks to the world. His servant is blind, His messenger is deaf. Of what use is a blind servant, a deaf messenger they may well ask? God has a message to send to the nations, but the messenger is deaf, he will not hear it. How then can he pass it on? And he is blind, how can he even come to them or reveal anything to them?
Then he turns His attention to His servant. The sad truth is that though they are His dedicated ones, (they still claimed that, for they were dedicated ‘in Abraham’), they are blind, and though they are His servant, they are blind. Note the deliberate emphasis on blindness. No word of deafness here. They are blind, blind, culpably blind. ‘You see many things, but you do not really ‘see’ them.’ In other words, your minds are blinded because your hearts are hardened.
Then comes a further comment thrown out to the world. ‘His ears are open but he does not hear.’ This very divorcing of the deafness from the previous comment reinforces the message of blindness as spoken to the servant. Yes, the Servant is deaf, wilfully deaf. That is why he cannot speak to the world, because he does not hear God’s words. But his central root problem is his blindness. He does not even comprehend. His eyes are closed.
Isa 42:21
‘It pleased Yahweh for his righteousness’ sake,
To magnify the Law (Instruction) and make it honourable,
But this is a people robbed and spoiled.
They are all of them snared in holes and hid in prison houses.
They are for a prey and none delivers.
For a spoil, and none says, “Restore”.’
God’s purpose for the nations was that His Law, His Instruction, should be magnified before them and revealed as honourable, as glorious, so that His righteousness might be upheld. But the purpose has been held up. The servant who should have been revealing it to the nations has been robbed by the roadside and despoiled. They are cowering in holes, they are hidden in prison houses, they are treated as a prey. No one delivers them. For they have turned from the One Who could.
So the servant has been handed over to spoilers because of sin and disobedience. He was in no condition to deliver God’s message, and indeed had had no intention of doing so. That is why he has been despoiled. Some were hiding in holes out of fear of the enemy. Others had been taken and put in prison houses. Many were in exile. All were a prey, victims waiting for the lion or bear to do his will. They are themselves the spoil, for everything has previously been taken from them. No one demands their restoration. They are friendless. Abraham’s representatives are in a parlous condition. But why has this happened?
Isa 42:23-24
‘Who is there among you who will give ear to this?
Who will hearken and hear for the coming time?
Who gave up Jacob to the spoilers?
And Israel to the robbers?’
The question is now put as to who will listen to the explanation of why, if they are Yahweh’s servant, they are in this predicament. Why are Jacob in the hand of spoilers, why are Israel in the hands of robbers? It is important for the sake of the time to come. The problem needs to be sorted out.
Isa 42:24-25
‘Did not Yahweh? He against whom we have sinned,
And in whose ways they would not walk,
Nor were they obedient to His Law (instruction).
That is why he poured on him the fury of his anger,
And the strength of battle.
And it set him on fire round about, yet he did not know it,
And it burned him, yet he did not lay it to heart.’
The answer is given. It was Yahweh Himself Who has done it, for they had sinned against Him and would not obey His Law. That is why all that has happened, has happened to them.
Note how Isaiah does not exclude himself from the sins of the people. ‘ We have sinned.’ Since his inauguration in chapter 6 he was ever aware of his own sinfulness. But then he distinguishes his own walk from theirs. It was they who would not walk in His ways. He at least sought to walk with Him and be obedient to His Law.
So it is because of their sin and rebellion that they are experiencing the fury of His anger being poured on them, (rather than receiving His Spirit (Isa 32:15)). This is why they have had to face fierce battle. And yet although they have been set on fire round about, and burned, they still do not face up to what they have done, they still do not lay it to heart. What is to be done?
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
The Wrath of God upon Israel
v. 18. Hear, ye deaf, and look, ye blind, that ye may see, v. 19. Who is blind but My servant? v. 20. Seeing many things, but thou observest not; opening the ears, but he heareth not. v. 21. The Lord is well pleased for His righteousness’ sake; He will magnify the Law and make it honorable, v. 22. But this is a people robbed and spoiled, v. 23. Who among you will give ear to this? Who will hearken and hear for the time to come? v. 24. Who gave Jacob for a spoil and Israel to the robbers? v. 25. Therefore He hath poured upon him the fury of His anger and the strength of battle,
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
Isa 42:18. Hear, ye deaf, &c. The prophet, having foretold the future illumination and conversion of the Gentiles, and the abolition of idolatry, takes an occasion thence to reprove the Jews for their blindness and stupidity in the great concerns of religion. See ch. Isa 2:5. &c. The meaning of the apostrophe is this: “Since matters are thus, and the Gentiles are to be illuminated by that Messiah who is to arise from amongst you, and who is to destroy all idolatry, and as these events are daily hastening more and more to their completion; what blindness, O children of Israel, what folly and madness do you betray? what deafness also, or rebellion, against the word of God, that, while you follow the idolatries of the Gentiles, and fall into the most severe judgments of God, you are so stupid as not to discern that God severely punishes you for this apostacy! Attend, therefore, diligently to those things which I now foretel, as most certainly to come to pass; and while you behold, look carefully and diligently into the matter itself. Do not consider it negligently or perfunctorily, but with that study and attention which its importance and your duty absolutely demand.”
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Isa 42:18 Hear, ye deaf; and look, ye blind, that ye may see.
Ver. 18. Hear, ye deaf; and look, ye blind. ] Ye who, as so many sea monsters or deaf adders, will not hear, and as so many blind moles will not see, by a petulant blindness, and of obstinate malice; such were the scribes and Pharisees, who winked hard with their eyes, and wilfully shut the windows, lest the light should come in unto them. See more of this in the notes on Isa 6:1-13 Isa 29:1-24 .
That ye may see.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Isa 42:18-22
18Hear, you deaf!
And look, you blind, that you may see.
19Who is blind but My servant,
Or so deaf as My messenger whom I send?
Who is so blind as he that is at peace with Me,
Or so blind as the servant of the LORD?
20You have seen many things, but you do not observe them;
Your ears are open, but none hears.
21The LORD was pleased for His righteousness’ sake
To make the law great and glorious.
22But this is a people plundered and despoiled;
All of them are trapped in caves,
Or are hidden away in prisons;
They have become a prey with none to deliver them,
And a spoil, with none to say, Give them back!
Isa 42:18-22 This strophe describes the covenant people. The shock is that they too had become idolaters! Yet they were even more responsible for their spiritual condition because they had
1. the Patriarchs
2. the covenants
3. the promises (cf. Rom 9:4-5)
The ones who were to bring light to the nations in darkness had themselves become darkness! They epitomized the curse of Isa 6:9-10, but there was hope in Isa 35:5!
Isa 42:18 Note the two IMPERATIVES
1. hear – BDB 1033, KB 1570, Qal IMPERATIVE
2. look – BDB 613, KB 661, Hiphil IMPERATIVE
deaf. . .blind These words occur several times in this context and are an allusion to Isa 6:9-10.
Isa 42:19 Notice the parallel between the titles (1) My Servant, line 1; (2) My messenger, line 2; and (3) the servant of the Lord in line 4. Also notice the threefold repetition of blind (BDB 734). The irony is that the blind one is described as
NASBhe that is at peace with Me
NKJVhe who is perfect
NRSVmy dedicated one
JPSOAthe chosen one
REBthe one who has trust
The Hebrew word (BDB 1023, KB 1532, DUAL PARTICIPLE) is uncertain. There have been several theories. It seems to
1. be parallel to the other titles for Israel (see above)
2. a title that showed how far Israel was from her calling and true self
Isa 42:20 There is an obvious parallelism between the two parts of line 1 (related to sight) and line 2 (related to hearing).
The first pair is one which the MT compilers identified as a variant.
1. the MT had to see, Qal INFINITIVE ABSOLUTE (qere)
2. the Jewish scholars suggested you have seen, Qal PERFECT (ketiv, also in Dead Sea Scrolls)
Isa 42:21 The problem with Israel was not God’s law but Israel’s inability to do it! The Fall affected all humans (cf. Isa 42:22; i.e., Eze 36:22-38). Israel’s sin had consequences! The new covenant of Jer 31:31-34 was meant to answer this human inability (cf. Isa 42:23-25)
Isa 42:22
NASB, NJBin caves
NKJV, NRSV,
JPSOAin holes
The MT has young men (BDB 104), but the context implies a similar form in holes (BDB 359).
1. – young men
2. – in holes
Context, context, context is crucial! Hebrew parallelism in poetry is crucial in interpretation!
