{"commentary":{"id":"jamieson-fausset-brown","name":"Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary","website":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamieson-Fausset-Brown_Bible_Commentary","licenseUrl":"https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/","licenseNotes":null,"licenseNotice":null,"englishName":"Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary","language":"eng","textDirection":"rtl","sha256":"db3d4c8b3c1f32ef9d1430a57392e02bda3a17aac1f9bbe398461de021a3cb13","availableFormats":["json"],"listOfBooksApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/books.json","listOfProfilesApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/profiles.json","numberOfBooks":66,"totalNumberOfChapters":1187,"totalNumberOfVerses":17056,"totalNumberOfProfiles":0,"languageName":"English","languageEnglishName":"English"},"book":{"id":"ISA","commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","name":"Isaiah","commonName":"Isaiah","introduction":"ISAIAH, son of Amoz (not Amos); contemporary of Jonah, Amos, Hosea, in Israel, but younger than they; and of Micah, in Judah. His call to a higher degree of the prophetic office (Isa 6:1-13) is assigned to the last year of Uzziah, that is, 754 B.C. The first through fifth chapters belong to the closing years of that reign; not, as some think, to Jotham's reign: in the reign of the latter he seems to have exercised his office only orally, and not to have left any record of his prophecies because they were not intended for all ages. The first through fifth and sixth chapters are all that was designed for the Church universal of the prophecies of the first twenty years of his office. New historical epochs, such as occurred in the reigns of Ahaz and Hezekiah, when the affairs of Israel became interwoven with those of the Asiatic empires, are marked by prophetic writings. The prophets had now to interpret the judgments of the Lord, so as to make the people conscious of His punitive justice, as also of His mercy. Isa. 7:1-10:4 belong to the reign of Ahaz. The thirty-sixth through thirty-ninth chapters are historical, reaching to the fifteenth year of Hezekiah; probably the tenth through twelfth chapters and all from the thirteenth through twenty-sixth chapters, inclusive, belong to the same reign; the historical section being appended to facilitate the right understanding of these prophecies; thus we have Isaiah's office extending from about 760 to 713 B.C., forty-seven years. Tradition (Talmud) represents him as having been sawn asunder by Manasseh with a wooden saw, for having said that he had seen Jehovah (Exo 33:20; Kg2 21:16; Heb 11:37). Ch2 32:32 seems to imply that Isaiah survived Hezekiah; but \"first and last\" is not added, as in Ch2 26:22, which makes it possible that his history of Hezekiah was only carried up to a certain point. The second part, the fortieth through sixty-sixth chapters, containing complaints of gross idolatry, needs not to be restricted to Manasseh's reign, but is applicable to previous reigns. At the accession of Manasseh, Isaiah would be eighty-four; and if he prophesied for eight years afterwards, he must have endured martyrdom at ninety-two; so Hosea prophesied for sixty years. And Eastern tradition reports that he lived to one hundred and twenty. The conclusive argument against the tradition is that, according to the inscription, all Isaiah's prophecies are included in the time from Uzziah to Hezekiah; and the internal evidence accords with this.\n\nHis WIFE is called the prophetess [Isa 8:3], that is, endowed, as Miriam, with a prophetic gift.\n\nHis CHILDREN were considered by him as not belonging merely to himself; in their names, Shearjashub, \"the remnant shall return\" [Isa 7:3, Margin], and Maher-shalal-hash-baz, \"speeding to the spoil, he hasteth to the prey\" [Isa 8:1, Margin], the two chief points of his prophecies are intimated to the people, the judgments of the Lord on the people and the world, and yet His mercy to the elect.\n\nHis GARMENT of sackcloth (Isa 20:2), too, was a silent preaching by fact; he appears as the embodiment of that repentance which he taught.\n\nHis HISTORICAL WORKS.--History, as written by the prophets, is retroverted prophecy. As the past and future alike proceed from the essence of God, an inspired insight into the past implies an insight into the future, and vice versa. Hence most of the Old Testament histories are written by prophets and are classed with their writings; the Chronicles being not so classed, cannot have been written by them, but are taken from historical monographs of theirs; for example, Isaiah's life of Uzziah, Ch2 26:22; also of Hezekiah, Ch2 32:32; of these latter all that was important for all ages has been preserved to us, while the rest, which was local and temporary, has been lost.