Isaiah 42
Isaiah 42 introduces a figure who will move through the rest of the book and finally dominate it: the Servant of the LORD. The chapter opens not with a description of the Servant's strength but with the Father's own affection for him: Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles (v. 1). What follows is one of the most striking job descriptions in all of Scripture. The Servant's power is real - he will set justice through the whole earth, and even the distant coastlands will wait for his teaching - but the manner of that power is gentleness. He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street (v. 2). He will not break the bruised reed or snuff out the smoking flax. This is not the way conquerors come.3
Then the Creator Himself speaks and commissions the Servant. Thus saith God the LORD, he that created the heavens, and stretched them out (v. 5) - the One who made everything and gives breath to every living thing now calls the Servant in righteousness and gives him for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles; to open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison (vv. 6-7). The mission reaches far past Israel to the nations sitting in darkness. And lest any of that glory be misplaced, the LORD plants a flag no one may move: I am the LORD: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images (v. 8). The Servant's work and the LORD's glory are bound together; what the Servant does, the LORD does, and the praise belongs to Him alone.
The chapter then bursts into music. Sing unto the LORD a new song, and his praise from the end of the earth (v. 10) - sea and islands, wilderness and mountain villages are all called to lift their voices, because the LORD is going forth to act. He has held His peace a long time; now He will cry out like a woman in labour, level mountains, and lead the blind by a way that they knew not (v. 16). And then, in a turn that catches the reader off guard, the lens swings back onto Israel. The people called to be the LORD's servant have gone blind and deaf; they are robbed and spoiled, prisoners in their own holes - not by accident, but because they would not walk in His ways. The gentle Servant of the opening and the failing servant Israel stand side by side, and the chapter ends with a question hanging in the air: Who among you will give ear to this? (v. 23).2
Tap any highlighted phrase to jump to the commentary that unpacks it.
Isaiah 42:1-4Behold My Servant
1Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles. 2He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. 3A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench: he shall bring forth judgment in truth. 4He shall not fail nor be discouraged, till he have set judgment in the earth: and the isles shall wait for his law.
The first Servant Song opens with a single word of command - Behold - as if the LORD turns the reader's face toward someone He wants seen. And the first thing said is not the Servant's power but the Father's heart toward him: Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him (v. 1). Four things are stacked here, and the order matters. He is the LORD's servant - his whole life bent to another's will. He is upheld - not striving on his own strength but held up by God. He is the LORD's elect, His chosen one, the object of His delight. And he is anointed: I have put my spirit upon him. This is no servant scrambling to earn approval. He begins already chosen, already loved, already filled with the Spirit - and only then is his mission named: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles. The word rendered judgment means far more than verdicts in a courtroom; it is justice, the right ordering of things, the way life is meant to go. And it reaches at once past Israel to the nations. The Servant's assignment is nothing less than to set the whole world right.1
Having named the Servant's vast commission, the song immediately describes the manner of it - and the manner is the surprise. He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street (v. 2). Everything about an ancient conqueror was loud: the herald's shout, the war-cry, the proclamation bellowed in the public square so the crowds would tremble. The Servant comes the opposite way. He will not raise a clamour, will not push and posture, will not turn the street into a stage for himself. He sets the world right not by overpowering it with noise but by a strange, patient quietness. This is the first hint that the kingdom the Servant brings does not run on the engines that drive the kingdoms of men. Force, volume, intimidation, the relentless self-advertisement that the powerful mistake for strength - none of it is his method. He works in a register the world barely notices, and somehow it is by that that justice will finally fill the earth.
Then comes the image the whole chapter is remembered for: A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench: he shall bring forth judgment in truth (v. 3). A reed by the riverbank, already cracked and bent, is good for nothing; the natural thing is to snap it and throw it away. A lamp-wick down to its last thread of smoke, no flame left, is ready to be pinched out. These are pictures of people at the end of themselves - the failing, the faint, the all-but-finished. And the Servant's way with them is not to break and not to quench, but to spare and to restore. Here is the marvel of the verse: this very gentleness is how he brings forth judgment in truth. We tend to think justice and tenderness pull against each other - that to be just you must be hard, and to be gentle you must go soft on what is wrong. The Servant refuses the trade. He will not fail nor be discouraged, till he have set judgment in the earth (v. 4); he is utterly unrelenting about justice, and utterly gentle with the broken, at the same time. And the reach of it is global: the isles shall wait for his law - even the far coastlands, the ends of the known world, will look to him and wait.
Isaiah 42:5-9A Covenant of the People, a Light of the Gentiles
5Thus saith God the LORD, he that created the heavens, and stretched them out; he that spread forth the earth, and that which cometh out of it; he that giveth breath unto the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein: 6I the LORD have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles; 7To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house. 8I am the LORD: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images. 9Behold, the former things are come to pass, and new things do I declare: before they spring forth I tell you of them.
