Isaiahchapter 42
25 verses · BSBIsaiah book hub →
Speaks with:Matthew 12×2Luke 3×2Isaiah 43×2Isaiah 60×2Isaiah 52×12 Timothy 2×1
Summary
Chapter summary
"Behold, my servant, whom I uphold" opens the first Servant Song (42:1-4): Spirit-endowed, he brings forth justice to the Gentiles without lifting his voice in the street, neither breaking a bruised reed nor quenching a dimly burning wick, the messianic passage Matthew 12:18-21 quotes of Jesus. Jehovah, creator of the heavens, gives this servant as a covenant of the people and a light of the Gentiles, to open blind eyes and free prisoners, and will not give his glory to graven images. A new song rises from the sea, the isles, Kedar, and Sela as Jehovah goes forth like a man of war, crying out like a travailing woman, leading the blind by paths they know not. Then the chapter turns: Israel is the blind servant and deaf messenger, a people robbed and plundered, given to spoilers by Jehovah himself for sin, set on fire yet laying it not to heart.
Context
Prophecy · Isaiah — Isaiah overview
- A. 1–9 Behold My Servant: a Bruised Reed He Will Not Break
- B. 10–17 Sing a New Song; the LORD Goes Forth as a Warrior
- C. 18–25 A Blind Servant and a Deaf Messenger
The outline
A.Behold My Servant: a Bruised Reed He Will Not Breakvv. 1 to 9
Read vv. 1 to 9 →B.Sing a New Song; the LORD Goes Forth as a Warriorvv. 10 to 17
Read vv. 10 to 17 →C.A Blind Servant and a Deaf Messengervv. 18 to 25
Read vv. 18 to 25 →
The world behind this chapter
Isaiah 42The history
Two objects in the opening lines are everyday trash. A bruised reed is a river cane that has been cracked — used for shepherds' pipes, for measuring rods, and for pens, and once it is bent it whistles wrong and gets thrown away. Smoking flax is a lamp wick that has burned down and is guttering in the oil, filling the room with smoke; you pinch it out and put in a new one. The servant does neither. He does not break the cracked one or snuff the smoking one.
His method is described mostly by what he does not do. He does not cry out or lift up his voice or make it heard in the street — the street being where public announcements, court cases, and religious arguments actually happened. He does not fail or get discouraged until he has set justice in the earth, and the coastlands wait for his instruction.
The commission is release from prison. Opening blind eyes, bringing out prisoners from the dungeon, and those who sit in darkness out of the prison house — an ancient jail was frequently a pit or a windowless cell under a house, and being brought out of it was literally coming into the light.
There is a real question about who the servant is, and the book itself supplies both readings. In several places it plainly calls the nation Israel my servant, and later in this same chapter it describes a servant who is blind and deaf — which fits the nation and cannot fit the Messiah. In others, including these opening verses, the servant has a mission to Israel and cannot be Israel. The reading held here, and the reading the New Testament takes when Matthew quotes these very lines about Jesus, is that the individual Servant does what the servant nation failed to do.
The new song at the end is sung from the ends of the earth, the coastlands, the desert villages of Kedar, and the rock town of Sela — that is, from every edge of the known map inward.
What it meant to them
A generation whose national life had been cracked and was barely smoking heard a description of someone who does not discard the damaged.
And the honest self-portrait at the end of the chapter is the reason they needed him: who is blind but my servant, or deaf as my messenger? They were the people who had a book they would not read, in a fire they did not understand.
Sources cited
- J. Alec Motyer, The Prophecy of Isaiah: An Introduction and Commentary
- John N. Oswalt, The Book of Isaiah, Chapters 40–66 (NICOT)
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Isaiah 42. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
Connections from this chapter
v. 1 · Quoted here
'Behold my servant, whom I have chosen': first Servant Song, Matthew fulfillment formula (context trailhead)
Matthew 12:18→“Here is My Servant, whom I have chosen, My beloved, in whom My soul delights. I will put My Spirit on Him, and He will proclaim justice to the nations.
public-domain commentaries in agreement; cross-checked against the UBS apparatus
This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.