\n\nThe INSCRIPTION (Isa 1:1) applies to the whole book and implies that Isaiah is the author of the second part (the fortieth through sixty-sixth chapters), as well as of the first. Nor do the words, \"concerning Judah and Jerusalem\" [Isa 1:1], oppose the idea that the inscription applies to the whole; for whatever he says against other nations, he says on account of their relation to Judah. So the inscription of Amos, \"concerning Israel\" [Amo 1:1], though several prophecies follow against foreign nations. EWALD maintains that the fortieth through sixty-sixth chapters, though spurious, were subjoined to the previous portion, in order to preserve the former. But it is untrue that the first portion is unconnected with those chapters. The former ends with the Babylonian exile (Isa 39:6), the latter begins with the coming redemption from it. The portion, the fortieth through forty-sixth chapters, has no heading of its own, a proof that it is closely connected with what precedes, and falls under the general heading in Isa 1:1. JOSEPHUS (The Antiquities of the Jews, 11. 1, sec. 1, 2) says that Cyrus was induced by the prophecies of Isaiah (Isa 44:28; Isa 45:1, Isa 45:13) to aid the Jews in returning and rebuilding the temple Ezr 1:1-11 confirms this; Cyrus in his edict there plainly refers to the prophecies in the second portion, which assign the kingdoms to him from Jehovah, and the duty of rebuilding the temple. Probably he took from them his historical name Cyrus (Coresh). Moreover, subsequent prophets imitate this second portion, which EWALD assigns to later times; for example, compare Jer. 50:1-51:64 with Isaiah's predictions against Babylon [Isa. 13:1-14:23]. \"The Holy One of Israel,\" occurring but three times elsewhere in the Old Testament [Kg2 19:22; Psa 78:41; Psa 89:18; Jer 50:29; Jer 51:5], is a favorite expression in the second, as in the first portion of Isaiah: it expresses God's covenant faithfulness in fulfilling the promises therein: Jeremiah borrows the expression from him. Also Ecclesiasticus 48:22-25 (\"comforted\"), quotes Isa 40:1 as Isaiah's. Luk 4:17 quotes Isa 61:1-2 as Isaiah's, and as read as such by Jesus Christ in the synagogue.\n\nThe DEFINITENESS of the prophecies is striking: As in the second portion of isaiah, so in Mic 4:8-10, the Babylonian exile, and the deliverance from it, are foretold a hundred fifty years before any hostilities had arisen between Babylon and Judah. On the other hand, all the prophets who foretell the Assyrian invasion coincide in stating, that Judah should be delivered from it, not by Egyptian aid, but directly by the Lord. Again Jeremiah, in the height of the Chaldean prosperity, foretold its conquest by the Medes, who should enter Babylon through the dry bed of the Euphrates on a night of general revelry. No human calculation could have discovered these facts. EICHORN terms these prophecies \"veiled historical descriptions,\" recognizing in spite of himself that they are more than general poetical fancies. The fifty-third chapter of Isaiah was certainly written ages before the Messiah, yet it minutely portrays His sufferings: these cannot be Jewish inventions, for the Jews looked for a reigning, not a suffering, Messiah.\n\nRationalists are so far right that THE PROPHECIES ARE ON A GENERAL BASIS whereby they are distinguished from soothsaying. They rest on the essential idea of God. The prophets, penetrated by this inner knowledge of His character, became conscious of the eternal laws by which the world is governed: that sin is man's ruin, and must be followed by judgment, but that God's covenant mercy to His elect is unchangeable. Without prophetism, the elect remnant would have decreased, and even God's judgments would have missed their end, by not being recognized as such: they would have been unmeaning, isolated facts. Babylon was in Isaiah's days under Assyria; it had tried a revolt unsuccessfully: but the elements of its subsequent success and greatness were then existing. The Holy Ghost enlightened his natural powers to discern this its rise; and his spiritual faculties, to foresee its fall, the sure consequence, in God's eternal law, of the pride which pagan success generates--and also Judah's restoration, as the covenant-people, with whom God, according to His essential character, would not be wroth for ever. True conversion is the prophet's grand remedy against all evils: in this alone consists his politics. Rebuke, threatening, and promise, regularly succeed one another. The idea at the basis of all is in Isa 26:7-9; Lev 10:3; Amo 3:2.