Isaiah 42:18 - Meaning and Application

The prophet has already spoken words of comfort and encouragement to the believing Jews who waited for Israel’s promised comfort. Now he turns to the unbelieving among them, to expose their sin and humble them. Even among the exiles in Babylon there were some like the evil figs in Jeremiah’s vision, sent there for harm, to become a disgrace and a byword (Jeremiah 24:9). They were a picture of the Jews who rejected Christ and were then rejected by him, falling further under the curse while those who believed inherited the blessing. They were broken and ruined, and they remain scattered to this day.

First, notice the call given to them in (Isaiah 42:18): “Hear, you deaf, and listen to the joyful message, and look, you blind, so that you may see the joyful light.” There is nothing unreasonable in this command. It does not dishonor God’s wisdom or goodness to call people to do what is good, even when they cannot do it by themselves. People still have natural abilities they should use better, and they may receive God’s grace if their own fault does not block it, even though they are morally unable to do what is right. This call to the deaf to hear and the blind to see is like the command to the man with the withered hand to stretch it out. He could not do it because his hand was withered, yet if he had refused to try, he would not have been healed. His healing came, not from his own action, but from God’s power.

Second, consider the character given to them in (Isaiah 42:19-20): “Who is blind but my servant, or deaf as my messenger?” The Jews were, in name, God’s servants, and their priests and elders were his messengers (Malachi 2:7). Yet they were deaf and blind. The verse before may also be understood as a rebuke to Gentile idolaters, whom God calls deaf and blind because they worshiped gods that could not see or hear. But the point is that God’s own people were just as bad, and many of them were deeply set on idolatry.

The prophet complains about their dullness, they were blind, and about their stubbornness, they were deaf. They were worse than the Gentiles themselves. What is best, when corrupted, becomes the worst. Who is more willfully and shamefully blind and deaf than my servant and my messenger, than Jacob, who is my servant (Isaiah 41:8), and than their prophets and teachers, who are my messengers? Who is more blind than the people who claim to be perfect and should have been closer to righteousness than anyone else? Their prophets speak falsely, and the people are ruled by them, and yet they refuse to see even when the light is shining in front of them. It is sadly common for those who claim to be God’s servants and messengers to be spiritually blind and deaf, ignorant, mistaken, and careless. And that blindness is worse in them than in others, because it brings greater sin, greater shame, greater dishonor to God, and greater judgment on themselves.

The prophet then describes the blindness and stubbornness of the Jewish nation more fully, just as Jesus later described it in his own day (Matthew 13:14-15): “Seeing many things, but you do not observe them.” Many people are ruined because they do not pay attention to what they can plainly see. They are lost, not because they lack evidence, but because they are careless. The Jews in Jesus’ time saw many signs of his divine mission, but they did not notice them. They seemed to open their ears to him, but they did not truly hear. That is, they did not pay attention, understand, believe, or obey. In that case, it was as if they had not heard at all.

Third, we see God’s care for the honor of his own name, even when people are blind and deaf, especially regarding his word, which he has honored above all his name. Will human unbelief and stubbornness make God’s promise fail? Certainly not (Romans 3:3-4). Even if they are blind and deaf, God will not lose his glory in the end. In (Isaiah 42:21), “The Lord is well pleased for his righteousness’ sake.” He is not pleased with their sin, but he is pleased to show his own righteousness by rejecting those who reject the great salvation. He speaks like one who is relieved and satisfied in judgment (Isaiah 1:24; Ezekiel 5:13). The Scripture was fulfilled both in the casting off of the Jews and in the calling of the Gentiles, and in this the Lord was well pleased.

He will magnify the law and make it honorable. The law is truly honorable, and its matters are great matters. If people will not honor it by obeying it, God will honor it by punishing disobedience. He will magnify the law by fulfilling what it says, and by showing its authority, its power, and its fairness. He will do this at the last judgment, when all people will be judged by the law of liberty (James 2:12). He is doing it every day. What is God doing in the world, except magnifying the law and making it honorable?

Fourth, God will bring suffering on the Jewish nation for their chosen blindness and deafness, as in (Isaiah 42:22). They are robbed and spoiled. Those who remained unrepentant and unchanged in Babylon were sentenced to lasting captivity. Their sins caused them to lose everything, not only in their own land, but also in the land of their enemies. Some were trapped in pits, and others were shut up in prison houses. They cannot free themselves because they are trapped. Their friends cannot free them because they are hidden away. Their enemies have forgotten them in prison. They and all they have are prey and spoil, and no one delivers them, either by force or by ransom. No one dares even say to the proud oppressors, “Restore what you took.” So they remain where they are, and they are likely to stay there. This was fully fulfilled in the final destruction of the Jewish nation by the Romans, which God brought on them for rejecting the gospel of Christ.

Fifth, the prophet gives counsel for their relief, because though their case is sad, it is not hopeless. The great majority are deaf, and they will not listen to God’s word. So God will try another way and see who among them will listen to his rod, in (Isaiah 42:23). We should not give up on people who have long resisted reason and warning in vain. Some of them may still, in the end, pay attention and listen. If one means does not work, another may. In that way, sinners will be left without excuse. We should remember two things: we may all hear God’s voice if we are willing, and we are invited and commanded to hear it. It is worth asking who truly notices when God speaks and who is ready to listen.

Of the many who hear God’s voice, very few really listen to it or pay attention to it. They may hear the words, but they do not hear with care or apply them to themselves. When we hear God’s Word, we must look ahead to what lies beyond this life. We should hear it for the days before us, for whatever may happen before we die, and especially for eternity. We must listen with the next world in view.

The advice here is, first, to recognize God’s hand in their troubles. Whoever the human agents were, they must see God as the main actor. The question in Isaiah 42:24 means, in effect, “Who gave Jacob and Israel, that people once favored in heaven and powerful on earth, into the hands of robbers, as they now were to the Babylonians and the Romans? Was it not the Lord?” They already know the answer. So they must consider it and hear God’s voice in these judgments.

Second, they must admit that they had provoked God to abandon them and had brought these disasters on themselves. These punishments came first because they broke God’s law. The prophet includes himself among the sinners, as Daniel did in Daniel 9:7-8. He says, in effect, “We have sinned. We have all helped fuel the fire, and some among us have stubbornly refused to walk in God’s ways.” Jacob and Israel would never have been handed over to robbers if they had not sold themselves through their own sin.

So it is because they broke the law’s commands that God brought the law’s curses on them. He did not simply let anger fall, he poured out the fury of his wrath and the force of battle. That brought every ruin of war, and the land was set on fire all around. God’s favor protects the righteous, but his anger is powerful and cannot be resisted or escaped. Sin does great harm, because it stirs up God’s anger against a people and spreads ruin everywhere.

These judgments also stayed on them because they were numb and would not change under God’s discipline. The fire of God’s wrath burned against him, and he did not understand it. He did not recognize God’s hand in the troubles. Even when he could not help seeing and feeling the pain, he still did not take it to heart. He was not humbled by God’s severe warnings, and they did not move him at all. Those who are not broken by lighter judgments should expect heavier ones, for when God judges, he will prevail.