42. Isaiah Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter 42 The way is now open for the first great revelation and prophecy, in this second part of the book, concerning Christ. All the promises of restoration and its consequent blessing are shown to center in Him. Later on His sacrificial Death will be before us. Now we are to see the delight of God the Father in Him, and what great things will be accomplished by Him. We are given a view of His life and character in the days of His flesh, His tenderness as well as His power, and of the great deliverance He will accomplish hereafter. The light of the glory of His Person puts Cyrus into the shade for the time being, though more remains to be said about the latter afterwards. But it is Christ who now comes into view as the Blesser of Israel and the Savior of Gentiles.
It is Christ whom the Lord calls His Servant in Isaiah 42:1 : “Behold My Servant, whom I uphold; My chosen, in whom My soul delighteth.” The quotation in Matthew 12:18 speaks of Him as “My Beloved,” giving the other meaning of the Hebrew word, and harmonizing with the declaration of the Father in Isaiah 3:17. He assumed His Servant character for the fulfillment of His Father’s will on earth (Php 2:7). He was “chosen” in the eternal counsels of God in the past, for the purposes of propitiation. The demonstration of the delight of the Father in Him was the coming of the Holy Spirit upon Him, in fulfillment of this prophecy (Matthew 3:16; Mark 1:10; Luke 3:22; John 1:32-33). This statement, “I have put My Spirit upon Him,” is the center one of three great declarations in Isaiah concerning the Holy Spirit in connection with Christ. The first is in Isaiah 11:2, which speaks of His Incarnation. The second, here, points to His baptism. The last is in Isaiah 61:1, pointing to the beginning of His public ministry. From this the prophecy momentarily leaps forward to the effects of Christ’s Second Advent, in His Millennial reign: “He shall bring forth [or “cause to go forth”] judgment to the Gentiles.” The mode of the fulfillment was given in detail by the prophet in Isaiah 2:1-4. In regard to the apparent contradiction in the statement “He shall not cry” (Isaiah 42:2), and that in Isaiah 42:13, “He shall cry,” the verbs rendered “cry” are different. The first has to do with His people, the second with His enemies. The first indicates His gentleness and tenderness and the absence of self-advertising, noisy demonstration; the second is His voice as a Conqueror, “the voice of the Lord,” by which the foes of God are to be overthrown at the end of this age.
Next comes (Isaiah 42:3-4) a series of promises in chiasmic (or a, b, b, a) order (see note on Isaiah 40:21). First there is the bruised reed, which He will not break; then the smoking, or dimly burning, flax, which He will not quench. In verse 4, in the statement “He shall not fail,” the word “fail” signifies to burn dimly, and, in the next, “nor be discouraged,” the word “discouraged” signifies to be bruised or broken. So the last and first go together; so do the second and third. He will not bruise the broken reed, nor will He Himself be bruised. He neither will quench the dimly burning torch, nor will He Himself burn dimly. Thus He causes His tried ones to share His glory.
These “precious promises” have much encouragement for us in His loving care for us now. If we sometimes feel like the broken reed, fit only for crushing, or feel that our light is but a poor flickering thing, let us bear in mind His desires toward us, and present ourselves to Him for His gracious renewing and His restoring power.
Having called upon the hearers to contemplate His Servant, Jehovah now addresses Him Himself, but this is introduced by a description of His Almighty power (Isaiah 42:5). Speaking of Himself by His title GOD THE LORD, titles of omnipotence and eternity, He declares that He is the Creator (or Arranger) of the heavens, and of the earth and its products, and the Giver of life and spirit to its inhabitants. This tremendous utterance is made the basis of an assurance and promise, and of a revelation of His purposes. The assurance is as to the call He has given; the promises are: (1) “I will hold Thine hand,” (2) “will keep Thee,” (3) “will give Thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles.” The purposes are: (1) “to open the blind eyes,” (2) “to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon,” (3) “and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.”
All this will be made true in regard to the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ, concerning Israel, in a day to come.
Yet what a comfort it all is to us in its secondary application to ourselves as servants of God! We are justified in applying Isaiah 42:6-7 to ourselves by the fact that the Lord Jesus uses similar language to His apostle as recorded in Acts 26:18. He who has called us in righteousness will still hold our hand, and will keep us, making us ministers of His Gospel, enabling us to bring light and liberty to those who are in spiritual darkness and captivity. The Lord now makes the solemn affirmation “I am Jehovah; that is My Name,” recalling His twice repeated Name in Isaiah 42:5-6. That was the Name by which He revealed Himself to Moses, as a pledge that He would fulfill His word in regard to the commission given to him. By this title He declared (1) His self-existence, Exodus 3:14; (2) the assurance of the everlasting and unchangeable nature of His character, Exodus 3:15; (3) His power to redeem, Exodus 6:2-6; (4) His authority as the One who, having redeemed, claims obedience to His commands, Exodus 20:2. That His Name is the guarantee of the fulfillment of His word, is the clear intimation here in Isaiah 42:8.