\n\nThe USE OF THE PRESENT AND PRETERITE in prophecy is no proof that the author is later than Isaiah. For seers view the future as present, and indicate what is ideally past, not really past; seeing things in the light of God, who \"calls the things that are not as though they were.\" Moreover, as in looking from a height on a landscape, hills seem close together which are really wide apart, so, in events foretold, the order, succession, and grouping are presented, but the intervals of time are overlooked. The time, however, is sometimes marked (Jer 25:12; Dan 9:26). Thus the deliverance from Babylon, and that effected by Messiah, are in rapid transition grouped together by THE LAW OF PROPHETIC SUGGESTION; yet no prophet so confounds the two as to make Messiah the leader of Israel from Babylon. To the prophet there was probably no double sense; but to his spiritual eye the two events, though distinct, lay so near, and were so analogous, that he could not separate them in description without unfaithfulness to the picture presented before him. The more remote and antitypical event, however, namely, Messiah's coming, is that to which he always hastens, and which he describes with far more minuteness than he does the nearer type; for example, Cyrus (compare Isa 45:1 with Isa 53:1-12). In some cases he takes his stand in the midst of events between, for example, the humiliation of Jesus Christ, which he views as past, and His glorification, as yet to come, using the future tense as to the latter (compare Isa 53:4-9 with Isa 53:10-12). Marks of the time of events are given sparingly in the prophets: yet, as to Messiah, definitely enough to create the general expectation of Him at the time that He was in fact born.\n\nThe CHALDÆISMS alleged against the genuineness of the second portion of Isaiah, are found more in the first and undoubted portion. They occur in all the Old Testament, especially in the poetical parts, which prefer unusual expressions, and are due to the fact that the patriarchs were surrounded by Chaldee-speaking people; and in Isaiah's time a few Chaldee words had crept in from abroad.\n\nHis SYMBOLS are few and simple, and his poetical images correct; in the prophets, during and after the exile, the reverse holds good; Haggai and Malachi are not exceptions; for, though void of bold images, their style, unlike Isaiah's, rises little above prose: a clear proof that our Isaiah was long before the exile.\n\nOf VISIONS, strictly so called, he has but one, that in the sixth chapter; even it is more simple than those in later prophets. But he often gives SIGNS, that is, a present fact as pledge of the more distant future; God condescending to the feebleness of man (Isa 7:14; Isa 37:30; Isa 38:7).\n\nThe VARIETIES IN HIS STYLE do not prove spuriousness, but that he varied his style with his subject. The second portion is not so much addressed to his contemporaries, as to the future people of the Lord, the elect remnant, purified by the previous judgments. Hence its tenderness of style, and frequent repetitions (Isa 40:1): for comforting exhortation uses many words; so also the many epithets added to the name of God, intended as stays whereon faith may rest for comfort, so as not to despair. In both portions alike there are peculiarities characteristic of Isaiah; for example, \"to be called\" equivalent to to be: the repetition of the same words, instead of synonyms, in the parallel members of verses; the interspersing of his prophecies with hymns: \"the remnant of olive trees,\" &c., for the remnant of people who have escaped God's judgments. Also compare Isa 65:25 with Isa 11:6.\n\nThe CHRONOLOGICAL ARRANGEMENT favors the opinion that Isaiah himself collected his prophecies into the volume; not Hezekiah's men, as the Talmud guesses from Pro 25:1. All the portions, the dates of which can be ascertained, stand in the right place, except a few instances, where prophecies of similar contents are placed together: with the termination of the Assyrian invasion (the thirty-sixth through thirty-ninth chapters) terminated the public life of Isaiah. The second part is his prophetic legacy to the small band of the faithful, analogous to the last speeches of Moses and of Jesus Christ to His chosen disciples.\n\nThe EXPECTATION OF MESSIAH is so strong in Isaiah, that JEROME To Paulinus calls his book not a prophecy, but the gospel: \"He is not so much a prophet as an evangelist.