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
Hear. Note the call to hear in the Structure, corresponding with the call in Isa 42:23.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Isa 42:18-22
Isa 42:18-22
THE BLIND AND DEAF SERVANT
“Hear, ye deaf; and look, ye blind, that ye may see. Who is blind but my servant? or deaf, as my messenger that I send? who is blind as he that is at peace with me, and blind as Jehovah’s servant? Thou seest many things, but thou observest not; his ears are open, but he heareth not. It pleased Jehovah, for his righteousness’ sake, to magnify the law, and make it honorable. But this is a people robbed and plundered; they are all of them snared in holes, and hid in prison-houses; they are for a prey, and none delivereth; for a spoil, and none saith, Restore.”
Here is the fleshly nation of the Jews, the Old Israel, one of the Three Servants prominent in this section of Isaiah. Note that the Old Israel is here called “my messenger” by God (Isa 42:19); but this does not mean, as Rawlinson thought, that it was only the default of the first messenger that required God to send the Ideal Servant, Jesus Christ. Oh no! From the very first, God had determined that only the Messiah could redeem any one. Even when God revealed his purpose to Abram in the promise that, “in thee and thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed,” the reference was not to the fleshly nation in any sense whatever; but as Paul declared, “God said not `and to seeds, as of many; but as of one’ And `to thy seed,’ which is Christ” (Gal 3:16). Therefore, it was through Christ, the Seed-Singular, that God promised Abraham that all the nations of the earth would be blessed. There is nothing in the whole Old Testament that suggests fleshly Israel would be the means of God’s blessing all nations, except in a very inferior and secondary role, the principal part of which was their acceptance and preservation of the Law and their existence as the fleshly vehicle through whom the Christ would be born.
It is the hardening of Israel that looms in this paragraph. Note that in spite of their blindness and deafness, they are nevertheless commanded “to hear,” indicating that their inability to hear was a willful inability on the part of Israel. The countless rebellions and sins of the Old Israel constitute the principal theme of the Old Testament. Israel had ample capacity and ability to have heard and obeyed God had they possessed any true desire to do so.
Kidner pointed out that even the pitiful status of Israel during the captivity was not designed to destroy Israel, but to discipline and correct them. It was only a pitiful handful of the nation, however, that cooperated with God’s will in this.
Isa 42:18-22 INCREDIBLE: That the servant in this section is Israel cannot be denied when the reader sees the context. The servant could not possibly be the Messiah for it is said of the servant here that he is blind, deaf, observes not, hears not, is robbed, plundered, none delivers, etc. In Isa 42:19 the servant is meshullam, the Hebrew word translated at peace, a derivative of shallom. Keil and Delitzsch say it is the passive of the Arabic muslim, one who trusts in God, or the surrendered one. This characterization of what God intended Israel to be in servanthood intensifies the contrast with what Israel is portrayed as being. That Israel should be so blind is incredible. Jehovah has the prophet repeat the rhetorical question for emphasis! (see Jer 18:12-13; Amo 3:9-10).
Israel had been privileged to see many things. Israel had the law of God revealed in human language to read and study; he had the record of the historical deeds of Gods miraculous deliverances and chastenings upon his nation. But Israels response did not match his opportunity. Israel did not keep what he saw and heard. In Isa 42:20 two fundamental Hebrew words are used; shemor (from shemar) meaning to keep, and shama, meaning to obey or hear. To the Hebrew, hearing was equivalent to obeying. When a person did not obey, he had not heard!
It was Jehovahs good pleasure to magnify the manifestation of His character and demonstrate the gloriousness of His nature through His holy law. This was the sovereign way God chose to exhibit His holiness to man providing man with a motive and means of partaking, through faith, in that holiness. The law of God was holy and good (cf. Rom 7:12), it was the free rebellion of man against what he knew to be holy that was wrong, not the law (cf. Rom 7:13-14; Rom 8:3). The law of God, humbly believed and obeyed, would have driven the Israelites to trust in the promised and typified mercy of God to come-and that is just where God could have saved them and used them as servants. But, incredible as it was, they chose to trust in alliances with Egypt and Assyria, to worship heathen gods, and as a result enslaved themselves under Assyrian tribute (see comments chapter 7). They would, in another generation or two of rebellion against the law of God, make themselves easy prey for the Babylonian captivity.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
ye deaf: Isa 29:18, Isa 43:8, Exo 4:11, Pro 20:12, Mar 7:34-37, Luk 7:22, Rev 3:17, Rev 3:18
Reciprocal: Psa 146:8 – openeth Isa 44:9 – their own Isa 45:20 – they Eze 37:4 – O ye Mat 13:13 – General Mat 20:30 – two Mar 3:5 – hardness Mar 8:18 – see Joh 8:27 – General Joh 9:39 – might be 2Co 3:14 – their Rev 9:20 – and idols
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Isa 42:18-20. Hear, ye deaf, &c. O you, whosoever you are, whether Jews or Gentiles, who shall resist this clear light, and obstinately continue in your former errors, attend diligently to my words, and consider these mighty works of God. Who is blind but my servant? But no people under heaven are so blind as the Jews, who call themselves my servants and people, who will not receive their Messiah, though he be recommended to them with such evident and illustrious signs and miraculous works as force belief from the formerly unbelieving and idolatrous Gentiles. Or deaf as my messenger that I sent Or rather, as Bishop Lowth renders it, as he to whom I have sent my messengers. Thus the Vulgate and Chaldee, ut ad quem nuncios meos misi. Who is blind as he that is perfect Or, perfectly instructed, as may be rendered, who has all the means of knowledge and spiritual improvement. Perhaps the prophet may chiefly intend the priests and other teachers of the Jews, who, as they were appointed to instruct the people in the right way of worshipping and serving God, so they had peculiar advantages for knowing that way themselves, having the oracles of God in their hands, and much leisure for reading and considering them. Or he may be understood as speaking sarcastically, and terming them perfect, or, perfectly instructed, because they pretended to greater knowledge and piety than others, to a more perfect acquaintance with, and conformity to, the divine will, proudly calling themselves rabbis and masters, and despising the people as cursed and not knowing the law, Joh 7:49; and deriding Christ for calling them blind, Joh 9:40. And blind as the Lords servant? Which title, as it was given to the Jewish people in the first clause of the verse, may be here given to the priests, because they were called and obliged to be the Lords servants, in a special manner. Seeing many things, but thou observest not Thou dost not seriously consider the plain word and wonderful works of God.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Isa 42:18-25. Israels Piteous Plight, a Punishment from Yahweh.The prophet bids the people, who have not recognised Yahwehs working in their distresses, look beneath the surface. To all appearance they are captives whom none can deliver. Will none of them see that Yahweh Himself is the author of their misfortune? He has chastised them, though they have not understood the discipline.
Isa 42:19. A gloss, identifying the blind and deaf of Isa 42:18; a second gloss (Isa 42:19 b) has been added. Both take Yahwehs Servant to be Israel.at peace with me: difficult; perhaps read, my devoted one.
Isa 42:21. Probably editorial.
Isa 42:22. Figurative reference to the restraints of captivity.
Isa 42:23. this: i.e. the truths of Isa 42:24 f.for . . . come: however deaf hitherto.
Isa 42:24. All after robbers is a pious insertion. Read, they sinned (LXX).
Isa 42:25. Continues question of Isa 42:24. Render, Who poured . . .?
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
The Israelites had concluded that Yahweh was blind and deaf to their situation, namely, impending destruction. Now He revealed that it was they who were blind and deaf to what He would do for them. He challenged them to comprehend what they had missed.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
20
CHAPTER XVI
THE SERVANT OF THE LORD
Isa 41:8-20; Isa 42:1-7; Isa 42:18; Isa 43:5-10; Isa 49:1-9; Isa 1:4-10; Isa 52:13-15
With chapter 42, we reach a distinct stage in our prophecy. The preceding chapters have been occupied with the declaration of the great, basal truth, that Jehovah is the One Sovereign God. This has been declared to two classes of hearers in succession-to Gods own people, Israel, in chapter 40, and to the heathen in chapter 41. Having established His sovereignty, God now publishes His will, again addressing these two classes according to the purpose which He has for each. Has He vindicated Himself to Israel, the Almighty and Righteous God, Who will give His people freedom and strength: He will now define to them the mission for which that strength and freedom are required. Has He proved to the Gentiles that He is the one true God: He will declare to them now what truth He has for them to learn. In short, to use modern terms, the apologetic of chapters 40-41 is succeeded by the missionary programme of chapter 42. And although, from the necessities of the case, we are frequently brought back, in the course of the prophecy, to its fundamental claims for the Godhead of Jehovah, we are nevertheless sensible that with ver. 1 of chapter 42 (Isa 42:1) we make a distinct advance. It is one of those logical steps which, along with a certain chronological progress that we have already felt, assures us that Isaiah, whether originally by one or more authors, is in its present form a unity, with a distinct order and principle of development.
