Isaiah 42
42
Chapter 42
The Lord's special Servant #42:1 There are four parts of Isaiah's book which have ‘Songs about the Servant’. In these songs, the Servant is God's special Messiah. The songs are in Isaiah 42:1-4; 49:1-6; 50:4-9; 52:13—53:12.
1‘Here is my servant.
I give him strength.
I have chosen him.
He makes me very happy.
I have put my Spirit on him.
He will bring justice to the nations.
2He will not cry out.
He will not shout.
He will not speak loudly in the streets.
3He will not hurt weak people,
like someone who breaks a weak reed.
He will not destroy helpless people,
like someone who puts out a weak flame.
He will be kind to people,
and he will judge them in a fair way.
4He will remain strong and brave,
until he brings justice to the whole world.
People who are in lands far away
will wait for him to teach them.’
5The Lord is God. He is the God who created the sky. He hung it up like a curtain. He created the earth and everything that lives on it. He gives life and breath to all the people who live on it. The Lord says to his servant:
6‘I have chosen you to bring righteousness.
I will take hold of your hand,
and I will keep you safe.
Through you, I will make a covenant with my people,
and you will bring light to the other nations.
7You will cause blind people to see.
You will cause prisoners to be free.
You will bring out into the open
people who sit in dark prisons.
8I am the Lord. That is my name.
I will not let anyone else share my glory.
I will not let people praise idols.
I am the only one that they must praise.
9Everything that I promised in the past has happened
as I said that it would happen.
Now I will tell you about new things.
Before they start to happen,
I will tell you about them.’
10Sing a new song to the Lord!
All over the earth, people should praise him.
Praise him, you people who travel over the sea
and everything that lives in the sea.
Praise him, you people who live in lands far away.
11People who live in the towns of the desert
should shout aloud to praise him.
Kedar's people should praise him
in the places where they live.
The people who live in Sela should sing aloud with joy.
They should shout from the tops of the mountains.
12They should all honour the Lord
as he deserves.
Those who live in lands far away
should praise him for what he has done.
13The Lord marches out to battle,
like a brave soldier.
He is angry with his enemies,
and he is ready to attack them.
He shouts loudly as he attacks,
and he shows his power over them.
14The Lord says,
‘I have been quiet for a long time.
I have held back my anger.
But now I am ready to deliver!
I will cry out and shout and groan,
like a woman who is ready to give birth.
15I will destroy the mountains and the hills.
I will cause the plants that grow on them to die.
I will cause the rivers to become dry islands.
I will cause the pools of water to become dry.
16I will lead my blind people
along ways that they did not know before.
I will be their guide,
as they walk along paths that are new to them.
I will change the dark places that are in front of them,
so that they become places with light.
And I will cause the rough ground to become flat.
Those are the things that I will do for them.
I will not leave my people alone.
17But I will push away people who trust idols to help them.
Those people will become ashamed.
They say to images that they have made,
“You are our gods.”
18Listen to me, you deaf people!
Look at this, you blind people!
19Who is blind?
Nobody is as blind as my servant. #42:19 Here, God's servant is the Israelite nation. See Isaiah 41:8.
Who is deaf?
Nobody is as deaf as the one who takes my message.
The people that I agreed a covenant with are blind!
Yes, the servant of the Lord is truly blind!
20You Israelites have seen many things,
but you do not understand them.
You have opened your ears to listen,
but you have not really heard anything.’
21The Lord always does what is right. So he has made his law great and important. He is happy when people respect his law.
22But enemies have robbed God's people and they have taken away all their valuable things. Their enemies have caught them in traps and they have made them prisoners. There is nobody who will rescue them. Their enemies have stored them safely, and nobody says, ‘Send them back.’
23Will any of you listen to my message?
Will you think carefully about it in the future?
24Who put Jacob's descendants
under the power of their enemies?
Who gave the Israelites
to people who would rob them?
It was the Lord!
He is the one that we have not obeyed.
His people did not live in the way that he wanted.