\" Messiah was already shadowed forth in Gen 49:10, as the Shiloh, or tranquillizer; also in Psalms 2, 45, 72, 110. Isaiah brings it out more definitely; and, whereas they dwelt on His kingly office, Isaiah develops most His priestly and prophetic office; the hundred tenth Psalm also had set forth His priesthood, but His kingly rather than, as Isaiah, His suffering, priesthood. The latter is especially dwelt on in the second part, addressed to the faithful elect; whereas the first part, addressed to the whole people, dwells on Messiah's glory, the antidote to the fears which then filled the people, and the assurance that the kingdom of God, then represented by Judah, would not be overwhelmed by the surrounding nations.\n\nHis STYLE (HENGSTENBERG, Christology of the Old Testament,) is simple and sublime; in imagery, intermediate between the poverty of Jeremiah and the exuberance of Ezekiel. He shows his command of it in varying it to suit his subject.\n\nThe FORM is mostly that of Hebrew poetical parallelism, with, however, a freedom unshackled by undue restrictions.\n\nJUDAH, the less apostate people, rather than Israel, was the subject of his prophecies: his residence was mostly at Jerusalem. On his praises, see Ecclesiasticus 48:22-25. Christ and the apostles quote no prophet so frequently. \n\n\n\nNext: Isaiah Chapter 1\n\n","order":23,"numberOfChapters":66,"sha256":"05afbc35163ce25bd06467062226b36d66e6285d8ca85b4815540db57d9466be","firstChapterNumber":1,"firstChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/ISA/1.json","firstChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"ISA","chapter":1},"lastChapterNumber":66,"lastChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/ISA/66.json","lastChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"ISA","chapter":66},"totalNumberOfVerses":1200},"chapter":{"number":42,"content":[{"type":"verse","number":2,"content":["Matthew (Mat 12:19) marks the kind of \"cry\" as that of altercation by quoting it, \"He shall not strive\" (Isa 53:7). \n\nstreet--the Septuagint translates \"outside.\" An image from an altercation in a house, loud enough to be heard in the street outside: appropriate of Him who \"withdrew Himself\" from the public fame created by His miracles to privacy (Mat 12:15; Isa 34:5, there, shows another and sterner aspect of His character, which is also implied in the term \"judgment\").\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":3,"content":["bruised--\"It pleased the Lord to bruise Him\" (Isa 53:5, Isa 53:10; Gen 3:15); so He can feel for the bruised. As Isa 42:2 described His unturbulent spirit towards His violent enemies (Mat 12:14-16), and His utter freedom from love of notoriety, so Isa 42:3, His tenderness in cherishing the first spark of grace in the penitent (Isa 40:11). \n\nreed--fragile: easily \"shaken with the wind\" (Mat 11:7). Those who are at best feeble, and who besides are oppressed by calamity or by the sense of sin. \n\nbreak--entirely crush or condemn. Compare \"bind up the broken-hearted\" (Isa 50:4; Isa 61:1; Mat 11:28). \n\nflax--put for the lamp-wick, formed of flax. The believer is the lamp (so the Greek, Mat 5:15; Joh 5:35): his conscience enlightened by the Holy Ghost is the wick. \"Smoking\" means \"dimly burning,\" \"smouldering,\" the flame not quite extinct. This expresses the positive side of the penitent's religion; as \"bruised reed,\" the negative. Broken-hearted in himself, but not without some spark of flame: literally, \"from above.\" Christ will supply such a one with grace as with oil. Also, the light of nature smouldering in the Gentiles amidst the hurtful fumes of error. He not only did not quench, but cleared away the mists and superadded the light of revelation. See JEROME, To Algasia, Question 2. \n\ntruth--Mat 12:20 quotes it, \"send forth judgment unto victory.\" Matthew, under the Spirit, gives the virtual sense, but varies the word, in order to bring out a fresh aspect of the same thing. Truth has in itself the elements of victory over all opposing forces. Truth is the victory of Him who is \"the truth\" (Joh 14:6). The gospel judicial sifting (\"judgment\") of believers and unbelievers, begun already in part (Joh 3:18-19; Joh 9:39), will be consummated victoriously in truth only at His second coming; Isa 42:13-14, here, and Mat 12:32, Mat 12:36, Mat 12:41-42, show that there is reference to the judicial aspect of the Gospel, especially finally: besides the mild triumph of Jesus coming in mercy to the penitent now (Isa 42:2), there shall be finally the judgment on His enemies, when the \"truth\" shall be perfectly developed. Compare Isa 61:1-3, where the two comings are similarly joined (Psa 2:4-6, Psa 2:8; Rev 15:2, Rev 15:4; Rev 19:11-16). On \"judgment,\" see on Isa 42:1.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":4,"content":["fail--faint; man in religion may become as the almost expiring flax-wick (Isa 42:3), but not so He in His purposes of grace. \n\ndiscouraged--literally, \"broken,\" that is, checked in zeal by discouragements (compare Isa 49:4-5). ROSENMULLER not so well translates, \"He shall not be too slow on the one hand, nor run too hastily on the other.