AP

Isaiah 42:18-20  “Hear, you deaf; look, you blind, and see!  Who is blind but my servant, and deaf like the messenger I send?  Who is blind like the one in covenant with me, blind like the servant of the LORD?  You have seen many things, but you pay no attention; your ears are open, but you do not listen.”

My heart is sad when I read this part of Isaiah’s prophecy.  In the four Servant Songs (Isaiah 42:1-9; 49:1-13; 50:4-11 and 52:13 – 53:12) Israel’s Covenant LORD is addressing his People. as his Servant.  This finds its root in the blessing given to their founding father, Abraham.  In Genesis 12:2-3, God said to him, “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.  I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”  Inasmuch as Abraham’s seed (Israel) would become the channel through whom the Sovereign Creator would bring blessing to his world, the ‘seed’ would function as his Servant.  And Isaiah is commissioned here to tell them that they are blind and deaf!

Isaiah had been given warning of this reality when the LORD first commissioned him as a prophet: “[The LORD Almighty] said, ‘Go and tell this people: “Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.”  Make the heart of this people calloused; make their ears dull and close their eyes.  Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.’”

It is for this reason that God had to send his own Son into his world to be the true and faithful Servant, to do what Israel failed to do.  Israel was so focused on enjoying God’s blessings, and the privilege of being God’s chosen, blessed people, that they forgot about the other side of the equation and failed to share that blessing with others.  The clear message of the fourth Servant Song (Isaiah 53) is that Jesus is the true Servant.  For 2,000 years now it has been proven that “Blessings abound where’er [Jesus] reigns: the prisoners leap to lose their chains, the weary find eternal rest, and all the sons of want are blest.” (Isaac Watts – ‘Jesus shall reign where’er the sun’, based on Psalm 72, which itself contains the verse [17] “May his name endure forever; may it continue as long as the sun.  Then all nations will be blessed through him, and they will call him blessed.”).

The thing that makes me sad is that so many Jewish people, and their whole culture, today, still remain ‘blind’ and ‘deaf’ to this reality.  This is why prayer for Jewish evangelism remains close to my heart, especially when I see the joy that does fill a Jewish person’s life when his or her ‘eyes’ and ‘ears’ are opened by the Holy Spirit to recognise Jesus as their Promised Messiah!  It is interesting that the erstwhile Jewish Pharisee, the Apostle Paul, would himself come to the insight that ‘seed’ is a singular collective noun and, as such, could equally be referring to a single person (Christ) and not the whole nation! (Galatians 3:16)

– Bruce Christian