Isaiah 42:23

Who among you will give ear to this? who will hearken and hear for the time to come? (WHO) WILL HEARKEN, AND HEAR FOR THE TIME TO COME? - a call that they should be warned by the past judgments of God to obey Him for the time to come....

23._Who is there among you? _Isaiah continues the same subject; for he means that the Jews are and will be so stupid, that they will not see, even when they are warned; and he expressly addresses them, because, while they ought to have been better educated and taught than others, yet they understood nothing, and did not observe the judgments of God, even though they were exceedingly manifest. _Who shall hearken for the time to come? _That is, who, being at length subdued by afflictions, repents, though it be late. We see, then, how this astonishment aggravates the criminality of their madness, because they will always refuse to be taught. Yet let us learn what is the use of threatenings and punishments; for God does not reprove our crimes, or punish us for them, as if he delighted in taking vengeance, or demanded some recompense, but that we may be on our guard “for the time to come.”...

18-25 Observe the call given to this people, and the character given of them. Multitudes are ruined for want of observing that which they cannot but see; they perish, not through ignorance, but carelessness. The Lord is well-pleased in the making known his own righteousness. For their sins they were spoiled of all their possessions. This fully came to pass in the destruction of the Jewish nation. There is no resisting, nor escaping God's anger. See the mischief sin makes; it provokes God to anger. And those not humbled by lesser judgments, must expect greater. Alas! how many professed Christians are blind as the benighted heathen! While the Lord is well-pleased in saving sinners through the righteousness of Christ he will also glorify his justice, by punishing all proud despisers. Seeing God has poured out his wrath on his once-favoured people, because of their sins, let us fear, lest a...

WHO AMONG YOU WILL GIVE EAR TO THIS? - Who is there in the nation that will be so warned by the judgments of God, that he will attend to the lessons which he designs to teach, and reform his life, and return to him? It is implied by these questions that such ought to be the effect; it is implied also that they were so sunken and abandoned that they would not do it. These judgments were a loud call on the nation to turn to God, and, in time to come, to avoid the sins which had made it necessary for him to interpose in this manner, and give them to spoil....

EXPOSITION ISAIAH 42:1 ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE SERVANT OF THE LORD, AND THE WORK WHICH HE WILL PERFORM. There are comparatively few who deny that, in this place at any rate, the "Servant of the Lord" is the Messiah. (So the Targum on the passage; so Abar-barnel; so, among moderns, Oehler, Delitzsch, and Mr. Cheyne.) The portraiture has "so strong an individuality and such marked personal features, that it cannot possibly be a mere personified collective;" and it goes so "infinitely _beyond _anything of which a man was ever capable that it can only be the future Christ" (Delitzsch). It may be added that St. Matthew ...

WHO AMONG YOU WILL GIVE EAR TO THIS?.... To this prophecy of your destruction, and to what follows concerning it: WHO WILL HEARKEN AND HEAR FOR THE TIME TO COME? and receive instruction from hence, and repent and reform? none at all; so blind, and deaf, and stupid, were they both before, and at their destruction, and even ever since; they take no notice of the hand of God upon them, nor hearken to the rod, any more than to the word of God; which seems to be what is meant by "the time to come", or "hereafter"; and this will be their case till the veil is taken away, and then they shall see and hear, and turn to the Lord....

CHAPTER 42 The True Servant of Jehovah 1. _The Servant of Jehovah and His mission (Isaiah 42:1)_ 2. _His future work among the nations (Isaiah 42:5)_ 3. _The future song of redemption glory (Isaiah 42:10)_ 4. _Jehovah's manifestation in power (Isaiah 42:14)_ 5. _The address of exhortation to the deaf and blind nation (Isaiah 42:18) _ Matthew's Gospel (Matthew 12:20) tells us that this servant is the Lord Jesus Christ. Mark t

ISRAEL'S PITEOUS PLIGHT, A PUNISHMENT FROM YAHWEH. The prophet bids the people, who have not recognised Yahweh's working in their distresses, look beneath the surface. To all appearance they are captives whom none can deliver. Will none of them see that Yahweh Himself is the author of their misfortune? He has chastised them, though they have not understood the discipline. ISAIAH 42:19. A gloss, identifying the blind and deaf of Isaiah 42:18; a second gloss (Isaiah 42:19_ b_) has been added. Both take Yahweh's Servant to be Israel. AT PEACE WITH ME: difficult; perhaps read, my devoted one. Isaiah 42:21

WHO... ? The other "call to hear" emphasized by the Figure of speech _Erotesis_....

An expostulation with Israel for its insensibility to the privileges it has enjoyed. The passage is of considerable interest for the light which it throws on the sense in which the title "Servant of the Lord" is to be understood. The discrepancy between the description in Isaiah 42:1 and that here given is at first sight perplexing. There the Servant is spoken of as the perfect and successful worker for God, here he is addressed as blind and deaf and altogether unfit for Jehovah's purpose. Yet it is extremely unnatural to suppose that the writer applies the term to two entirely different subjects. To suggest, as the prophet's meaning, that the inefficient Servant is to be replaced by another, who shall accomplish the work in which the former has failed is perhaps the least satisfactory of all explanations, and misrepresents the teaching of the prophecy. That the subject here addressed is...