The Purpose of God is identified with a Minister or Servant, whom He commissions to carry it out in the world. This Servant is brought before us with all the urgency with which Jehovah has presented Himself, and next to Jehovah he turns out to be the most important figure of the prophecy. Does the prophet insist that God is the only source and sufficiency of His peoples salvation: it is with equal emphasis that He introduces the Servant as Gods indispensable agent in the work. Cyrus is also acknowledged as an elect instrument. But neither in closeness to God, nor in effect upon the world, is Cyrus to be compared for an instant to the Servant. Cyrus is subservient and incidental: with the overthrow of Babylon, for which he was raised up, he will disappear from the stage of our prophecy. But Gods purpose, which uses the gates opened by Cyrus, only to pass through them with the redeemed people to the regeneration of the whole world, is to be carried to this Divine consummation by the Servant: its universal and glorious progress is identified with his career. Cyrus flashes through these pages a well-polished sword: it is only his swift and brilliant usefulness that is allowed to catch our eye. But the Servant is a Character, to delineate whose immortal beauty and example the prophet devotes as much space as he does to Jehovah Himself. As he turns again and again to speak of Gods omnipotence and faithfulness and agonising love for His own, so with equal frequency and fondness does he linger on every feature of the Servants conduct and aspect: His gentleness, His patience, His courage, His purity, His meekness; His daily wakefulness to Gods voice, the swiftness and brilliance of His speech for others, His silence under His own torments; His resorts-among the bruised, the prisoners, the forwandered of Israel, the weary, and them that sit in darkness, the far-off heathen; His warfare with the world, His face set like a flint; His unworldly beauty, which men call ugliness; His unnoticed presence in His own generation, yet the effect of His face upon kings; His habit of woe, a man of sorrows and acquainted with sickness: His sore stripes and bruises, His judicial murder, His felons grave; His exaltation and eternal glory-till we may reverently say that these pictures, by their vividness and charm, have drawn our eyes away from our prophets visions of God, and have caused the chapters in which they occur to be oftener read among us, and learned by heart, than the chapters in which God Himself is lifted up and adored. Jehovah and Jehovahs Servant-these are the two heroes of the drama.
Now we might naturally expect that so indispensable and fondly imagined a figure would also be defined past all ambiguity, whether as to His time or person or name. But the opposite is the case. About Scripture there are few more intricate questions than those on the Servant of the Lord. Is He a Person or Personification? If the latter, is He a Personification of all Israel? Or of a part of Israel? Or of the ideal Israel? Or of the Order of the Prophets? Or if a Person-is he the prophet himself? Or a martyr who has already lived and suffered, like Jeremiah? Or One still to come, like the promised Messiah? Each of these suggestions has not only been made about the Servant, but derives considerable support from one or another of our prophets dissolving views of his person and work. A final answer to them can be given only after a comparative study of all the relevant passages; but as these are scattered over the prophecy, and our detailed exposition of them must necessarily be interrupted, it will be of advantage to take here a prospect of them all, and see to what they combine to develop this sublime character and mission. And after we have seen what the prophecies themselves teach concerning the Servant, we shall inquire how they were understood and fulfilled by the New Testament; and that will show us how to expound and apply them with regard to ourselves.
1.
The Hebrew word for “Servant” means a person at the disposal of another-to carry out his will, do his work, represent his interests. It was thus applied to the representatives of a king or the worshippers of a god. All Israelites were thus in a sense the “servants of Jehovah”; though in the singular the title was reserved for persons of extraordinary character and usefulness.
But we have seen, as clearly as possible, that God set apart for His chief service upon earth, not an individual nor a group of individuals, but a whole nation in its national capacity. We have seen Israels political origin and preservation bound up with that service; we have heard the whole nation plainly called, by Jeremiah and Ezekiel, the Servant of Jehovah. Nothing could be more clear than this, that in the earlier years of the Exile the Servant of Jehovah was Israel as a whole, Israel as a body politic.
It is also in this sense that our prophet first uses the title in a passage we have already quoted; {Isa 51:8} “Thou Israel, My Servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, seed of Abraham My lover, whom I took hold of from the ends of the earth and its corners! I called thee and said unto thee, My Servant art thou. I have chosen thee, and not cast thee away.” Here the “Servant” is plainly the historical nation, descended from Abraham, and the subject of those national experiences which are traced in the previous chapter. It is the same in the following verses:- Isa 44:1 ff: “Yet now hear, O Jacob My Servant; and Israel, whom I have chosen: thus saith Jehovah thy Maker, and thy Moulder from the womb, He wilt help thee. Fear not, My servant Jacob; and Jeshurun, whom I have chosen I will pour My spirit upon thy seed, and My blessing upon thine offspring.” Isa 44:21 : “Remember these things, O Jacob; and Israel, for My servant art thou: I have formed thee; a servant for Myself art thou; O Israel, thou shalt not be forgotten of Me.” Isa 48:20 : “Go ye forth from Babylon; say ye, Jehovah hath redeemed His servant Jacob.” In all these verses, which bind up the nations restoration from exile with the fact that God called it to be His Servant, the title “Servant” is plainly equivalent to the national name “Israel” or “Jacob” But “Israel” or “Jacob” is not a label for the mere national idea, or the bare political framework, without regard to the living individuals included in it. To the eye and heart of Him, “Who counts the number of the stars,” Israel means no mere outline, but all the individuals of the living generation of the people-“thy seed,” that is, every born Israelite, however fallen or forwandered. This is made clear in a very beautiful passage in chapter 43 (Isa 43:1-7): “Thus saith Jehovah, thy Creator, O Jacob; thy Moulder, O Israel Fear not, for I am with thee; from the sunrise I will bring thy seed, and from the sunset will I gather thee; My sons from far, and My daughters from the end of the earth; every one who is called by My name, and whom for My glory I have created, formed, yea, I have made him.” To this Israel-Israel as a whole, yet no mere abstraction or outline of the nation, but the people in mass and bulk-every individual of whom is dear to Jehovah, and in some sense shares His calling and equipment-to this Israel the title “Servant of Jehovah” is at first applied by our prophet.
2.
We say “at first,” for very soon the prophet has to make a distinction, and to sketch the Servant as something less than the actual nation. The distinction is obscure; it has given rise to a very great deal of controversy. But it is so natural, where a nation is the subject, and of such frequent occurrence in other literatures, that we may almost state it as a general law.
In all the passages quoted above, Israel has been spoken of in the passive mood, as the object of some affection or action on the part of God: “loved,” “formed,” “chosen,” “called,” and “about to be redeemed by Him.” Now, so long as a people thus lie passive, their prophet will naturally think of them as a whole. In their shadow his eye can see them only in the outline of their mass; in their common suffering and servitude his heart will go out to all their individuals, as equally dear and equally in need of redemption. But when the hour comes for the people to work out their own salvation, and they emerge into action, it must needs be different. When they are no more the object of their prophets affection only, but pass under the test of his experience and judgment, then distinctions naturally appear upon them. Lifted to the light of their destiny, their inequality becomes apparent; tried by its strain, part of them break away. And so, though the prophet continues still to call on the nation by its name to fulfil its calling, what he means by that name is no longer the bulk and the body of the citizenship. A certain ideal of the people fills his minds eye – an ideal, however, which is no mere spectre floating above his own generation, but is realised in their noble and aspiring portion-although his ignorance as to the exact size of this portion must always leave his image of them more or less ideal to his eyes. It will be their quality rather than their quantity that is clear to him. In modern history we have two familiar illustrations of this process of winnowing and idealising a people in the light of their destiny, which may prepare us for the more obscure instance of it in our prophecy.
In a well-known passage in the “Areopagitica,” Milton exclaims, “Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation rousing herself and shaking her invincible locks; methinks I see her as an eagle renewing her mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full midday beam while the whole noise of timorous and flocking birds, with those also that love the twilight, flutter about, amazed at what she means.” In this passage the “nation” is no longer what Milton meant by the term in the earlier part of his treatise, where “England” stands simply for the outline of the whole English people; but the “nation” is the true genius of England realised in her enlightened and aspiring sons, and breaking away from the hindering and debasing members of the body politic-“the timorous and flocking birds with those also that love the twilight”-who are indeed Englishmen after the flesh, but form no part of the nations better self.