Before the LORD says another word about the Servant's mission, He says who is speaking. Thus saith God the LORD, he that created the heavens, and stretched them out; he that spread forth the earth, and that which cometh out of it; he that giveth breath unto the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein (v. 5). The commission about to be given rests on this foundation: the One giving it made everything. He created the heavens and stretched them out like a tent; He spread forth the earth and everything that springs from it; and most intimately, He giveth breath to every person and spirit to all who walk the earth. Every lung that draws air does so on loan from Him. This is not an idle credential. Isaiah has just spent a whole chapter exposing the idols as nothings that cannot speak or save (ch. 41); now the contrast is total. The gods of the nations are carved blocks that give nothing and know nothing. The LORD made the sky and hands out breath by the moment. When such a God commissions a Servant and announces a plan, it is not a hope or a wish - it is the word of the Maker, and it carries the weight of the One who spoke the heavens into being.
Now the Maker turns and speaks directly to the Servant: I the LORD have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles; to open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house (vv. 6-7). Notice the promises before the mission: the LORD will hold thine hand and keep thee. The Servant does not go out alone; he is held. Then the mission opens like a series of doors. He is given as a covenant of the people - he does not merely bring a covenant, he is one, the living bond between God and humanity. He is a light of the Gentiles - light not just for Israel but for the nations sitting in the dark. And three acts of rescue follow, each a picture of liberation: to open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners, to lead them that sit in darkness out of the dungeon. Blindness, imprisonment, darkness - these are the conditions the Servant comes to undo. Whether one reads the blindness and bondage as bodily, spiritual, or both, the direction is unmistakable: the Servant's work is to bring sight, freedom, and light to people shut up in the worst kind of dark.
In the middle of all this commissioning the LORD plants a sentence that stands like a boundary stone: I am the LORD: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images (v. 8). The name rendered LORD in small capitals is the personal, covenant name of God - the name He revealed to Moses, the name above every name. And the LORD draws a line around His glory that no one may cross: He will not hand it over. The point is double-edged. On one side it is a rebuke of the idols just exposed in chapter 41 - the graven images that steal worship belonging to God alone and can do nothing to earn it. On the other side it quietly secures everything the chapter has said about the Servant. If the LORD will not give His glory to another, then the Servant who bears the Spirit, who is given as a covenant and a light, who opens blind eyes and frees prisoners, is not a rival to God drawing off His honour. The Servant's work and the LORD's glory do not compete; they coincide. What the Servant accomplishes redounds to the LORD, because the LORD is the one at work in him. And then the chapter looks forward: the former things are come to pass, and new things do I declare (v. 9). The God who foretold the past and saw it happen now announces something new - and tells it before it springs forth, so that when it comes, everyone will know who spoke it.
Isaiah 42:10-17Sing Unto the LORD a New Song
10Sing unto the LORD a new song, and his praise from the end of the earth, ye that go down to the sea, and all that is therein; the isles, and the inhabitants thereof. 11Let the wilderness and the cities thereof lift up their voice, the villages that Kedar doth inhabit: let the inhabitants of the rock sing, let them shout from the top of the mountains. 12Let them give glory unto the LORD, and declare his praise in the islands. 13The LORD shall go forth as a mighty man, he shall stir up jealousy like a man of war: he shall cry, yea, roar; he shall prevail against his enemies. 14I have long time holden my peace; I have been still, and refrained myself: now will I cry like a travailing woman; I will destroy and devour at once. 15I will make waste mountains and hills, and dry up all their herbs; and I will make the rivers islands, and I will dry up the pools. 16And I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them. 17They shall be turned back, they shall be greatly ashamed, that trust in graven images, that say to the molten images, Ye are our gods.
The Servant's coming and the LORD's new work call for a new response, and the chapter answers with music: Sing unto the LORD a new song, and his praise from the end of the earth (v. 10). A new song is what the heart sings when God has done something fresh - not the old, worn refrain but a praise born of a new act of mercy. And the summons goes out to the whole creation, from horizon to horizon. Those who go down to the sea and all that fills it; the isles and their peoples; the wilderness and its towns; the desert tribes of Kedar; the inhabitants of the rock in their mountain villages - everyone, everywhere, is called to lift up their voice and shout from the top of the mountains (v. 11). This is the natural fruit of verse 6: if the Servant is a light to the Gentiles, then the Gentiles, to the ends of the earth, are exactly the ones now called to sing. The praise that began in Israel is meant to circle the globe. Let them give glory unto the LORD, and declare his praise in the islands (v. 12) - the very glory the LORD said He will not give to another (v. 8) is the glory all nations are summoned to give back to Him.
