Isaiah 42:5

"Thus saith God Jehovah, he that created the heavens, and stretched them forth; he that spread abroad the earth and that which cometh out of it; he hath given breath unto the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein. I, Jehovah, have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thy 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 dungeon, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison-house. I am Jehovah, that is my name; and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise unto graven images. Behold, the former things are come to pass, and new things do I declare; before they spring forth I tell you of them."

This paragraph, like all the rest of these final chapters of Isaiah is loaded with the earmarks of Isaianic authorship, Note the repetition in Isaiah 42:5,6, and 8, calling attention to the fact that it is Jehovah God who is promising these wonderful things; and, "This is one of Isaiah's favorite means of emphasizing the certainty of the fulfillment of the things prophesied."[10]

Concerning the specific things prophesied in these five verses, Archer listed them thus: "God's twofold mission for his Servant would be: (a) to fulfill his covenant promises to Israel, and (b) to bring the light of revelation to the Gentiles (Isaiah 42:5,6)."[11] The first of these concerned especially the bringing of the Messiah into the world, which event God had specifically tied to the posterity of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; and therein lies the fact of God's refraining from the destruction of the "chosen people" until A.D. 70. Ages before the Messiah finally came, the apostate nation of the fleshly descendants of Abraham fully deserved to be destroyed, yet God, in a sense, was `stuck with them' until Messiah was born. Paul commented on this thus: "God endured with much longsuffering vessels of wrath fitted unto destruction; and that he might make known the riches of his glory upon vessels of mercy, which he afore prepared unto glory" (Romans 9:22). The profound English Scholar John Locke commented on this as follows:

"By `the vessels of wrath fitted for destruction' (mentioned in Isaiah 42:22), he manifestly means the nation of the Jews, who were now (in Paul's day) grown ripe, and fit for the destruction God was bringing upon them. And by `vessels of mercy,' he means the Christian Church gathered out of a small collection of convert Jews, and the rest made up of Gentiles, who were together from thenceforward to be `the people of God' in the room of the Jewish nation, now cast off, as apparent in Romans 9:24."[12]

The Gospel which would be proclaimed by the Servant would specifically invite the Gentiles of all mankind to share and share alike with the Jews the New Covenant and the blessings of salvation and eternal life. Isaiah 42:7 prophesied that the Servant would open the eyes of the blind and release the captives from prison. Christ did indeed open the eyes of the physically blind; but both that miracle and the releasing from prison found their real fulfillment in the spiritual sector. Christ referred to this in Luke 4:18,19, where he quoted from another passage in Isaiah (Isaiah 61:1f) which is very similar to this. In Isaiah 42:8,9, God again announced his refusal to share his glory with idols and graven images, and once more proclaimed God's ability to foretell events before they came to pass.