Or, recall Mazzinis bitter experience. To no man was his Italy more really one than to this ardent son of hers, who loved every born Italian because he was an Italian, and counted none of the fragments of his unhappy country too petty or too corrupt to be included in the hope of her restoration. To Mazzinis earliest imagination, it was the whole Italian seed, who were ready for redemption, and would rise to achieve it at his summons. But when his summons came, how few responded, and after the first struggles how fewer still remained, -Mazzini himself has told us with breaking heart. The real Italy was but a handful of born Italians; at times it seemed to shrink to the prophet alone. From such a core the conscience indeed spread again, till the entire people was delivered from tyranny and from schism, and now every peasant and burgher from the Alps to Sicily understands what Italy means, and is proud to be an Italian. But for a time Mazzini and his few comrades stood alone. Others of their blood and speech were Piedmontese, Popes men, Neapolitans, -merchants, lawyers, scholars, -or merely selfish and sensual. They alone were Italians; they alone were Italy.
It is a similar winnowing process, through which we see our prophets thoughts pass with regard to Israel. Him, too, experience teaches that “the many are called, but the few chosen.” So long as his people lie in the shadow of captivity, so long as he has to speak of them in the passive mood, the object of Gods call and preparation, it is “their seed,” the born people in bulk and mass, whom he names Israel, and entitles “the Servant of Jehovah.” But the moment that he lifts them to their mission in the world, and to the light of their destiny, a difference becomes apparent upon them, and the Servant of Jehovah, though still called Israel, shrinks to something less than the living generation, draws off to something finer than the mass of the people. How, indeed, could it be otherwise with this strange people, than which no nation on earth had a loftier ideal identified with its history, or more frequently turned upon its better self, with a sword in its hand. Israel, though created a nation by God for His service, was always what Paul found it, divided into an “Israel after the flesh,” and an “Israel after the spirit.” But it was in the Exile that this distinction gaped most broad. With the fall of Jerusalem, the political framework, which kept the different elements of the nation together, was shattered, and these were left loose to the action of moral forces. The baser elements were quickly absorbed by heathendom; the nobler, that remained loyal to the divine call, were free to assume a new and ideal form. Every year spent in Babylonia made it more apparent that the true and effective Israel of the future would not coincide with all the “seed of Jacob,” who went into exile. Numbers of the latter were as contented with their Babylonian circumstance as numbers of Mazzinis “Italians” were satisfied to live on as Austrian and Papal subjects. Many, as we have seen, became idolaters; many more settled down into the prosperous habits of Babylonian commerce, while a large multitude besides were scattered far out of sight across the world. It required little insight to perceive that the true, effective Israel-the real “Servant of Jehovah”-must needs be a much smaller body than the sum of all these: a loyal kernel within Israel, who were still conscious of the national calling, and capable of carrying it out; who stood sensible of their duty to the whole world, but whose first conscience was for their lapsed and lost countrymen. This Israel within Israel was the real “Servant of the Lord”; to personify it in that character-however vague might be the actual proportion it would assume in his own or in any other generation-would be as natural to our dramatic prophet as to personify the nation as a whole.
All this very natural process-this passing from the historical Israel, the nation originally designed by God to be His Servant, to the conscious and effective Israel, that uncertain quantity within the present and every future generation-takes place in the chapters before us; and it will be sufficiently easy for us to follow if we only remember that our prophet is not a dogmatic theologian, careful to make clear each logical distinction, but a dramatic poet, who delivers his ideas in groups, tableaux, dialogues, interrupted by choruses; and who writes in a language incapable of expressing such delicate differences, except by dramatic contrasts, and by the one other figure of which he is so fond-paradox.
Perhaps the first traces of distinction between the real Servant and the whole nation are to be found in the Programme of his Mission in Isa 42:1-7. There it is said that the Servant is to be for a “covenant of the people” (Isa 42:6). I have explained below why we are to understand “people” as here meaning Israel. And in Isa 42:7 it is said of the Servant that he is “to open blind eyes, bring forth from prison the captive, from the house of bondage dwellers in darkness”: phrases that are descriptive, of course, of the captive Israel. Already, then, in chapter 42 the Servant is something distinct from the whole nation, whose Covenant and Redeemer he is to be.
The next references to the Servant are a couple of paradoxes, which are evidently the prophets attempt to show why it was necessary to draw in the Servant of Jehovah from the whole to a part of the people. The first of these paradoxes is in Isa 42:18.
Ye deaf, hearken! and ye blind, look ye to see!
Who is blind but My Servant, and deaf as My Messenger whom I send?
Who is blind as Meshullam, and blind as the Servant of Jehovah?
Vision of many things-and thou dost not observe,
Opening of ears and he hears not.
The context shows that the Servant here-or Meshullam, as he is called, the “devoted” or “submissive one,” from the same root, and of much the same form as the Arabic Muslim-is the whole people; but they are entitled “Servant” only in order to show how unfit they are for the task to which they have been designated, and what a paradox their title is beside their real character. God had given them every opportunity by “making great His instruction” (Isa 42:21), and, when that failed, by His sore discipline in exile (Isa 42:24-25). “For who gave Jacob for spoil and Israel to the robbers? Did not Jehovah? He against whom we sinned, and they would not walk in His ways, neither were obedient to His instruction. So He poured upon him the fury of His anger and the force of war.” But even this did not awake the dull nation. “Though it set him on fire round about, yet he knew not; and it kindled upon him, yet he laid it not to heart.” The nation as a whole had been favoured with Gods revelation; as a whole they had been brought into His purifying furnace of the Exile. But as they have benefited by neither the one nor the other, the natural conclusion is that as a whole they are no more fit to be Gods Servant. Such is the hint which this paradox is intended to give us.
But a little further on there is an obverse paradox, which plainly says, that although the people are blind and deaf as a whole, still the capacity for service is found among them alone. {Isa 43:8; Isa 43:10}
Bring forth the blind people-yet eyes are there!
And the deaf, yet ears have they!
Ye are My witnesses, saith Jehovah, and My Servant whom I have chosen.
The preceding verses (Isa 43:1-7) show us that it is again the whole people, in their bulk and scattered fragments, who are referred to. Blind though they be, “yet are there eyes” among them; deaf though they be, yet “they have ears.” And so Jehovah addresses them all, in contradistinction to the heathen peoples (Isa 43:9), as His Servant.
These two complementary paradoxes together show this: that while Israel as a whole is unfit to be the Servant, it is nevertheless within Israel, alone of all the worlds nations, that the true capacities for service are found-“eyes are there, ears have they.” They prepare us for the Servants testimony about himself, in which, while he owns himself to be distinct from Israel as a whole, he is nevertheless still called Israel. This is given in chapter 49. And He said unto me, “My Servant art thou; Israel, in whom I will glorify Myself. And now saith Jehovah, my moulder from the womb to be a Servant unto Him, to turn again Jacob to Him, and that Israel might not be destroyed; and I am of value in the eyes of Jehovah, and my God is my strength. And He said, It is too light for thy being My Servant, merely to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel; I will also set thee for a light of nations, to be My salvation to the end of the earth”. {Isa 49:3-6} Here the Servant, though still called Israel, is clearly distinct from the nation as a whole, for part of his work is to raise the nation up again. And, moreover, he tells us this as his own testimony about himself. He is no longer spoken of in the third person, he speaks for himself in the first. This is significant. It is more than a mere artistic figure, the effect of our prophets dramatic style-as if the Servant now stood opposite him, so vivid and near that he heard him speak, and quoted him in the direct form of speech. It is more probably the result of moral sympathy: the prophet speaks out of the heart of the Servant, in the name of that better portion of Israel which was already conscious of the Divine call, and of its distinction in this respect from the mass of the people.
It is futile to inquire what this better portion of Israel actually was, for whom the prophet speaks in the first person. Some have argued, from the stress which the speaker lays upon his gifts of speech and office of preaching, that what is now signified by the Servant is the order of the prophets; but such forget that in these chapters the proclamation of the Kingdom of God is the ideal, not of prophets only, but of the whole people. Zion as a whole is to be “heraldess of good news”. {Isa 40:9} It is, therefore, not the official function of the prophet-order which the Servant here owns, but the ideal of the prophet-nation. Others have argued from the direct form of speech, that the prophet puts himself forward as the Servant. But no individual would call himself Israel. And as Professor Cheyne remarks, the passage is altogether too self-assertive to be spoken by any man of himself as an individual; although, of course, our prophet could not have spoken of the true Israel with such sympathy, unless he had himself been part of it. The writer of these verses may have been, for the time, as virtually the real Israel as Mazzini was the real Italy. But still he does not speak as an individual. The passage is manifestly a piece of personification. The Servant is Israel- not now the nation as a whole, not the body and bulk of the Israelites, for they are to be the object of his first efforts, but the loyal, conscious, and effective Israel, realised in some of her members, and here personified by our prophet, who himself speaks for her out of his heart, in the first person.