How sure and steadfast is His word! What an incentive it provides for faith to lay hold of His promises, even in the darkest hour and amidst the most perplexing and distressing circumstances! To this declaration He adds the authoritative assurance, “My glory will I not give to another, neither My praise unto graven images.” This is a ratification of the significance of His Name. His glory is the manifestation of His nature, attributes and power (cp. John 1:14; John 2:11). “My glory … My praise!” The revelation of His glory is designed to draw forth the praise of those to whom He reveals it. His glory and praise are incommunicable. They will not be yielded to another. All idol-devotees shall acknowledge the fact. Let them recognize now the essential difference between His glory and power and the impotence of their gods. This is the great point of the twofold utterance in Isaiah 42:9; firstly, “Behold, the former things are come to pass,”—that which had been predicted, as foreordained to take place up to that time, had already been fulfilled; secondly, “and new things do I declare; before they spring forth I tell you of them.” The new things are those which have just been foretold in Isaiah 42:1-7, as well as others which are to follow. All this is one great indication of the significance of His title “Jehovah,” a title the prerogatives of which belong to the Lord Jesus Christ equally with the Father (see John 12:41). This 42nd chapter presents some striking contrasts. There is, for instance, the promise of the opening of the eyes of the blind (Isaiah 42:7); on the other hand, there is the blindness of the Lord’s Servant in having his eyes closed to all that is not consistent with His will (Isaiah 42:19). This contrast calls for a special consideration. The whole paragraph (Isaiah 42:10-17) is Millennial in its aspect, and contains some of the “new things” to which reference was made in Isaiah 42:9. The first of these is the “new song” mentioned in Isaiah 42:10, the song of praise from nations that had long been lying in spiritual darkness, and from the lips that before had sung songs of vanity and vileness, and mournful dirges in celebration of their pagan gods. The mention of the isles in Isaiah 42:10 and Isaiah 42:12 suggests the uttermost parts of the earth. In Isaiah 42:11 Kedar, a stronghold of Arabia, represents the Arabs in general (cp. Psalms 120:5). The name was that of Ishmael’s second son (Genesis 25:13). So again, in the same verse Sela (meaning a rock), r.v., is the same as Petra (the corresponding Greek word). It originally belonged to Edom, then to Moab, but afterwards was occupied by the Arab prince Aretas. The “wilderness,” in the same verse, is the Arabian desert. In the coming Day the Arabs will no longer be followers of the False Prophet. The Lord will overthrow the rule of Islam, together with the ten-kingdomed dominion of the Beast. Christ will “go forth as a mighty Man; He shall stir up jealousy [or zeal] like a Man of war; He shall cry, He shall shout aloud” (Isaiah 42:13). The cry which He will raise against His foes is referred to in Joel 3:16 (cp. Isaiah 63:1, and Jeremiah 25:30, and, for the same scene, Revelation 19:11-21). At Isaiah 42:14 the Lord Himself again speaks, as in the earlier part of the chapter. Confirming now the effect of His victorious shout, He says, “I have long time holden My peace,” indicating the longsuffering, which is so significant in these days wherein the Gospel of His grace is permitted to go forth to all nations in spite of the antagonism of His foes and “the falling away” foretold in 2 Thessalonians 2:3.
There is another striking contrast in the latter part of the chapter, concerning His people’s blindness. On the one side are those who are deprived of sight because of their sin and its consequent retribution. There is, however, a gracious promise for them and then an appeal to them to open their eyes. There are ways of which they are ignorant, paths that they know not. They walk in darkness with its accompanying misery and hopelessness. The Lord will yet expel all this from them and will lead them into His own paths of righteousness and peace, making darkness light before them and crooked places straight (Isaiah 42:16). But the Lord cannot rest content with present deafness and blindness. His people are called upon to hear and to look, that they may know His voice and see His ways. On the other hand, and in direct contrast, come questions that contain their own answer, as to blindness and deafness with which God is well pleased. This is the blindness of one who stands in His counsels and acts as His servant, one who enjoys constant communion with Him and is blind to all that would detract from this. “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 the Lord’s servant? Thou seest many things, but thou observest not; his ears are open, but he heareth not” (Isaiah 42:19-20). This is true of the excellencies of Christ as Jehovah’s Servant. It gives a cogent and instructive message to us who by grace have been called into His service. How many things come into our experience which obscure our vision of the Lord Himself, which would make us deaf to His voice, things to which our fleshly nature is all too ready to respond! In how many ways are we tempted to forgetfulness of the fact that we are here simply to do the will of Him who has called and sent us! To act according to our own will brings grievous sorrow to our hearts. Be it ours to listen to His voice and to be deaf to all that is contrary to it, to walk as those who “look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen,” whose eyes are open to behold the glory of the Lord and are blind to that which would dim the vision.
