God's Servant, The Justice-Bringer (Isaiah 42:1-9) Series

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I've deliberately tried to mess with you a little bit to help you see that this passage is more complicated than it first seems. But now that I've hopefully unsettled you, let me try to help you and put this all together very simply.

In these verses, God is commissioning his people, anointing them, for the purpose of teaching people. There are "rules" that God wants all people, all nations, to live by. There's a better way of life out there, where people can live faithfully, and truthfully, toward each other. Where I respect that your stuff belongs to you, and you respect that my stuff belongs to me. Where we speak with integrity. Where we honor commitments, and treat each other with gentleness, and respect. And where we seek forgiveness, and forgive each other, when we fail to do all of that.

And what God wants, is for his people to teach the nations about all of this. His people will model this behavior, and they will gently, carefully, respectfully, tell people about how to love the one true God, and how to love each other. They will be a light in the darkness, and the nations will find themselves seeing reality-- seeing the world through God's perspective-- for the first time.

God's people may never have much earthly strength. They may always serve from a posture of weakness. But God will give them enough strength to endure. God will make sure they are successful.

With this, we come to verses 5-7. These verses cover much the same ground, but from a different perspective. We've been invited to look at God's servant, and see ourselves from God's perspective. But now God's people are directly addressed. Now, it gets real simple. Real straightforward (except for the super debated expression "covenant of people" in verse 6; NRSV: "Hebrew uncertain"):

(5) Thus has said the God/El Yahweh, The One Creating the heavens,

and the one stretching them out; [Isaiah 40:22; 44:24; 45:12; 51:13]

the one spreading out the earth and its offspring, [Psalm 136:6; Isaiah 44:24]

the one giving breath to the people upon it, [Genesis 2:7]

while a spirit/life (Psalm 104:29-30) to the ones walking in it:

(6) "I [am] Yahweh.

I called/summoned you in/with righteousness, [Isaiah 41:9]

and I grasped your hand, [Isaiah 41:9, 10, 13]

and I created you, [Isaiah 44:2, 21; 49:5]

and I appointed you [Jer. 1:5] as a covenant people, [Isaiah 49:8]

as a light for the nations/Gentiles, [Isaiah 49:6; 51:4]

(7) to open the eyes of the blind,

to bring out from the prison/dungeon prisoners,

from the house/place of confinement/imprisonment the ones dwelling in darkness.

In verse 6, God tells you, that everything He's done for you has two main goals. The first, is that you would be a covenant people. The Hebrew here is complicated. The expression here is probably an inverted construct, and if you find yourself really curious about what that means, and how it works, I'm happy to tell you later.