\" \n\njudgment--His true religion, the canon of His judgments and righteous reign. \n\nisles . . . wait, &c.--The distant lands beyond sea shall put their trust in His gospel way of salvation. Mat 12:21 virtually gives the sense, with the inspired addition of another aspect of the same thing, \"In his name shall the Gentiles trust\" (as \"wait for\" here means, Isa 30:18). \"His law\" is not something distinct from Himself, but is indeed Himself, the manifestation of God's character (\"name\") in Christ, who is the embodiment of the law (Isa 42:21; Jer 23:6; Rom 10:4). \"Isles\" here, and in Isa 42:12, may refer to the fact that the populations of which the Church was primarily formed were Gentiles of the countries bordering on the Mediterranean.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":5,"content":["Previously God had spoken of Messiah; now (Isa 42:5-7) He speaks to Him. To show to all that He is able to sustain the Messiah in His appointed work, and that all might accept Messiah as commissioned by such a mighty God, He commences by announcing Himself as the Almighty Creator and Preserver of all things. \n\nspread . . . earth-- (Psa 136:6).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":6,"content":["in righteousness--rather, \"for a righteous purpose\" [LOWTH]. (See Isa 42:21). God \"set forth\" His Son \"to be a propitiation (so as) to declare His (God's) righteousness, that God might be just, and (yet) the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus\" (Rom 3:25-26; compare see on Isa 41:2; Isa 45:13; Isa 50:8-9). \n\nhold . . . hand--compare as to Israel, the type of Messiah, Hos 11:3. \n\ncovenant--the medium of the covenant, originally made between God and Abraham (Isa 49:8). \"The mediator of a better covenant\" (Heb 8:6) than the law (see Isa 49:8; Jer 31:33; Jer 50:5). So the abstract \"peace,\" for peace-maker (Mic 5:5; Eph 2:14). \n\nthe people--Israel; as Isa 49:8, compared with Isa 42:6, proves (Luk 2:32).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":7,"content":["blind--spiritually (Isa 42:16, Isa 42:18-19; Isa 35:5; Joh 9:39). \n\nprison-- (Isa 61:1-2). \n\ndarkness--opposed to \"light\" (Isa 42:6; Eph 5:8; Pe1 2:9).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":8,"content":["God turns from addressing Messiah to the people. \n\nLord--JEHOVAH: God's distinguishing and incommunicable name, indicating essential being and immutable faithfulness (compare Exo 6:3; Psa 83:18; Psa 96:5; Hos 12:5). \n\nmy--that is due to Me, and to Me alone.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":9,"content":["former things--Former predictions of God, which were now fulfilled, are here adduced as proof that they ought to trust in Him alone as God; namely, the predictions as to Israel's restoration from Babylon. \n\nnew--namely, predictions as to Messiah, who is to bring all nations to the worship of Jehovah (Isa 42:1, Isa 42:4, Isa 42:6). \n\nspring forth--The same image from plants just beginning to germinate occurs in Isa 43:19; Isa 58:8. Before there is the slightest indication to enable a sagacious observer to infer the coming event, God foretells it.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":10,"content":["new song--such as has never before been sung, called for by a new manifestation of God's grace, to express which no hymn for former mercies would be appropriate. The new song shall be sung when the Lord shall reign in Jerusalem, and all \"nations shall flow unto it\" (Isa 2:2; Isa 26:1; Rev 5:9; Rev 14:3). \n\nye that go down to the sea--whose conversion will be the means of diffusing the Gospel to distant lands. \n\nall . . . therein--all the living creatures that fill the sea (Psa 96:11) [MAURER]. Or, all sailors and voyagers [GESENIUS]. But these were already mentioned in the previous clause: there he called on all who go upon the sea; in this clause all animals in the sea; so in Isa 42:11, he calls on the inanimate wilderness to lift up its voice. External nature shall be so renovated as to be in unison with the moral renovation.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":11,"content":["cities--in a region not wholly waste, but mainly so, with an oasis here and there. \n\nKedar--in Arabia-Deserta (Isa 21:16; Gen 25:13). The Kedarenians led a nomadic, wandering life. So Kedar is here put in general for that class of men. \n\nrock--Sela, that is, Petra, the metropolis of Idumea and the Nabathoean Ishmaelites. Or it may refer in general to those in Arabia-PetrÃ&brvbra, who had their dwellings cut out of the rock. \n\nthe mountains--namely, of Paran, south of Sinai, in Arabic PetrÃ&brvbra [VITRINGA].