Isaiah 42:20
Though seeing many things, you do not keep watch. Though your ears are open, you do not hear."
Sermons
A New Song to JehovahE. Johnson Isaiah 42:10-25
Divine ExpostulationW. Richardson.Isaiah 42:18-20
EyesightB. Whitefoord.Isaiah 42:18-20
The Ear and the Eye as SymbolsB. Whitefoord.Isaiah 42:18-20
The Open EyeB. Whitefoord.Isaiah 42:18-20
Spiritual BlindnessW.M. Statham Isaiah 42:19, 20
The Hidden HurtW. Clarkson Isaiah 42:19-25














Who is blind, but my servant? It is said, "None are so blind as those that won't see." Can any be so blind as those who have been illumined of the Spirit, and who have seen the beauties of holiness, and the deformities of sin, whilst yet they turn back to their old paths?

I. THE BLINDNESS OF INDIFFERENCE. The heart has lost its first love, and the King is not "beautiful" now. Like human love sometimes, which does not know how blessed it is in its estate of home, until it is aroused by accident, danger, or death to a sense of the value of the heart it has slighted. So at times even the Christian becomes indifferent. "I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love."

II. THE BLINDNESS OF INATTENTION. (Ver. 20.) "Seeing many things, but thou observest not."

1. Christians do not always see the value of their principles,

2. Nor do they mark the privileges and comforts which are the outcome of faith.

3. Nor do they observe the misery of the men of this world.

4. Nor do they see the slave's fetters beneath the false liberty of the sinner. Others are blind by nature and habit. But who so blind as the Lord's servants? - W.M.S.

He shall not cry.
He is not a debater; He does not belong to the society of men who walk up and down in the open square, called the "street," or agora, or the market-place, saying, Who will talk with Me to-day? What shall we debate? My sword is ready, who will fence? He does not belong to the word gladiator; from that school He abstains. There were men who delighted in controversy in the open squares of the city. Such controversy took the place of modern literature, morning journals, and the means of publicity of every kind, open to modern society. Jesus Christ spoke whisperingly to hearts. Men had to incline their ear to hear Him.

(J. Parker, D. D.)

What He brings is its own evidence, and needs no beating of drums.

(Prof. F. Delitzsch, D. D.)

To be "screamy," to be "loud," to "advertise one's self," — these modern expressions for vices that were ancient as well as modern, render the exact force of the verse. Such the servant of God will not be nor do. That God is with Him, holding Him fast (ver. 6), keeps Him calm and unhysterical; that He is but God s instrument keeps Him humble and quiet; and that His heart is in His work keeps Him from advertising Himself at its expense.

(Prof. G. A. Smith, D. D.)

This feature of the Servant's activity can hardly have been suggested by the demeanour of the prophets of Israel; and for that reason the prophecy is all the more wonderful as a perception of the true condition of spiritual work. It reminds us of the "still small voice" in which Elijah was made to recognise the power of Jehovah.

(Prof. J. Skinner, D. D.)

Jesus Christ has fulfilled this passage both in the spirit and in the letter.

I. THE GRANDEUR AND CERTAINTY OF HIS WORK. It could not be expressed in stronger or more graphic words. "He shall bring forth judgment or righteousness, according to truth. He shall not fail nor be broken till He have established judgment or righteousness in the earth, and the isles, or far-off lands, shall wait for His law or instruction." This is the Old Testament conception of the Divine work, the setting up of a kingdom of righteousness in the world. In the New Testament it is called the kingdom of heaven, of which righteousness is still the great characteristic. The essence of the aim of the Gospel of Christ may be summed up, therefore, in two words — to win men over to be right and to do right. That which separates men from God and the kingdom of heaven is some kind of wrong in the inward nature — that which arrays itself against the Divine will, which is the Divine law. The self-will which tries, but tries in vain, to trample down the Divine will, which endeavours to have its own way in defiance of all right and justice; the insatiate thirst of the passions for indulgence which must be obtained at whatever cost to honour and conscience, and the readiness to sacrifice truth and honesty and purity in order to achieve what the world calls success, — these things are the essence of all unrighteousness and sin — the cancerous disease of our spiritual nature, which Christ, the Great Physician, came to exterminate and heal. In order to do what is right we must become, first of all, personally right; for Christ traced all conduct up to character. "A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit," etc. He came to build up a society of such men and women, beginning with a small band of immediate personal disciples, whose affection to Himself should make them righteous, who should receive from Him the truths, the impulses, and principles which would enable them to carry the contagion of His Spirit to Greek, and Roman, and Jew, and make the cross on which He died the symbol of all goodness and all righteousness.

