Isaiah 42:1-8 - Exposition

ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE SERVANT OF THE LORD , AND THE WORK WHICH HE WILL PERFORM . There are comparatively few who deny that, in this place at any rate, the "Servant of the Lord" is the Messiah. (So the Targum on the passage; so Abar-barnel; so, among moderns, Oehler, Delitzsch, and Mr. Cheyne.) The portraiture has "so strong an individuality and such marked personal features, that it cannot possibly be a mere personified collective;" and it goes so "infinitely beyond anything of which a man was ever capable that it can only be the future Christ" (Delitzsch). It may be added that St. Matthew ( Matthew 12:17-21 ) distinctly applies the passage to our Lord.