\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":12,"content":["glory . . . islands-- (Isa 24:15).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":13,"content":["Jehovah will no longer restrain His wrath: He will go forth as a mighty warrior (Exo 15:3) to destroy His people's and His enemies, and to deliver Israel (compare Psa 45:3). \n\nstir up jealousy--rouse His indignation. \n\nroar--image from the battle cry of a warrior.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":14,"content":["long time--namely, during the desolation of Israel (Isa 32:14). \n\nholden my peace--(Compare Psa 50:21; Hab 1:2). \n\ncry like a travailing woman, &c.--Like a woman in parturition, who, after having restrained her breathing for a time, at last, overcome with labor pain, lets out her voice with a panting sigh; so Jehovah will give full vent to His long pent-up wrath. Translate, instead of \"destroy . . . devour\"; I will at once breathe hard and pant, namely, giving loose to My wrath.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":15,"content":["I will destroy all My foes. \n\nmountains--in Palestine usually planted with vines and olives in terraces, up to their tops. \n\nislands--rather, \"dry lands.\" God will destroy His foes, the heathen, and their idols, and \"dry up\" the fountains of their oracles, their doctrines and institutions, the symbol of which is water, and their schools which promoted idolatry [VITRINGA].\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":16,"content":["blind--God's people, Israel, in captivity, needing a guide. In the ulterior sense the New Testament Church, which was about to be led and enlightened by the Son of God as its leader and shepherd in the wilderness of the Roman empire, until it should reach a city of habitation. \"A way . . . they knew not,\" refers to the various means ployed by Providence for the establishment of the Church in the world, such as would never have occurred to the mind of mere man. \"Blind,\" they are called, as not having heretofore seen God's ways in ordering His Church. \n\nmake darkness light, &c.--implies that the glorious issue would only be known by the event itself [VITRINGA]. The same holds good of the individual believer (Isa 30:21; Psa 107:7; compare Hos 2:6, Hos 2:14; Eph 5:8; Heb 13:5).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":17,"content":["turned back . . . ashamed--disappointed in their trust; the same phrase occurs in Psa 35:4.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":18,"content":["deaf--namely, to the voice of God. \n\nblind--to your duty and interest; wilfully so (Isa 42:20). In this they differ from \"the blind\" (Isa 42:16). The Jews are referred to. He had said, God would destroy the heathen idolatry; here he remembers that even Israel, His \"servant\" (Isa 42:19), from whom better things might have been expected, is tainted with this sin.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":19,"content":["my servant--namely, Israel. Who of the heathen is so blind? Considering Israel's high privileges, the heathen's blindness was as nothing compared with that of Israelite idolaters. \n\nmy messenger . . . sent--Israel was designed by God to be the herald of His truth to other nations. \n\nperfect--furnished with institutions, civil and religious, suited to their perfect well-being. Compare the title, \"Jeshurun,\" the perfect one, applied to Israel (compare Isa 44:2), as the type of Messiah Or translate, the friend of God, which Israel was by virtue of descent from Abraham, who was so called (Isa 41:8), [GESENIUS]. The language, \"my servant\" (compare Isa 42:1), \"messenger\" (Mal 3:1), \"perfect\" (Rom 10:4; Heb 2:10; Pe1 2:22), can, in the full antitypical sense, only apply to Christ. So Isa 42:21 plainly refers to Him. \"Blind\" and \"deaf\" in His case refer to His endurance of suffering and reproach, as though He neither saw nor heard (Psa 38:13-14). Thus there is a transition by contrast from the moral blindness of Israel (Isa 42:18) to the patient blindness and deafness of Messiah [HORSLEY].\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":20,"content":["observest--Thou dost not keep them. The \"many things\" are the many proofs which all along from the first God had given Israel of His goodness and His power (Deu 4:32-38; Deu 29:2-4; Psa. 78:1-72; Psa. 105:1-45). \n\nhe--transition from the second to the third person. \"Opening . . . ears,\" that is, though he (Israel) hath his ears open (see on Isa 6:10). This language, too (see on Isa 42:19), applies to Messiah as Jehovah's servant (Isa 50:5; Psa 40:6).