II. THE SPIRIT AND METHOD OF CHRIST'S WORK. "He shall not cry," etc.

1. This is the Divine way of speaking to men, and instructing them in Divine truth. The strong wind can speak to the seas and mountains and forests; the earthquake can speak to Sodom and Gomorrah; the fire can speak to the raving prophets of Baal; but when He speaks to His servant He whispers in that still small voice which penetrates where the thunder would fail to be heard, to the deeps of Elijah's spirit, where the heart and conscience sit enthroned in silence. The deepest affections ever speak thus. The mother speaks to her child in the softest, most subdued accents of speech, and those accents reach farther into the child's heart than the loudest, harshest words of command could reach. When is the orator at the height of his greatest power? Not when he is loudest; not when he thunders forth invective and appeal in high-strung passion; but when the strength of emotion has subdued him, when the rich pathos of his feelings makes his voice tremulous and low; and he just breathes out the thought which you will never forget. This was Christ's method of instruction during His earthly ministry. The Sermon on the Mount breathes a Divine calm throughout; there is not one spasmodic sentence in it.

2. And He did not break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax. When the woman who had been a sinner ventured after Him into the house of Simon the Pharisee, where He sat at meat, and began to wash His feet with her tears and to wipe them with the hair of her head, He accepted the service without one thought of spurning her from His presence, because it was the service of a broken, penitent heart. But there is a positive as well as a negative aspect of this truth. He will not merely not break the bruised reed, He will heal and restore it to soundness; He will not merely not quench the smoking flax, He will replenish the exhausted lamp with fresh oil, and make it burn brightly again. This life is hastening to its close with us, and we may have a keen consciousness that our souls are bruised and broken by sin, and we dread to die. What can we do? We can be assured that there is a Saviour who sympathises with us, and who has power to lift the load from our conscience, and restore the breaking, fearful heart; a Saviour who is not willing that you should die as you are, but can even now pour the oil of hope and trust into the lamp of your life. Some of us may have been bruised and almost worn out, not so much by the reproach of our sins, as by the experience of trouble and suffering.

(C. Short, M. A.)

People
Isaiah, Jacob, Kedar
Places
Jerusalem, Kedar, Sela
Topics
Attention, Doesn't, Ears, Heareth, Hearing, Hears, Keeping, Listen, Mind, None, Nothing, Observe, Observest, Open, Opened, Opening, Seeing, Sees, Seest
Outline
1. The office of Christ, graced with meekness and constancy.
5. God's promise unto him.
10. An exhortation to praise God for his Gospel
13. God will manifest himself, and check idolatry
18. He reproves the people of incredulity.

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Isaiah 42:20

     5885   indifference
     8319   perception, spiritual

Isaiah 42:18-20

     5147   deafness

Library
Christ the Arrester of Incipient Evil and the Nourisher of Incipient Good
'A bruised reed shall He not break, and the smoking flax shall He not quench.... He shall not fail nor be discouraged.'--ISAIAH xlii. 3, 4. The two metaphors which we have in the former part of these words are not altogether parallel. 'A bruised reed' has suffered an injury which, however, is neither complete nor irreparable. 'Smoking flax,' on the other hand--by which, of course, is meant flax used as a wick in an old-fashioned oil lamp--is partially lit. In the one a process has been begun which,
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

How to Make Use of Christ as the Truth, when Error Prevaileth, and the Spirit of Error Carrieth Many Away.
There is a time when the spirit of error is going abroad, and truth is questioned, and many are led away with delusions. For Satan can change himself into an angel of light, and make many great and fairlike pretensions to holiness, and under that pretext usher in untruths, and gain the consent of many unto them; so that in such a time of temptation many are stolen off their feet, and made to depart from the right ways of God, and to embrace error and delusions instead of truth. Now the question is,
John Brown (of Wamphray)—Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life

Jesus, the Mediator of the New Covenant
"I give thee for a covenant of the people."--ISA. xlii. 6, xlix. 8. "The Lord shall suddenly come to His temple, even the Messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in."--MAL. iii. 1. "Jesus was made Surety of a better covenant."--HEB. vii. 22. "The Mediator of the Better Covenant, established upon better promises . . . The Mediator of the New Covenant. . . Ye are come to Jesus, the Mediator of the New Covenant."--HEB. viii. 6, ix. 15, xii. 24. WE have here four titles given to our Lord Jesus in
Andrew Murray—The Two Covenants

Words of Counsel.
"A bruised reed shall He not break."--Isaiah xlii. 3; Matt. xii. 20. It is dangerous for those who are seeking salvation to lean upon the experience of other people. Many are waiting for a repetition of the experience of their grandfather or grandmother. I had a friend who was converted in a field; and he thinks the whole town ought to go down into that meadow and be converted. Another was converted under a bridge; and he thinks that if any enquirer were to go there he would find the Lord. The best
Dwight L. Moody—The Way to God and How to Find It