By chapter 49, then, the Servant of Jehovah is a personification of the true, effective Israel as distinguished from the mass of the nation-a Personification, but not yet a Person. Something within Israel has wakened up to find itself conscious of being the Servant of Jehovah, and distinct from the mass of the nation-something that is not yet a Person. And this definition of the Servant may stand (with some modifications) for his next appearance in Isa 50:4-9. In this passage the Servant, still speaking in the first person, continues to illustrate his experience as a prophet, and carries it to its consequence in martyrdom. But let us notice that he now no longer calls himself Israel, and that if it were not for the previous passages it would be natural to suppose that an individual was speaking. This supposition is confirmed by a verse that follows the Servants speech, and is spoken, as chorus, by the prophet himself. “Who among you is a fearer of Jehovah, obedient to the voice of His Servant, who walketh in darkness, and hath no light. Let him trust in the name of Jehovah, and stay himself upon his God.” In this too much neglected verse, which forms a real transition to Isa 52:13-15, the prophet is addressing any individual Israelite, on behalf of a personal God. It is very difficult to refrain from concluding that therefore the Servant also is a Person. Let us, however, not go beyond what we have evidence for; and note only that in chapter 1 the Servant is no more called Israel, and is represented not as if he were one part of the nation, over against the mass of it, but as if he were one individual over against other individuals; that in fine the Personification of chapter 49 has become much more difficult to distinguish from an actual Person.
3.
This brings us to the culminating passage- Isa 52:13-15 through Isa 53:1-12. Is the Servant still a Personification here, or at last and unmistakably a Person?
It may relieve the air of that electricity, which is apt to charge it at the discussion of so classic a passage as this, and secure us calm weather in which to examine exegetical details, if we at once assert, what none but prejudiced Jews have ever denied, that this great prophecy, known as the fifty-third of Isaiah, was fulfilled in One Person, Jesus of Nazareth, and achieved in all its details by Him alone. But, on the other hand, it requires also to be pointed out that Christs personal fulfilment of it does not necessarily imply that our prophet wrote it of a Person. The present expositor hopes, indeed, to be able to give strong reasons for the theory usual among us, that the Personification of previous passages is at last in chapter 53 presented as a Person. But he fails to understand, why critics should be regarded as unorthodox or at variance with New Testament teaching on the subject, who, while they acknowledge that only Christ fulfilled chapter 53, are yet unable to believe that the prophet looked upon the Servant as an individual, and who regard chapter 53 as simply a sublimer form of the prophets previous pictures of the ideal people of God. Surely Christ could and did fulfil prophecies other than personal ones. The types of Him, which the New Testament quotes from the Old Testament, are not exclusively individuals. Christ is sometimes represented as realising in His Person and work statements, which, as they were first spoken, could only refer to Israel, the nation. Matthew, for instance, applies to Jesus a text which Hosea wrote primarily of the whole Jewish people: “Out of Egypt have I called My Son.” {Hos 11:1; Mat 2:15} Or, to take an instance from our own prophet-who but Jesus fulfilled chapter 49, in which, as we have seen, it is not an individual, but the ideal of the prophet people, that is figured? So that, even if it were proved past all doubt-proved from grammar, context, and every prophetical analogy-that in writing chapter 53 our prophet had still in view that aspect of the nation which he has personified in chapter 49, such a conclusion would not weaken the connection between the prophecy and its unquestioned fulfilment by Jesus Christ, nor render the two less evidently part of one Divine design.
But we are by no means compelled to adopt the impersonal view of chapter 53. On the contrary, while the question is one to which all experts know the difficulty of finding an absolutely conclusive answer one way or the other, it seems to me that reasons prevail which make for the personal interpretation.
Let us see what exactly are the objections to taking Isa 52:13-15 through Isa 53:1-12 in a personal sense. First, it is very important to observe that they do not rise out of the grammar or language of the passage. The reference of both of these is consistently individual. Throughout, the Servant is spoken of in the singular. The name Israel is not once applied to him: nothing-except that the nation has also suffered-suggests that he is playing a national role; there is no reflection in his fate of the features of the Exile. The antithesis, which was evident in previous passages, between a better Israel and the mass of the people has disappeared. The Servant is contrasted, not with the nation as a whole, but with His people as individuals. “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.” As far as grammar can, this surely distinguishes a single person. It is true, that one or two phrases suggest so colossal a figure-“he shall startle many nations, and kings shall shut their mouths at him”-that for a moment we think of the spectacle of a people rather than of a solitary human presence. But even such descriptions are not incompatible with a single person. On the other hand, there are phrases which we can scarcely think are used of any but a historical individual; such as that he was taken from “oppression and judgment,” that is from a process of law which was tyranny, from a judicial murder, and that he belonged to a particular generation-“As for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living.” Surely a historical individual is the natural meaning of these words. And, in fact, critics like Ewald and Wellhausen, who interpret the passage, in its present context, of the ideal Israel, find themselves forced to argue that it has been borrowed for this use from the older story of some actual martyr-so individual do its references seem to them throughout.
If, then, the grammar and language of the passage thus conspire to convey the impression of an individual, what are the objections to supposing that an individual is meant? Critics have felt, in the main, three objections to the discovery of a historical individual in Isa 52:13-15 through Isa 53:1-12.
The first of these that we take is chronological, and arises from the late date to which we have found it necessary to assign the prophecy. Our prophet, it is averred, associates the work of the Servant with the restoration of the people; but he sees that restoration too close to him to be able to think of the appearance, ministry, and martyrdom of a real historic life happening before it. (Our prophet, it will be remembered, wrote about 546, and the Restoration came in 538.) “There is no room for a history like that of the suffering Servant between the prophets place and the Restoration.”
Now, this objection might be turned, even if it were true that the prophet identified the suffering Servants career with so immediate and so short a process as the political deliverance from Babylon. For, in that case, the prophet would not be leaving less room for the Servant, than, in chapter 9, Isaiah himself leaves for the birth, the growth to manhood, and the victories of the Prince-of-the-Four-Names, before that immediate relief from the Assyrian which he expects the Prince to effect. But does our prophet identify the suffering Servants career with the redemption from Babylon and the Return? It is plain that he does not-at least in those portraits of the Servant, which are most personal. Our prophet has really two prospects for Israel-one, the actual deliverance from Babylon; the other, a spiritual redemption and restoration. If, like his fellow prophets, he sometimes runs these two together, and talks of the latter in the terms of the former, he keeps them on the whole distinct, and assigns them to different agents. The burden of the first he lays on Cyrus, though he also connects it with the Servant, while the Servant is still to him an aspect of the nation (see Isa 49:8-9). It is temporary, and soon passes from his thoughts, Cyrus being dropped with it. But the other, the spiritual redemption, is confined to no limits of time; and it is with its process-indefinite in date and in length of period-that he associates the most personal portraits of the Servant (chapter 1 and Isa 52:13-15 through Isa 53:1-12). In these the Servant, now spoken of as an individual, has nothing to do with that temporary work of freeing the people from Babylon, which was over in a year or two, and which seems to be now behind the prophets standpoint. His is the enduring office of prophecy, sympathy, and expiation- an office in which there is all possible “room” for such a historical career as is sketched for him. His relation to Cyrus, before whose departure from connection with Israels fate the Servant does not appear as a person, is thus most interesting. Perhaps we may best convey it in a homely figure. On the ship of Israels fortunes-as on every ship and on every voyage-the prophet sees two personages. One is the Pilot through the shallows, Cyrus, who is dropped as soon as the shallows are past; and the other is the Captain of the ship, who remains always identified with it – the Servant. The Captain does not come to the front till the Pilot has gone: but, both alongside the Pilot, and after the Pilot has been dropped, there is every room for his office.
The second main objection to identifying an individual in Isa 52:13-15 through Isa 53:1-12, is. that an individual with such features has no analogy in Hebrew prophecy. It is said that, neither in his humiliation nor in the kind of exaltation which is ascribed to him, is there his like in any other individual in the Old Testament, and certainly not in the Messiah. Elsewhere in Scripture (it is averred) the Messiah reigns, and is glorious; it is the people who suffer, and come through suffering to power. Nor is the Messiahs royal splendour at all the same as the very vague influence, evidently of a spiritual kind, which is attributed to the Servant in the end of chapter 53. The Messiah is endowed with the military and political virtues. He is a warrior, a king, a judge. He “sits on the throne of David, He establishes Davids kingdom. He smites the land with the rod of His mouth, and with the breath of His lips He slays the wicked.” But very different phrases are used of the Servant. He is not called king, though kings shut their mouths at him, -he is a prophet and a martyr, and an expiation; and the phrases, “I will divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong,” are simply metaphors of the immense spiritual success and influence with which His self-sacrifice shall be rewarded; as a spiritual power He shall take His place among the dominions and forces of the world. This is a true prophecy of what Israel, that “worm of a people,” should be lifted to; but it is quite different from the political throne, from which Isaiah had promised that the Messiah should sway the destinies of Israel and mankind.