They did not obey his law.
25So the Lord was very angry with them.
He punished them with a cruel war.
His anger was like a fire all round them,
but they did not understand what he was doing.
His anger burned them,
but they did not learn their lesson.
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MissionAssist 2018
Isaiah 42
42
The Mission of Yahweh’s Servant
1Look! here is my servant; I hold him,
my chosen one, in whom my soul delights.
I have put#Literally “given” my spirit on him;
he will bring justice forth to the nations.
2He will not cry out and lift up
and make his voice heard in the street.
3He will not break a broken reed,
and he not will extinguish a dim wick.
He will bring justice forth in#Or “to” faithfulness.
4He will not grow faint,
and he will not be broken
until he has established justice in the earth.
And the coastlands wait for his teaching.
5Thus says the God, Yahweh,
who created the heavens
and stretched them out,
who spread out the earth and its offspring,
who gives breath to the people upon it
and spirit to those who walk in it.
6“I am Yahweh; I have called you in righteousness,
and I have grasped your hand and watched over you;
and I have given you as a covenant of the people,
as a light of the nations,
7to open the blind eyes,
to bring the prisoner out from the dungeon,
those who sit in darkness from the house of imprisonment.
8I am Yahweh; that is my name,
and I do not give my glory to another,
nor#Or “and” my praise to the idols.
9Look! the former things have come,
and I declare new things.
I announce#Literally “cause to hear” them to you before they sprout up.”
A Song of Praise to Yahweh
10Sing a new song to Yahweh;
praise him from the end of the earth,
you#Or “those” who go down to the sea and that which fills it,
the coastlands and their inhabitants.
11Let the desert and its towns lift up their voice,
the villages that Kedar inhabits.
Let the inhabitants of Sela sing for joy;
let them shout loudly from the top#Literally “head” of the mountains.
12Let them give#Or “establish” glory to Yahweh
and declare his praise in the coastlands.
13Yahweh goes forth like a mighty warrior;
he stirs up zeal like a man of war.
He raises the war cry, indeed he raises the battle shout;
he prevails against his foes.
14I have been silent for a long time;
I have kept silent;
I have restrained myself like one giving birth;
I will moan, pant, and gasp together.
15I will cause mountains and hills to dry up,
and I will cause all their herbage to wither;
and I will make rivers like islands,
and I will cause pools to dry up.
16And I will lead the blind by a road they do not know;
I will cause them to tread on paths they have not known.
I will make darkness in their presence#Literally “before their face” into light
and rough places into level ground.
These are the things I will do,
and I will not forsake them.
17They shall turn back;
they shall be greatly ashamed,#Literally “ashamed with shame”
those who trust in an image,
who say to a cast image, “You are our gods.”
Blind and Deaf Israel
18Deaf people, listen!
And blind people, look to see!
19Who is blind but my servant
or#Or “and” deaf like my messenger whom I sent?
Who is blind like the one who is repaid
or#Or “and” blind like the servant of Yahweh?
20You see many things, but#Or “and” you do not observe.
His ears are open, but#Or “and” he does not hear.
21Yahweh was willing for the sake of his righteousness;
he showed his teaching to be great and proved it to be glorious.
22But#Or “And” this is a people plundered and looted; all of them are trapped in holes,
and they are kept hidden in houses of imprisonment.
They have become like plunder, and there is no one who saves;
like booty, and there is no one who says, “Restore!”
23Who among you will heed this,
will listen attentively and listen, for the time to come?#Literally “later”
24Who gave Jacob to a plunderer#The reading tradition (Qere) has “as plunder”
and Israel to those who plunder?
Was it not Yahweh, against whom#Or “this” we have sinned?
And they were not willing to walk in his ways,
and they would not obey#Literally “hear” his law.
25So#Or “and” he poured the wrath of his anger upon him
and the strength of war.
And it set him afire all around, but#Or “and” he did not understand;#Or “did not know”
and it burned him, but#Or “and” he did not take it to heart.
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