Isaiah 42:18

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 (Isaiah 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" (Galatians 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.