Early mist over a still canal in the Babylonian plain: a stand of reeds at the water’s edge, one reed bent over but not broken, the water like glass.

Comfort My people

Isaiah 42

Have you ever felt like a bruised reed, bent and close to breaking?

25 verses≈ 5 minBSB

Images are artistic interpretations.

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Where we are

1–5Zion on trialJudah’s sin, the mountain raised, the vineyard’s song
6Holy, holy, holyIsaiah’s call, in the year King Uzziah died (about 740 BC)
7–12ImmanuelAhaz’s fear, the sign, the Child, the shoot of Jesse
13–23The nations judgedBabylon to Tyre: the LORD is Judge of all the earth
24–27The whole earthThe earth laid waste, and death swallowed up
28–35Woe and a KingEgypt’s help or the LORD’s, and the King in His beauty
36–39Hezekiah’s crisisSennacherib, 701 BC: the prayer, the sickness, the envoys
40–48Comfort My peopleTo the exiles ahead: Cyrus, the idols, the ServantChapter 42
49–55The Servant and ZionPierced for our transgressions; Zion restored
56–66New heavens and earthA house of prayer, the Anointed One, all things new

Here Is My Servant

God

“Here is My Servant, whom I uphold,

My Chosen One, in whom My soul delights.

I will put My Spirit on Him,

and He will bring justice to the nations.

Isaiah 42:1

Tap to go deeper: meaning, history and related Scripture

God

He will not cry out or raise His voice,

nor make His voice heard in the streets.

God

Dusk at a canal’s edge: one green reed bent and cracked but still standing among straight ones, and on a flat stone beside it a clay oil lamp whose wick barely glows.

A bruised reed He will not break

and a smoldering wick He will not extinguish;

He will faithfully bring forth justice.

God

He will not grow weak or discouraged

before He has established justice on the earth.

In His law the islands will put their hope.”

Isaiah

This is what God the LORD says—

He who created the heavens

and stretched them out,

who spread out the earth and its offspring,

who gives breath to the people on it

and life to those who walk in it:

God

“I, the LORD, have called you

for a righteous purpose,

and I will take hold of your hand.

I will keep you and appoint you

to be a covenant for the people

and a light to the nations,

God

A rock-cut prison cell with its heavy wooden door standing open, daylight pouring in across the dark stone floor, a broken wooden stock lying aside, no one inside.

to open the eyes of the blind,

to bring prisoners out of the dungeon

and those sitting in darkness

out from the prison house.

God

Question

Quick question

Matthew quotes 42:1–4 in his Gospel. Read verses 1–4 again before you answer.

Matthew says the words of 42:1–4 were fulfilled in whom?

A New Song of Praise

Isaiah

A wide blue sea in the morning, distant islands and a far coastline, one small ship with a single square sail far off.

Sing to the LORD a new song—

His praise from the ends of the earth—

you who go down to the sea, and all that is in it,

you islands, and all who dwell in them.

Isaiah

Isaiah

Let the desert and its cities raise their voices;

let the villages of Kedar cry aloud.

Let the people of Sela sing for joy;

let them cry out from the mountaintops.

Let them give glory to the LORD

and declare His praise in the islands.

Isaiah

The LORD goes forth like a mighty one;

He stirs up His zeal like a warrior.

He shouts; yes, He roars

in triumph over His enemies:

God

“I have kept silent from ages past;

I have remained quiet and restrained.

But now I will groan like a woman in labor;

I will at once gasp and pant.

I will lay waste the mountains and hills

and dry up all their vegetation.

I will turn the rivers into dry land

and drain the marshes.

God

Before sunrise on rough stony ground, a faint footpath that becomes a smooth, level way ahead where the first light falls across it.

I will lead the blind by a way they did not know;

I will guide them on unfamiliar paths.

I will turn darkness into light before them

and rough places into level ground.

These things I will do for them,

and I will not forsake them.

God

But those who trust in idols

and say to molten images, ‘You are our gods!’

will be turned back in utter shame.

Israel Is Deaf and Blind

God

Listen, you deaf ones;

look, you blind ones, that you may see!

Who is blind but My servant,

or deaf like the messenger I am sending?

Who is blind like My covenant partner,

or blind like the servant of the LORD?

God

Though seeing many things, you do not keep watch.

Though your ears are open, you do not hear.”

Isaiah

The LORD was pleased, for the sake of His righteousness,

to magnify His law and make it glorious.

Isaiah

A looted hillside village on a gray morning: doors broken in, storage jars smashed on the ground, cave mouths in the slope above, no one there.

But this is a people plundered and looted,

all trapped in caves or imprisoned in dungeons.

They have become plunder with no one to rescue them,

and loot with no one to say, “Send them back!”

Who among you will pay attention to this?

Who will listen and obey hereafter?

Isaiah

A scorched gateway of fallen Jerusalem standing open, its charred timber doors fallen inward, thin smoke rising under a gray sky.

Who gave Jacob up for spoil,

and Israel to the plunderers?

Was it not the LORD,

against whom we have sinned?

They were unwilling to walk in His ways,

and they would not obey His law.

So He poured out on them His furious anger

and the fierceness of battle.

It enveloped them in flames,

but they did not understand;

it consumed them,

but they did not take it to heart.

0:24

Narrated by Bob Souer · BSB audio, public domain

Pray

Lord, thank You for a Servant who does not break the bruised or snuff out the faint. Open my eyes and ears to Your word, and when You discipline me, help me take it to heart. Amen.

Two servants

Whiteboard

Israel was called the LORD’s servant and failed. The Servant of 42:1 does all that Israel could not.

You’ve experienced

Isaiah 42

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A verse to carry with you

Here is My Servant, whom I uphold, My Chosen One, in whom My soul delights. I will put My Spirit on Him, and He will bring justice to the nations.

Isaiah 42:1

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