After the record of this faithful blindness, the reproof given to Israel is resumed from Isaiah 42:18. They saw many things but observed not; their ears were opened but they heard not. They would not walk in His ways, neither were they obedient to His Law. Even when the judgment of God fell upon them, they laid it not to heart (Isaiah 42:24-25). Isaiah 42:21 again interposes a record of the counsels of the Lord, and now in regard to the Law, “It pleased the Lord, for His righteousness’ sake, to magnify the law and make it honorable.” The inherent character of the Law is set in contrast to the ways of His people to whom He gave it.
There is also an indication of the way in which God has exhibited His glory in all His dispensational dealings in connection with the Law, and particularly in its complete fulfillment in the perfect character and life of the Lord Jesus. To this Psalms 40:1-17 bears the predictive testimony, “I delight to do Thy will, O My God; yea, Thy Law is within My Heart.” His perfect obedience is succinctly described in Php 2:1-30, in the statement, “He humbled Himself, becoming obedient even unto death” (r.v.), that is to say, obedient from the beginning of the days of His flesh until the climax of His obedience was reached on the Cross. In the Person of His Son Jehovah magnified the Law both by His life and by His death, to which the life was preliminary, as showing that He was the only One who could make expiation for sin. God thus magnified the Law “for His righteousness’ sake.” Christ Himself is spoken of as “Jesus Christ the Righteous,” and His work on the Cross is described in Romans 5:18 as “one act of righteousness” (r.v.), in contrast to Adam’s one trespass. The Law put all men under condemnation. The death of Christ brings “justification of life.” Thus the Lord has demonstrated His unswerving righteousness in providing the ground upon which righteousness is reckoned to the sinner through faith. The Law has been made honorable, i.e., glorious, so that it might be “established” (Romans 3:31), and might be fulfilled, not as a means of life, but by those who have life. This is the essence of the Gospel we are commissioned to preach, and in the fellowship of this glorious ministry, we are “ambassadors on behalf of Christ.” At Isaiah 42:23, the beginning of the last paragraph of the chapter, the last of the series of appealing questions is made: “Who is there among you that will give ear to this? that will hearken and hear for the time to come?” The question relates to what has preceded, and immediately to the deplorable state of Israel, who as a nation were yet in their hardened condition, “robbed and spoiled” (Isaiah 42:22) and given up to suffer at the hands of Gentile nations, a suffering yet to be intensified at the close of the “times of the Gentiles” (Isaiah 42:24-25). The appeal is, again, to godly ones in the nation, amidst which the Lord has never ceased to possess a remnant of those who fear His Name and wait for the consolation of Israel, those who are ready to give ear to the voice of God.
It is possible for a believer to be robbed and spoiled, possible so to yield the inner springs of his being to the outer influences of the world, that, like Samson of old, he loses the consciousness of the Lord’s approval and is robbed of his spiritual power. An irretrievable loss! For though he may be restored, the loss of a reward consequent upon the period of backsliding will be eternal. To be taken captive by our spiritual foe is to be “snared in holes” and “hid in prison houses” (Isaiah 42:22). There are many such places in the world for the one who turns from the will and way of the Lord. On the contrary, there are those whose ears are opened to hear the voice of God and will “hearken and hear for the time to come” (Isaiah 42:23). The scriptures are constantly pointing God’s people to events determined for the future by His unthwartable counsels. Such parts of Scripture are generally termed prophecy, and this is by some counted as too deep for consideration, and as having very little practical effect upon the daily life and work of the believer. The very opposite is the case. The assembly at Thessalonica was not many months old when the apostle reminded them how often, when he was with them in his pioneering work, he instructed them about the Man of Sin and the Day of the Lord and other matters of the future (2 Thessalonians 2:5). Such instruction would not only guide their thoughts but prove a barrier against the influences of the world. Today, then, the Lord appeals to us to hearken “for the time to come,” that is, to know His mind as to what is coming on the world and as to our eternal destiny, so that our lives may be conformed to His will. The saddest feature of the peoples’s state, next to the fact that they had so grievously sinned against their God, was, that, in the judgment that retributively fell upon them in their being given up “for a spoil” and to the cruelty of “the robbers” (Isaiah 42:24), they failed to discern that all this was the Lord’s doing. He it was who had kindled the fire of human persecution and tyranny. A preferable rendering for “the fury of His anger and the strength of battle,” is “the heat of His wrath and the violence of war” (or, as in the Septuagint, “the war that prevailed against them”). It had set His people “on fire round about,” yet they “knew not”: it burned them, yet they “laid it not to heart.”
These things are written that we may not fail to discern the gracious purposes, the wisdom, the love, that lie behind the chastening hand of the Lord. If we strive not against sin with the utmost resistance, we shall forget the exhortation “which reasoneth with us as with sons.” Let us, on the contrary, bow in the subjection that apprehends the motive and meaning of His dealings with us, realizing that what He does is “for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness.” This is the very acme of blessedness, and the means of power in our service! Thus shall His ways with us produce “peaceable fruit … even the fruit of righteousness” (Hebrews 12:4-11).