The tone now shifts dramatically. The Servant of verses 1-4 would not so much as raise his voice in the street; here the LORD Himself goes out with a war-cry: The LORD shall go forth as a mighty man, he shall stir up jealousy like a man of war: he shall cry, yea, roar; he shall prevail against his enemies (v. 13). The two pictures are not a contradiction; they are two sides of one work. The Servant's quiet gentleness toward the bruised reed and the LORD's thunderous advance against evil belong together - you cannot rescue the oppressed without confronting what oppresses them. And the LORD explains His long silence: I have long time holden my peace; I have been still, and refrained myself: now will I cry like a travailing woman; I will destroy and devour at once (v. 14). The image is arresting - the God who seemed silent for so long now cries out like a woman in the throes of labour, all restraint gone, because something is being born that cannot be held back any longer. He will make waste mountains, dry up the rivers and pools (v. 15) - the language of an unstoppable upheaval. To people who had wondered whether the LORD had forgotten them, the answer is that His silence was never absence. It was patience holding back a power about to break forth.
And then, at the height of all that thunder, the LORD's voice drops to tenderness, and we see what the upheaval was for: And I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them (v. 16). The power that levels mountains bends down to take the blind by the hand. They cannot see the road; so He will lead them down a way they never knew, turning their darkness into light and their crooked paths straight. Notice the gentleness inside the strength: the same God going forth like a man of war is the God who personally guides the blind step by step and promises, I will not forsake them. This is the heart of the chapter laid bare - the LORD's might is bent entirely toward leading helpless people home. The only ones left out are those who refuse the hand: They shall be turned back, they shall be greatly ashamed, that trust in graven images (v. 17). To cling to a carved block that cannot lead anyone anywhere, while the living God offers to walk you through the dark Himself, is to be turned back ashamed. The choice the verse leaves is stark: the LORD's guiding hand, or a god of wood that cannot move.3
Isaiah 42:18-25Who Is Blind, but My Servant?
18Hear, ye deaf; and look, ye blind, that ye may see. 19Who 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? 20Seeing many things, but thou observest not; opening the ears, but he heareth not. 21The LORD is well pleased for his righteousness' sake; he will magnify the law, and make it honourable. 22But 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. 23Who among you will give ear to this? who will hearken and hear for the time to come? 24Who 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. 25Therefore 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.
Now comes one of the sharpest turns in the chapter. The Servant of verses 1-4 was sent to open the blind eyes (v. 7); but the LORD now wheels around and addresses a different servant entirely - the people of Israel, who were also called His servant, and who have gone blind themselves. Hear, ye deaf; and look, ye blind, that ye may see. 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? (vv. 18-19). The irony cuts deep. Israel was chosen to be the LORD's messenger to the nations, the people through whom light would come - and they have become the blindest of all. They are seeing many things, but thou observest not; opening the ears, but he heareth not (v. 20). This is not a defect of the eyes or the ears. They see plenty and hear plenty; they simply do not take it in. It is the willful blindness of a people who have been shown the LORD's ways again and again and refuse to perceive them - who watch God act and learn nothing, who hear His word and let it slide off. The chapter thus sets two servants side by side: the chosen Servant who will not fail, and the servant-people who failed at the very thing they were chosen for. The contrast is meant to make the reader ache - and look harder at the first Servant.
A single verse in the middle of this section opens a window onto why the LORD persists with such a people at all: The LORD is well pleased for his righteousness' sake; he will magnify the law, and make it honourable (v. 21). The phrase for his righteousness' sake points away from anything in Israel and back to the LORD Himself. He does not stay committed to this blind, failing nation because they have earned it; He stays committed because of His own righteousness, His own faithfulness to what He has promised. And His purpose for His law is striking: He will magnify it and make it honourable - not shrink it or set it aside, but enlarge it and crown it with glory. The law given through Moses was never meant to be a burden grudgingly tolerated; it was meant to be made great, lifted up, shown to be the honourable and life-giving thing it is. Held next to the Servant Song that opens the chapter, the verse glows: the Servant who brings forth judgment in truth (v. 3) and for whom the isles wait (v. 4) is exactly how a faithful, righteous LORD will at last magnify His law and make it honourable in all the earth - not by Israel's success, which has failed, but by His own righteousness, which cannot.