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":21,"content":["his righteousness--not His people's, but His own; Isa 42:24 shows that they had no righteousness (Isa 45:24; Isa 59:16). God is well pleased with His Son (\"in whom My soul delighteth,\" Isa 42:1), \"who fulfils all righteousness\" (Mat 3:15) for them, and with them for His sake (compare Isa 42:6; Psa 71:16, Psa 71:19; Mat 5:17; Rom 10:3-4; Phi 3:9). Perhaps in God's \"righteousness\" here is included His faithfulness to His promises given to Israel's forefathers [ROSENMULLER]; because of this He is well pleased with Israel, even though displeased with their sin, which He here reproves; but that promise could only be based on the righteousness of Messiah, the promised seed, which is God's righteousness.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":22,"content":["holes--caught by their foes in the caverns where they had sought refuge [BARNES]. Or bound in subterranean dungeons [BARNES]. \n\nprison-houses--either literal prisons, or their own houses, whence they dare not go forth for fear of the enemy. The connection is: Notwithstanding God's favor to His people for His righteousness' sake (Isa 42:21), they have fallen into misery (the Babylonish and Romish captivities and their present dispersion), owing to their disregard of the divine law: spiritual imprisonment is included (Isa 42:7). \n\nnone saith, Restore--There is no deliverer (Isa 63:5).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":23,"content":["A call that they should be warned by the past judgments of God to obey Him for the time to come.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":24,"content":["Who--Their calamity was not the work of chance, but God's immediate act for their sins. \n\nJacob . . . Israel . . . we--change from the third to the first person; Isaiah first speaking to them as a prophet, distinct from them; then identifying himself with them, and acknowledging His share in the nation's sins (compare Jos 5:1).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":25,"content":["him--Israel (Isa 42:24). \n\nstrength of battle--violence of war. \n\nit--the battle or war (compare Isa 10:16). \n\nknew not--knew not the lesson of repentance which the judgment was intended to teach (Isa 5:13; Isa 9:13; Jer 5:3).\n\n\n\n\nNext: Isaiah Chapter 43\n\n"]}],"introduction":"MESSIAH THE ANTITYPE OF CYRUS. (Isa. 42:1-25)\n\nmy servant--The law of prophetic suggestion leads Isaiah from Cyrus to the far greater Deliverer, behind whom the former is lost sight of. The express quotation in Mat 12:18-20, and the description can apply to Messiah alone (Psa 40:6; with which compare Exo 21:6; Joh 6:38; Phi 2:7). Israel, also, in its highest ideal, is called the \"servant\" of God (Isa 49:3). But this ideal is realized only in the antitypical Israel, its representative-man and Head, Messiah (compare Mat 2:15, with Hos 11:1). \"Servant\" was the position assumed by the Son of God throughout His humiliation. \n\nelect--chosen by God before the foundation of the world for an atonement (Pe1 1:20; Rev 13:8). Redemption was no afterthought to remedy an unforeseen evil (Rom 16:25-26; Eph 3:9, Eph 3:11; Ti2 1:9-10; Tit 1:2-3). In Mat 12:18 it is rendered \"My beloved\"; the only beloved Son, beloved in a sense distinct from all others. Election and the love of God are inseparably joined. \n\nsoul--a human phrase applied to God, because of the intended union of humanity with the Divinity: \"I Myself.\" \n\ndelighteth--is well pleased with, and accepts, as a propitiation. God could have \"delighted\" in no created being as a mediator (compare Isa 42:21; Isa 63:5; Mat 3:17). \n\nspirit upon him-- (Isa 11:2; Isa 61:1; Luk 4:18; Joh 3:34). \n\njudgment--the gospel dispensation, founded on justice, the canon of the divine rule and principle of judgment called \"the law\" (Isa 2:3; compare Isa 42:4; Isa 51:4; Isa 49:6). The Gospel has a discriminating judicial effect: saving to penitents; condemnatory to Satan, the enemy (Joh 12:31; Joh 16:11), and the wilfully impenitent (Joh 9:39). Mat 12:18 has, \"He shall show,\" for \"He shall bring forth,\" or \"cause to go forth.\" Christ both produced and announced His \"judgment.\" The Hebrew dwells most on His producing it; Matthew on His announcement of it: the two are joined in Him.\n\n"},"thisChapterLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/ISA/42.json","thisChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"ISA","chapter":42},"nextChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/ISA/43.json","nextChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"ISA","chapter":43},"previousChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/ISA/41.json","previousChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"ISA","chapter":41},"numberOfVerses":24}