But in answer to this objection to finding the Messiah, or any other influential individual, in chapter 53, we may remember that there were already traces in Hebrew prophecy of a suffering Messiah: we come across them in chapter 7. There Isaiah presents Immanuel, whom we identified with the Prince-of-the-Four-Names in chapter 9, as at first nothing but a sufferer – a sufferer from the sins of His predecessors. (Isa 1:1-31; Isa 2:1-22; Isa 3:1-26; Isa 4:1-6; Isa 5:1-30; Isa 6:1-13; Isa 7:1-25; Isa 8:1-22; Isa 9:1-21; Isa 10:1-34; Isa 11:1-16; Isa 12:1-6; Isa 13:1-22; Isa 14:1-32; Isa 15:1-9; Isa 16:1-14; Isa 17:1-14; Isa 18:1-7; Isa 19:1-25; Isa 20:1-6; Isa 21:1-17; Isa 22:1-25; Isa 23:1-18; Isa 24:1-23; Isa 25:1-12; Isa 26:1-21; Isa 27:1-13; Isa 28:1-29; Isa 29:1-24; Isa 30:1-33; Isa 31:1-9; Isa 32:1-20; Isa 33:1-24; Isa 34:1-17; Isa 35:1-10; Isa 36:1-22; Isa 37:1-38; Isa 38:1-22; Isa 39:1-8) And, even though we are wrong in taking the suffering Immanuel from the Messiah, and though Isaiah meant him only as a personification of Israel suffering for the error of Ahaz, had not the two hundred years, which elapsed between Isaiahs prophecy of Israels glorious Deliverer, been full of room enough, and, what is more, of experience enough, for the ideal champion of the people to be changed to something more spiritual in character and in work? Had the nation been baptised, for most of those two centuries, in vain, in the meaning of suffering, and in vain had they seen exemplified in their noblest spirits the fruits and glory of self-sacrifice? The type of Hero had changed in Israel since Isaiah wrote of his Prince-of-the-Four-Names. The king had been replaced by the prophet; the conqueror by the martyr; the judge who smote the land by the rod of his mouth, and slew the wicked by the breath of his lips, -by the patriot who took his countrys sins upon his own conscience. The monarchy had perished; men knew that, even if Israel were set upon their own land again, it would not be under an independent king of their own; nor was a Jewish champion of the martial kind, such as Isaiah had promised for deliverance from the Assyrian, any more required. Cyrus, the Gentile, should do all the campaigning required against Israels enemies, and Israels native Saviour be relieved for gentler methods and more spiritual aims. It is all this experience, of nearly two centuries, which explains the omission of the features of warrior and judge from chapter 53, and their replacement by those of a suffering patriot, prophet, and priest. The reason of the change is, not because the prophet who wrote the chapter had not, as much as Isaiah, an individual in his view, but because, in the historical circumstance of the Exile, such an individual as Isaiah had promised seemed no longer probable or required.
So far, then, from the difference between chapter 53 and previous prophecies of the Messiah affording evidence that in chapter 53 it is not the Messiah who is presented, this very change that has taken place, explicable as it is from the history of the intervening centuries, goes powerfully to prove that it is the Messiah, and therefore an individual, whom the prophet so vividly describes.
The third main objection to our recognising an individual in chapter 53 is concerned only with our prophet himself. Is it not impossible, say some-or at least improbably inconsistent-for the same prophet first to have identified the Servant with the nation, and then to present him to us as an individual? We can understand the transference by the same writer of the name from the whole people to a part of the people; it is a natural transference, and the prophet sufficiently explains it. But how does he get from a part of the nation to a single individual? If in chapter 49 he personifies, under the name Servant, some aspect of the nation, we are surely bound to understand the game personification when the Servant is again introduced-unless we have an explanation to the contrary. But we have none.. The prophet gives no hint, except by dropping the name Israel, that the focus of his vision is altered, -no more paradoxes such as marked his passage from the people as a whole to a portion of them, -no consciousness that any explanation whatever is required. Therefore, however much finer the personification is drawn in chapter 53 than in chapter 49, it is surely a personification still.
To which objection an obvious answer is, that our prophet is not a systematic theologian, but a dramatic poet, who allows his characters to disclose themselves and their relation without himself intervening to define or relate them. And any one who is familiar with the literature of Israel knows, that no less than the habit of drawing in from the whole people upon a portion of them, was the habit of drawing in from a portion of the people upon one individual. The royal Messiah Himself is a case in point. The original promise to David was of a seed; but soon prophecy concentrated the seed in one glorious Prince. The promise of Israel had always culminated in an individual. Then, again, in the nations awful sufferings, it had been one man-the prophet Jeremiah-who had stood forth singly and alone, at once the incarnation of Jehovahs word, and the illustration in his own person of all the penalty that Jehovah laid upon the sinful people. With this tendency of his school to focus Israels hope on a single individual, and especially with the example of Jeremiah before him, it is almost inconceivable that our prophet could have thought of any but an individual when he drew his portrait of the suffering Servant. No doubt the national sufferings were in his heart as he wrote; it was probably a personal share in them that taught him to write so sympathetically about the Man of pains, who was familiar with ailing. But to gather and concentrate all these sufferings upon one noble figure, to describe this figure as thoroughly conscious of their moral meaning, and capable of turning them to his peoples salvation, was a process absolutely in harmony with the genius of Israels prophecy, as well as with the trend of their recent experience; and there is, besides, no word in that great chapter, in which the process culminates, but is in thorough accordance with it. So far, therefore, from its being an impossible or an unlikely thing for our prophet to have at last reached his conception of an individual, it is almost impossible to conceive of him executing so personal a portrait as Isa 52:13-15 through Isa 53:1-12, without thinking of a definite historical personage, such as Hebrew prophecy had ever associated with the redemption of his people.
4.
We have now exhausted the passages in Isa 40:1-31; Isa 41:1-29; Isa 42:1-25; Isa 43:1-28; Isa 44:1-28; Isa 45:1-25; Isa 46:1-13; Isa 47:1-15; Isa 48:1-22; Isa 49:1-26; Isa 50:1-11; Isa 51:1-23; Isa 52:1-15; Isa 53:1-12; Isa 54:1-17; Isa 55:1-13; Isa 56:1-12; Isa 57:1-21; Isa 58:1-14; Isa 59:1-21; Isa 60:1-22; Isa 61:1-11; Isa 62:1-12; Isa 63:1-19; Isa 64:1-12; Isa 65:1-25; Isa 66:1-24 which deal with the Servant of the Lord. We have found that our prophet identifies him at first with the whole nation, and then with some indefinite portion of the nation-indefinite in quantity, but most marked in character; that this personification grows more and more difficult to distinguish from a person; and that in Isa 52:13-15 through Isa 53:1-12 there are very strong reasons, both in the text itself and in the analogy of other prophecy, to suppose that the portrait of an individual is intended. To complete our study of this development of the substance of the Servant, it is necessary to notice that it runs almost stage for stage with a development of his office. Up to chapter 49, that is to say, while he is still some aspect of the people, the Servant is a prophet. In chapter 1, where he is no longer called Israel, and approaches more nearly to an individual, his prophecy passes into martyrdom. And in chapter 53, where at last we recognise him as intended for an actual personage, his martyrdom becomes an expiation for the sins of the people. Is there a natural connection between these two developments? We have seen that it was by a very common process that our prophet transferred the national calling from the mass of the nation to a select few of the people. Is it by any equally natural tendency that he shrinks from the many to the few, as he passes from prophecy to martyrdom, or from the few to the one, as he passes from martyrdom to expiation? It is a possibility for all Gods people to be prophets: few are needed as martyrs. Is it by any moral law equally clear, that only one man should die for the people? These are questions worth thinking about. In Israels history we have already found the following facts with which to answer them. The whole living generation of Israel felt themselves to be sinbearers: “Our fathers have sinned, and we bear their iniquities.” This conscience and penalty were more painfully felt by the righteous in Israel. But the keenest and heaviest sense of them was conspicuously that experienced by one man-the prophet Jeremiah. And yet all these cases from the past of Israels history do not furnish more than an approximation to the figure presented to us in chapter 53. Let us turn, therefore, to the future to see if we can find in it motive or fulfilment for this marvellous prophecy.