The chapter ends by naming, with unflinching honesty, the wreckage of the blind servant - and refusing the comfortable lie about whose hand was behind it. 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 (v. 22). This is exile, plain and bleak: a people plundered, trapped, imprisoned, with no one to cry Restore. Then the searching question: Who gave Jacob for a spoil, and Israel to the robbers? (v. 24). The natural answer would be “the enemy armies.” But the text gives a harder one: 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. The disaster was not the LORD losing control or the idols proving stronger than He. It was the LORD Himself, acting in just response to a people who would not walk in his ways. And the closing line is the saddest of all: it hath set him on fire round about, yet he knew not; and it burned him, yet he laid it not to heart (v. 25). The fire of judgment fell, and the blind servant did not even understand what was happening to him - did not connect the burning to his own refusal to hear. That is the deepest blindness in the chapter: to be in the fire and still not lay it to heart. And it leaves the reader where verse 23 already pressed: Who among you will give ear to this? The whole bleak ending is, underneath, a plea - that someone, now, would finally hear.
Further study
- The Hebrew text of Isaiah 42 with Rashi, Ibn Ezra, Radak, and other classical commentators side by side - useful for avdi (v. 1, “my servant”), for the picture of the qaneh ratsuts (v. 3, the “bruised reed”), and for the much-debated identity of the Servant whom the LORD upholds.
- Isaiah 42 ↔ Matthew 12 · Luke 2 & 4 · the Servant SongsIntertextual BibleTraces the threads tying Isaiah 42 to the rest of Scripture - the opening of the first Servant Song (vv. 1-4) quoted in full of Jesus (Matt. 12:18-21), the light of the Gentiles (v. 6) taken up by Simeon (Luke 2:32), and the opening of blind eyes and freeing of prisoners (v. 7) proclaimed by Jesus at Nazareth (Luke 4:18).
- Isaiah 42 - Translators' NotesNET BibleThe NET Bible's detailed footnotes on Isaiah 42 - the identity and anointing of the Servant in verses 1-4, the imagery of the bruised reed and smoking flax (v. 3), the covenant-and-light commission (vv. 6-7), and the difficult portrait of the blind and deaf servant in verses 18-25.
Where this echoes in Scripture
Behold My Servant
- Matthew 12:18-21Behold my servant, whom I have chosen... A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he not quench, till he send forth judgment unto victory.The opening of the song (vv. 1-4) quoted nearly whole and applied directly to Jesus.
- Matthew 3:16-17the Spirit of God descending like a dove... This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.The Spirit put upon the Servant (v. 1), and the Father’s delight, seen at the Jordan.
- Isaiah 11:2the spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding...The same anointing as verse 1 - the Spirit resting on the chosen one.
- Isaiah 53:2-3he hath no form nor comeliness... despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows.A later Servant Song - the same Servant, his quietness (v. 2) deepening into suffering.
- Matthew 9:12-13They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick... I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.The Servant’s care for the bruised and faint (v. 3) - the sick sought, not the well.
A Covenant of the People, a Light of the Gentiles
- Luke 2:30-32mine eyes have seen thy salvation... a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel.Simeon names the infant Jesus in the words of verse 6 - the light of the Gentiles, come.
- Luke 4:18to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised.Jesus reads the threefold rescue of verse 7 as his own anointed mission.
- John 8:12I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.The Servant given as a light of the Gentiles (v. 6) claiming the title in person.
- Isaiah 49:6I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth.The second Servant Song repeats the commission of verse 6 - light to the ends of the earth.
- Exodus 20:3-5Thou shalt have no other gods before me... Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them.The ground of verse 8 - the LORD’s glory and praise belong to Him alone, never to graven images.
Sing Unto the LORD a New Song
- Psalm 96:1O sing unto the LORD a new song: sing unto the LORD, all the earth.The same summons as verse 10 - all the earth called to a new song for a new work.
- Revelation 5:9they sung a new song... thou hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people.The new song of verse 10 fulfilled - sung by the redeemed of every nation.
- John 9:39For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see.The blind led into light (v. 16) - the Servant opening eyes that could not see.
- Isaiah 40:4every valley shall be exalted... and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain.The crooked made straight (v. 16) - the LORD smoothing the road for His people.
- John 14:18I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.The promise of verse 16 - <em>I will… not forsake them</em> - in the Servant’s own voice.
Who Is Blind, but My Servant?
- Matthew 13:13-15because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand.The willful blindness of verses 19-20 - the same condition the Servant met when he came.
- John 9:39-41For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind.The reversal of verse 19 - the Servant opening the eyes of the truly blind and exposing the falsely sighted.
- Isaiah 6:9-10Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not... lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears.Isaiah’s commission foretells the deafness of verses 18-20 - a people who hear and do not understand.
- Daniel 9:11-14all Israel have transgressed thy law... therefore the curse is poured upon us... for we obeyed not his voice.The honest confession of verse 24 - the spoil came from the LORD because they would not walk in His ways.
- Romans 11:25blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.The blindness of verses 18-20 carried forward - and held within the LORD’s larger purpose for the nations.