Day 209. Isaiah 41-42

In Chapter 42 of our reading for today we encounter the first of the so-called "Servant Songs" of second Isaiah—there are four in total. God's Servant is introduced here, but never mentioned by name. In all probability, this "chosen [one] in whom [the soul of God] delights" (42:10) is the personified nation of Israel—not Israel as it is—the disobedient Israel (42:240-- but Israel as it could be—the obedient Israel.
The Christian Church has always used these Servant Songs to help answer the question—Who is Jesus Christ?—but that question was certainly not in the mind of Second Isaiah when he wrote them. He was expounding mission and destiny of the Chosen People as a whole. But often in the Songs the prophet seems to be talking about one individual, not the people as a whole--a prophet, perhaps, or even a king. And certainly Jesus has been regarded by believers of every time as the personification of the "obedient Israel."
Like the figure of the Messiah, the Servant is specially chosen and anointed—"I have put my spirit upon him," the LORD says through his prophet (42:1). But there is no mention of the Servant being descended from the house of David, nor is his coming connected to armed deliverance of the people from their oppressors, as is the Messiah's. The Servant comes gently—"He will not cry or lift up his voice," our text says (42:2)—and he will not go about his mission belligerently—"a bruised reed he will not break" (42:3). His persuasion will be gentle. Nevertheless, he "will faithfully bring forth justice" (42:3), and he will not tire of his task "until he has established justice in the earth" (42:4).
Not just in Israel, but in the whole earth. The Servant's mission is a universal one. "The coastlands"—this is a favorite term used Second Isaiah for the nations—"wait for his teaching" (42:4). And what is that mission?—he is called to be "a light to the nations, to open the eyes of the blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness." The liberation that the Servant brings is not merely physical—although that seems to be a part of it--it also involves spiritual healing and liberation from the delusion of idol worship.
The Gentiles were never the concern of early Israel; they were happy enough to leave them alone to worship their goofy gods. Israel was concerned with its own relationship to the LORD, who was seen in a very parochial way—God is our God. He chose us. We are his. But here we have something new. "New things I now declare," the LORD speaks through his prophet. Here then is the dawning of new awareness that being chosen by God entails a responsibility to other nations to be a light. The LORD is a "jealous" God, the Law of Moses declares. He does not tolerate idols. They are an affront, an insult to him—"They are all a delusion; their works are nothing; their images are an empty wind" (41:29). He does not share his glory with any other god, or his praise with idols (42:29), the prophet says.
Here among the captives in Babylon we have the birth of a new idea—what we might call an "evangelical Judaism"—the idea that the God of Abraham and Moses belongs to the whole world, just as the whole world belongs to him. And it is calling the Servant Israel to bring his light and justice to nations and peoples still living in darkness and sin.