CHAPTER XVII
THE SERVANT OF THE LORD IN THE NEW TESTAMENT
IN last chapter we confined our study of the Servant of Jehovah to the text of Isa 40:1-31; Isa 41:1-29; Isa 42:1-25; Isa 43:1-28; Isa 44:1-28; Isa 45:1-25; Isa 46:1-13; Isa 47:1-15; Isa 48:1-22; Isa 49:1-26; Isa 50:1-11; Isa 51:1-23; Isa 52:1-15; Isa 53:1-12; Isa 54:1-17; Isa 55:1-13; Isa 56:1-12; Isa 57:1-21; Isa 58:1-14; Isa 59:1-21; Isa 60:1-22; Isa 61:1-11; Isa 62:1-12; Isa 63:1-19; Isa 64:1-12; Isa 65:1-25; Isa 66:1-24, and to the previous and contemporary history of Israel. Into our interpretation of the remarkable Figure, whom our prophet has drawn for us, we have put nothing which cannot be gathered from those fields and by the light of the prophets own day. But now we must travel further, and from days far future to our prophet borrow a fuller light to throw back upon his mysterious projections. We take this journey into the future for reasons he himself has taught us. We have learned that his pictures of the Servant are not the creation of his own mind; a work of art complete “through fancys or through logics aid.” They are the scattered reflections and suggestions of experience. The prophets eyes have been opened to read them out of the still growing and incomplete history of his people. With that history they are indissolubly bound up. Their plainest forms are but a transcript of its clearest facts; their paradoxes are its paradoxes (reflections now of the confused and changing consciousness of this strange people, or again of the contrast between Gods design for them and their real character): their ideals are the suggestion and promise which its course reveals to an inspired eye. Thus, in picturing the Servant, our prophet sometimes confines himself to history that has already happened to Israel; but sometimes, also, upon the purpose and promise of this, he outruns what has happened, and plainly lifts his voice from the future. Now we must remember that he does so, not merely because the history itself has native possibilities of fulfilment in it, but because he believes that it is in the hands of an Almighty and Eternal God, who shall surely guide it to the end of His purpose revealed in it. It is an article of our prophets creed, that the God who speaks through him controls all history, and by His prophets can publish beforehand what course it will take; so that, when we find in our prophet anything we do not see fully justified or illustrated by the time he wrote, it is only in observance of the conditions he has laid down, that we seek for its explanation in the future.
Let us, then, take our prophet upon his own terms, and follow the history, with which he has so closely bound up the prophecy of the Servant, both in suggestion and fulfilment, in order that we may see whether it will yield to us the secret of what, if we have read his language aright, his eyes perceived in it-the promise of an Individual Servant. And let us do so in his faith that history is one progressive and harmonious movement under the hand of the God in whose name he speaks. Our exploration will be rewarded, and our faith confirmed. We shall find the nation, as promised, restored to its own land, and pursuing through the centuries its own life. We shall find within the nation what the prophet looked for, -an elect and effective portion, with the conscience of a national service to the world, but looking for the achievement of this to such an Individual Servant, as the prophet seemed ultimately to foreshadow. The world itself we shall find growing more and more open to this service. And at last, from Israels national conscience of the service we shall see emerge One with the sense that He alone is responsible and able for it. And this One Israelite will not only in His own person exhibit a character and achieve a work that illustrate and far excel our prophets highest imaginations, but will also become, to a new Israel infinitely more numerous than the old, the conscience and inspiration of their collective fulfilment of the ideal.
1. In the Old Testament we cannot be sure of any further appearance of our prophets Servant of the Lord. It might be thought that in a post-exilic promise, Zec 3:8, “I will bring forth My servant the Branch,” we had an identification of the hero of the first part of the Book of Isaiah, “the Branch out of Jesses roots,” {Isa 11:1} with the hero of the second part; but “servant” here may so easily be meant in the more general sense in which it occurs in the Old Testament, that we are not justified in finding any more particular connection. In Judaism beyond the Old Testament the national and personal interpretations of the Servant were both current. The Targum of Jonathan, and both the Talmud of Jerusalem and the Talmud of Babylon, recognise the personal Messiah in chapter 53; the Targum also identifies him as early as in chapter 42. This personal interpretation the Jews abandoned only after they had entered on their controversy with Christian theologians; and in the cruel persecutions, which Christians inflicted upon them throughout the Middle Ages, they were supplied with only too many reasons for insisting that chapter 53 was prophetic of suffering Israel-the martyr-people-as a whole. It is a strange history-the history of our race, where the first through their pride and error so frequently become the last, and the last through their sufferings are set in Gods regard with the first. But of all its strange reversals none surely was ever more complete than when the followers of Him, who is set forth in this passage, the unresisting and crucified Saviour of men, behaved in His Name with so great a cruelty as to be righteously taken by His enemies for the very tyrants and persecutors whom the passage condemns.
2. But it is in the New Testament that we see the most perfect reflection of the Servant of the Lord, both as People and Person.
In the generation from which Jesus sprang there was, amid national circumstances closely resembling those in which the Second Isaiah was written, a counterpart of that Israel within Israel, which our prophet has personified in chapter 49. The holy nation lay again in bondage to the heathen, partly in its own land, partly scattered across the world; and Israels righteousness, redemption, and ingathering were once more the questions of the day. The thoughts of the masses, as of old in Babylonian days, did not rise beyond a political restoration; and although their popular leaders insisted upon national righteousness as necessary to this, it was a righteousness mainly of the ceremonial kind-hard, legal, and often more unlovely in its want of enthusiasm and hope than even the political fanaticism of the vulgar. But around the temple, and in quiet recesses of the land, a number of pious and ardent Israelites lived on the true milk of the word, and cherished for the nation hopes of a far more spiritual character. If the Pharisees laid their emphasis on the law, this chosen Israel drew their inspiration rather from prophecy; and of all prophecy it was the Book of Isaiah, and chiefly the latter part of it, on which they lived.
As we enter the Gospel history from the Old Testament, we feel at once that Isaiah is in the air. In this fair opening of the new year of the Lord, the harbinger notes of the book awaken about us on all sides like the voices of birds come back with the spring. In Marys song, the phrase “He hath holpen His Servant Israel”; in the description of Simeon, that he waited for the “consolation of Israel,” a phrase taken from the “Comfort ye, comfort ye My people” in Isa 40:1; such frequent phrases, too, as “the redemption of Jerusalem, a light of the Gentiles and the glory of Israel, light to them that sit in darkness, and other echoed promises of light and peace and the remission of sins, are all repeated from our evangelical prophecy. In the fragments of the Baptists preaching, which are extant, it is remarkable that almost every metaphor and motive may be referred to the Book of Isaiah, and mostly to its exilic half: “the generation of vipers,” the “trees and axe laid to the root,” “the threshing floor and fan,” “the fire,” “the bread and clothes to the poor,” and especially the proclamation of Jesus, “Behold the Lamb of God that beareth the sin of the world.” To John himself were applied the words of Isa 40:1-31 : “The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make ye “ready the way of the Lord, make His paths straight”; and when Christ sought to rouse again the Baptists failing faith it was of Isa 61:1-11 that He reminded him.
Our Lord, then, sprang from a generation of Israel, which had a strong conscience of the national aspect of the Service of God, -a generation with Isa 40:1-31; Isa 41:1-29; Isa 42:1-25; Isa 43:1-28; Isa 44:1-28; Isa 45:1-25; Isa 46:1-13; Isa 47:1-15; Isa 48:1-22; Isa 49:1-26; Isa 50:1-11; Isa 51:1-23; Isa 52:1-15; Isa 53:1-12; Isa 54:1-17; Isa 55:1-13; Isa 56:1-12; Isa 57:1-21; Isa 58:1-14; Isa 59:1-21; Isa 60:1-22; Isa 61:1-11; Isa 62:1-12; Isa 63:1-19; Isa 64:1-12; Isa 65:1-25; Isa 66:1-24 at its heart. We have seen how He Himself insisted upon the uniqueness of Israels place among the nations-“salvation is of the Jews”-and how closely He identified Himself with His people-“I am not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But all Christs strong expression of Israels distinction from the rest of mankind is weak and dim compared with His expression of His own distinction from the rest of Israel. If they were the one people with whom God worked in the world, He was the one Man whom God sent to work upon them, and to use them to work upon others. We cannot tell how early the sense of this distinction came to the Son of Mary. Luke reveals it in Him, before He had taken His place as a citizen and was still within the family: “Wist ye not that I must be about My Fathers business?” At His first public appearance He had it fully, and others acknowledged it. In the opening year of His ministry it threatened to be only a Distinction of the First-“they took Him by force, and would have made Him King.” But as time went on it grew evident that it was to be, not the Distinction of the First, but the Distinction of the Only. The enthusiastic crowds melted away: the small band, whom He had most imbued with His spirit, proved that they could follow Him but a certain length in His consciousness of His Mission. Recognising in Him the supreme prophet-“Lord to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life”-they immediately failed to understand that suffering also must be endured by Him for the people: “Be it far from Thee, Lord.” This suffering was His conscience and His burden alone. Now, we cannot overlook the fact that the point at which Christs way became so solitary was the same point at which we felt our prophets language cease to oblige us to understand by it a portion of the people, and begin to be applicable to a single individual, -the point, namely, where prophecy passes into martyrdom. But whether our prophets pictures of the suffering and atoning Servant of the Lord are meant for some aspect of the national experience, or as the portrait of a real individual, it is certain that in His martyrdom and service of ransom Jesus felt Himself to be absolutely alone. He who had begun His Service of God with all the people on His side, consummated the same with the leaders and the masses of the nation against Him, and without a single partner from among His own friends, either in the fate which overtook Him, or in the conscience with which He bore it.