The Blessed Journey
Gerhard Ter Steegen Is. xlii. 16 Let Him lead thee blindfold onwards, Love needs not to know; Children whom the Father leadeth Ask not where they go. Though the path be all unknown, Over moors and mountains lone. Give no ear to reason's questions: Let the blind man hold That the sun is but a fable Men believed of old. At the breast the babe will grow; Whence the milk he need not know.
Frances Bevan—Hymns of Ter Steegen, Suso, and Others

China Evangelized.
China Evangelized. "The Lord of hosts mustereth the host of the battle."--Isa. xlii. 4. PART I. PART II. PART III. Lift up your heads, ye gates of brass! Ye bars of Iron! yield; And let the King of Glory pass,-- The Cross is in the field. That banner, brighter than the star, That leads the train of night, Shines on their march and guides from far His servants to the fight. A holy war those servants wage; --Mysteriously at strife, The powers of heaven and hell engage For more than death or life.
James Montgomery—Sacred Poems and Hymns

The Prophet Hosea.
GENERAL PRELIMINARY REMARKS. That the kingdom of Israel was the object of the prophet's ministry is so evident, that upon this point all are, and cannot but be, agreed. But there is a difference of opinion as to whether the prophet was a fellow-countryman of those to whom he preached, or was called by God out of the kingdom of Judah. The latter has been asserted with great confidence by Maurer, among others, in his Observ. in Hos., in the Commentat. Theol. ii. i. p. 293. But the arguments
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg—Christology of the Old Testament

Prayer Taught and Encouraged.
(Probably Judæa.) ^C Luke XI. 1-13. ^c 1 And it came to pass, as he was praying in a certain place, that when he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray, even as John also taught his disciples. [Jesus had already taught his disciples how to pray in the Sermon on the Mount. This disciple probably thought that the prayer already taught was too brief to be sufficient, especially as Jesus often prayed so long. It was customary for the rabbis to give their disciples forms
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

Book ix. Epistle i. To Januarius, Bishop of Caralis (Cagliari).
To Januarius, Bishop of Caralis (Cagliari). Gregory to Januarius, &c. The preacher of Almighty God, Paul the apostle, says, Rebuke not an elder (1 Tim. v. 1). But this rule of his is to be observed in cases where the fault of an elder does not draw through his example the hearts of the younger into ruin. But, when an elder sets an example to the young for their ruin, he is to be smitten with severe rebuke. For it is written, Ye are all a snare to the young (Isai. xlii. 22). And again the prophet
Saint Gregory the Great—the Epistles of Saint Gregory the Great

"But if we Walk in the Light, as He is in the Light, we have Fellowship one with Another, and the Blood of Jesus Christ His
1 John i. 7.--"But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin." Art is the imitation of nature, and true religion is a divine art, that consists in the imitation of God himself, the author of nature. Therefore it is a more high and transcendent thing, of a sublimer nature than all the arts and sciences among men. Those reach but to some resemblance of the wisdom of God, expressed in his works,
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

"And He is the Propitiation,"
1 John ii. 2.--"And he is the propitiation," &c. Here is the strength of Christ's plea, and ground of his advocation, that "he is the propitiation." The advocate is the priest, and the priest is the sacrifice, and such efficacy this sacrifice hath, that the propitiatory sacrifice may be called the very propitiation and pacification for sin. Here is the marrow of the gospel, and these are the breasts of consolation which any poor sinner might draw by faith, and bring out soul refreshment. But truly,
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

The Introduction, with Some General Observations from the Cohesion.
Doubtless it is always useful, yea, necessary, for the children of God to know the right way of making use of Christ, who is made all things to them which they need, even "wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption," 1 Cor. i. 30. But it is never more necessary for believers to be clear and distinct in this matter, than when Satan, by all means, is seeking to pervert the right ways of the Lord, and, one way or other, to lead souls away, and draw them off Christ; knowing that, if he prevail
John Brown (of Wamphray)—Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life

1872-1874. Letter from Rev. A. M. W. Christopher --Letter from Gulf of St. Lawrence-Mrs. Birt's Sheltering Home, Liverpool --Letter to Mrs. Merry --Letter from Canada --Miss
Letter from Rev. A. M. W. Christopher--Letter from Gulf of St. Lawrence-Mrs. Birt's Sheltering Home, Liverpool--Letter to Mrs. Merry--Letter from Canada--Miss Macpherson's return to England-- Letter of cheer for Dr. Barnardo--Removal to Hackney Home. Though human praise is not sought, we cannot but feel peculiar pleasure in giving the following testimony from a servant of the Lord so much revered as the Rev, A. M. W. Christopher of Oxford:-- "Of all the works of Christian benevolence which the great
Clara M. S. Lowe—God's Answers