Now all this parallel between Jesus of Nazareth and the Servant of the Lord is unmistakable enough, even in this mere outline; but the details of the Gospel narrative and the language of the Evangelists still more emphasise it. Christs herald hailed Him with words which gather up the essence of Isa 53:1-12 : “Behold the Lamb of God.” He read His own commission from chapter 61: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me.” To describe His first labours among the people, His disciples again used words from chapter 53: “Himself bare our sicknesses.” To paint His manner of working in face of opposition they quoted the whole passage from chapter 42: “Behold My Servant He shall not strive.” The name Servant was often upon His own lips in presenting Himself: “Behold, I am among you as one that serveth.” When His office of prophecy passed into martyrdom, He predicted for Himself the treatment which is detailed in chapter 50, -the “smiting,” “plucking” and “spitting”: and in time, by Jew and Gentile, this treatment was inflicted on Him to the very letter. As to His consciousness in fulfilling something more than a martyrdom, and alone among the martyrs of Israel offering by His death an expiation for His peoples sins, His own words are frequent and clear enough to form a counterpart to chapter 53. With them before us, we cannot doubt that He felt Himself to be the One of whom the people in that chapter speak, as standing over against them all, sinless, and yet bearing their sins. But on the night on which He was betrayed, while just upon the threshold of this extreme and unique form of service, into which it has been given to no soul of man, that ever lived, to be conscious of following Him-as if anxious that His disciples should not be so overwhelmed by the awful part in which they could not imitate Him as to forget the countless other ways in which they were called to fulfil His serving spirit-“He took a towel and girded Himself, and when He had washed their feet, He said unto them, I, I, then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one anothers feet”-thereby illustrating what is so plainly set forth in our prophecy, that short of the expiation, of which only One in His sinlessness has felt the obligation, and short of the martyrdom which it has been given to but few of His people to share with Him, there are a thousand humble forms rising out of the needs of everyday life, in which men are called to employ towards one another the gentle and self-forgetful methods of the true Servant of God.
With the four Gospels in existence, no one doubts or can doubt that Jesus of Nazareth fulfilled the cry, “Behold My Servant.” With Him it ceased to be a mere ideal, and took its place as the greatest achievement in history.
3. In the earliest discourses of the Apostles, therefore, it is not wonderful that Jesus should be expressly designated by them as the Servant of God, -the Greek word used being that by which the Septuagint specially translates the Hebrew term in Isa 40:1-31; Isa 41:1-29; Isa 42:1-25; Isa 43:1-28; Isa 44:1-28; Isa 45:1-25; Isa 46:1-13; Isa 47:1-15; Isa 48:1-22; Isa 49:1-26; Isa 50:1-11; Isa 51:1-23; Isa 52:1-15; Isa 53:1-12; Isa 54:1-17; Isa 55:1-13; Isa 56:1-12; Isa 57:1-21; Isa 58:1-14; Isa 59:1-21; Isa 60:1-22; Isa 61:1-11; Isa 62:1-12; Isa 63:1-19; Isa 64:1-12; Isa 65:1-25; Isa 66:1-24 : “god hath glorified His Servant Jesus. Unto you first, God, having raised up His Servant, sent Him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from your iniquitiesIn this city against Thy holy Servant Jesus, whom Thou didst anoint, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, were gathered together to do whatsoever Thy hand and Thy counsel foreordained to pass. Grant that signs and wonders may be done through the name of Thy Holy Servant Jesus.” It must also be noticed, that in one of the same addresses, and again by Stephen in his argument before the Sanhedrim, Jesus is called “The Righteous One,”: doubtless an allusion to the same title for the Servant in Isa 53:11. Need we recall the interpretation of Isa 53:1-12 by Philip?
It is known to all how Peter develops this parallel in his First Epistle, borrowing the figures, but oftener the very words, of Isa 53:1-12 to apply to Christ. Like the Servant of the Lord, Jesus is “as a lamb”: He is a patient sufferer in silence; He “is the Righteous (again the classic title) for the unrighteous”; in exact quotation from the Greek of Isa 53:1-12 : “He did no sin, neither was found guile in His mouth, ye were as sheep gone astray, but He Himself hath borne our sins, with whose stripes ye are healed.”
Paul applies two quotations from Isa 52:13-15 through Isa 53:1-12 to Christ: “I have striven to preach the Gospel not where Christ was named; as it is written, To whom He was not spoken of they shall see, and they that have not heard shall understand; and He hath made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin.” And none will doubt that when he so often disputed that the “Messiah must suffer,” or wrote “Messiah died for our sins according to the Scriptures,” he had Isa 53:1-12 in mind, exactly as we have seen it applied to the Messiah by Jewish scholars a hundred years later than Paul.
4. Paul, however, by no means confines the prophecy of the Servant of the Lord to Jesus the Messiah. In a way which has been too much overlooked by students of the subject, Paul revives and reinforces the collective interpretation of the Servant. He claims the Servants duties and experience for himself, his fellow-labourers in the Gospel, and all believers.
In Antioch of Pisidia, Paul and Barnabas said of themselves to the Jews: “For so hath the Lord” commanded us, saying, “I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles, that thou shouldest be for salvation to the ends of the earth.” {Act 13:47, after Isa 49:6} Again, in the eighth of Romans, Paul takes the Servants confident words, and speaks them of all Gods true people. “He is near that justifieth me, who is he that condemneth me?” cried the Servant in our prophecy, and Paul echoes for all believers: “It is God that justifieth, who is he that condemneth?” {Isa 1:8 and Rom 8:33; Rom 8:24} And again, in his second letter to Timothy, he says, speaking of that pastors work, “For the servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle towards all”; words which were borrowed from, or suggested by, Isa 42:1-3. In these instances, as well as in his constant use of the terms “slave,” “servant,” “minister,” with their cognates, Paul fulfils the intention of Jesus, who so continually, by example, parable, and direct commission, enforced the life of His people as a Service to the Lord.
5. Such, then, is the New Testament reflection of the Prophecy of the Servant of the Lord, both as People and Person. Like all physical reflections, this moral one may be said, on the whole, to stand reverse to its original. In Isa 40:1-31; Isa 41:1-29; Isa 42:1-25; Isa 43:1-28; Isa 44:1-28; Isa 45:1-25; Isa 46:1-13; Isa 47:1-15; Isa 48:1-22; Isa 49:1-26; Isa 50:1-11; Isa 51:1-23; Isa 52:1-15; Isa 53:1-12; Isa 54:1-17; Isa 55:1-13; Isa 56:1-12; Isa 57:1-21; Isa 58:1-14; Isa 59:1-21; Isa 60:1-22; Isa 61:1-11; Isa 62:1-12; Isa 63:1-19; Isa 64:1-12; Isa 65:1-25; Isa 66:1-24 the Servant is People first, Person second. But in the New Testament-except for a faint and scarcely articulate application to Israel in the beginning of. the gospels-the Servant is Person first and People afterwards. The Divine Ideal which our prophet saw narrowing down from the Nation to an Individual, was owned and realised by Christ. But in Him it was not exhausted. With added warmth and light, with a new power of expansion, it passed through Him to fire the hearts and enlist the wills of an infinitely greater people than the Israel for whom it was originally designed. With this witness, then, of history to the prophecies of the Servant, our way in expounding and applying them is clear. Jesus Christ is their perfect fulfilment and illustration. But we who are His Church are to find in them our ideal and duty, -our duty to God and to the world. In this, as in so many other matters, the unfulfilled prophecy of Israel is the conscience of Christianity.