The Credibility of Scripture Sufficiently Proved in So Far as Natural Reason Admits.
1. Secondary helps to establish the credibility of Scripture. I. The arrangement of the sacred volume. II. Its dignity. III. Its truth. IV. Its simplicity. V. Its efficacy. 2. The majesty conspicuous in the writings of the Prophets. 3. Special proofs from the Old Testament. I. The antiquity of the Books of Moses. 4. This antiquity contrasted with the dreams of the Egyptians. II. The majesty of the Books of Moses. 5. The miracles and prophecies of Moses. A profane objection refuted. 6. Another profane
John Calvin—The Institutes of the Christian Religion

The Purpose in the Coming of Jesus.
God Spelling Himself out in Jesus: change in the original language--bother in spelling Jesus out--sticklers for the old forms--Jesus' new spelling of old words. Jesus is God following us up: God heart-broken--man's native air--bad choice affected man's will--the wrong lane--God following us up. The Early Eden Picture, Genesis 1:26-31. 2:7-25: unfallen man--like God--the breath of God in man--a spirit, infinite, eternal--love--holy--wise--sovereign over creation, Psalm 8:5-8--in his own will--summary--God's
S. D. Gordon—Quiet Talks about Jesus

How to Make Use of Christ, as Truth, for Comfort, when Truth is Oppressed and Born Down.
There is another difficulty, wherein believing souls will stand in need of Christ, as the truth, to help them; and that is, when his work is overturned, his cause borne down, truth condemned, and enemies, in their opposition to his work, prospering in all their wicked attempts. This is a very trying dispensation, as we see it was to the holy penman of Psalm lxxiii. for it made him to stagger, so that his feet were almost gone, and his steps had well nigh slipt; yea he was almost repenting of his
John Brown (of Wamphray)—Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life

Jesus Heals Multitudes Beside the Sea of Galilee.
^A Matt. XII. 15-21; ^B Mark III. 7-12. ^a 15 And Jesus perceiving it withdrew ^b with his disciples ^a from thence: ^b to the sea [This was the first withdrawal of Jesus for the avowed purpose of self-preservation. After this we find Jesus constantly retiring to avoid the plots of his enemies. The Sea of Galilee, with its boats and its shores touching different jurisdictions, formed a convenient and fairly safe retreat]: ^a and many followed him; ^b and a great multitude from Galilee followed; and
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

Messiah the Son of God
For to which of the angels said He at any time, Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee? T hough every part of a revelation from God must of course be equally true, there may be a considerable difference even among truths proposed by the same authority, with respect to their immediate importance. There are fundamental truths, the knowledge of which are essentially necessary to our peace and holiness: and there are others of a secondary nature, which, though very useful in their proper connection,
John Newton—Messiah Vol. 2

God's Glory the Chief End of Man's Being
Rom. xi. 36.--"Of him and through him, and to him, are all things, to whom be glory for ever." And 1 Cor. x. 31--"Whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." All that men have to know, may be comprised under these two heads,--What their end is, and What is the right way to attain to that end? And all that we have to do, is by any means to seek to compass that end. These are the two cardinal points of a man's knowledge and exercise. Quo et qua eundum est,--Whither to go, and what way to go.
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

"We have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous. "
1 John ii. 1.--"We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." There is no settlement to the spirit of a sinner that is once touched with the sense of his sins, and apprehension of the justice and wrath of God, but in some clear and distinct understanding of the grounds of consolation in the gospel, and the method of salvation revealed in it. There is no solid peace giving answer to the challenges of the law and thy own conscience, but in the advocation of Jesus Christ, the Saviour
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

Of the Unity of the Godhead and the Trinity of Persons
Deut. vi. 4.--"Hear, O Israel The Lord our God is one Lord."--1 John v. 7 "There are three that bear record in heaven the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost and these three are one." "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness," 2 Tim. iii. 16. There is no refuse in it, no simple and plain history, but it tends to some edification, no profound or deep mystery, but it is profitable for salvation. Whatsoever
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

Covenanting Provided for in the Everlasting Covenant.
The duty of Covenanting is founded on the law of nature; but it also stands among the arrangements of Divine mercy made from everlasting. The promulgation of the law, enjoining it on man in innocence as a duty, was due to God's necessary dominion over the creatures of his power. The revelation of it as a service obligatory on men in a state of sin, arose from his unmerited grace. In the one display, we contemplate the authority of the righteous moral Governor of the universe; in the other, we see
John Cunningham—The Ordinance of Covenanting

Covenanting Adapted to the Moral Constitution of Man.
The law of God originates in his nature, but the attributes of his creatures are due to his sovereignty. The former is, accordingly, to be viewed as necessarily obligatory on the moral subjects of his government, and the latter--which are all consistent with the holiness of the Divine nature, are to be considered as called into exercise according to his appointment. Hence, also, the law of God is independent of his creatures, though made known on their account; but the operation of their attributes
John Cunningham—The Ordinance of Covenanting

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