Thus saith God, Jehovah, he that created the heavens and stretched them out, he that spread forth the earth and its productions, he that giveth breath unto the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein
Isaiah 42 opens by pointing to God's chosen Servant, and at verse 5 the speaker steps forward and names Himself by what He has made. The question the verse presses is why a commission needs a Creator's signature — and why the making of man is described in two parts, breath and spirit.
The words from verse 5 onward are spoken to the Servant who has just been introduced, and they begin with God's own credentials.
God has called our attention to this true Servant. In verses 5-9 we have words spoken to Him by prophecy. Verse 5 stresses God's acts in creation. The heavens and the earth are the work of His hands, and so is mankind. He has given us the breath of our bodies, and also the spirit, which is what marks man out from the animals. Now this mighty Creator has called His true Servant in righteousness. He has made Him a covenant to the people and a light to the nations.
The list of creative acts is not decoration. It stands over against the carved images mentioned a few lines later, and it settles whether the promise can be kept.
This leads Jehovah in magnificent terms to speak of what He will accomplish through His own name and glory, in contrast with graven images. "Thus says God Jehovah, He that created the heavens, and stretched them forth… I am Jehovah; that is My name: and My glory will I not give to another, neither My praise to graven images." … Is this, or anything else, too hard for Jehovah?
The verse names two things given to the people who walk on the earth. Other passages trace where the second one comes from and where it goes.
About the spirits of people in the world generally, Isaiah 42:5 tells us that God "spread out the earth," and that He "gives breath to the people on it and spirit to those who walk in it." The Creator who gives breath to men also gives spirit. Zechariah 12:1 then shows that He is the One who "formed the spirit of man within him." Ecclesiastes 12:7 shows that the spirit goes back to its Giver and Maker when it leaves the body: "the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it." Twice Numbers calls God "the God of the spirits of all flesh" (16:22; 27:16).
Some argue that the two halves of the line say the same thing twice. On that reading, "spirit" is only another word for the breath of life. One writer answers that this would empty the sentence of sense.
Mr. Constable holds that these parallel lines simply say the same thing twice in different words. That is a false and unworthy idea of them, and it would reduce them to empty repetition. Every verse that uses such lines shows otherwise. What a poor repetition it would be to make Isaiah say, as he would: "who gives breath to the people on it, and breath (spirit) to those who walk in it."
If the spirit is a real gift and not a synonym for breathing, then it marks out what a human being is.
The spirit of man is a wonderful and most important gift of the Creator. So God, who gave it, will not set it aside or make little of it in its own sphere. The spirit is what sets man apart from the animal, and by it he is made in the image of God. By it, in the place creation gave him, he is a son of God, as the animal is not; for God is "the Father of spirits" only (Heb. 12:9). So he can recognise God, and have a God, in a way completely different from the animal, which knows nothing, and is therefore not a moral being, and so can never be immoral.
Because breath is given, no one holds it as property. Paul made the same point to a city full of shrines.
The God unknown to the Athenians is the Creator of all things, the Lord of heaven and earth. Human temples are nothing to Him, and they cannot shut Him in. People do not worship Him through the works of their own hands, as though He needed man to supply Him. He is the great Giver instead. He gives the material things people care so much about, and He gives life and breath, the basic things our existence rests on.
- Speaker. In verse 5 God begins to address His chosen Servant. He signs the words with creation: the heavens stretched out, the earth spread out, mankind made.
- Gift one: breath. Life and breath are His gift, not our possession; He is the Giver, never the one supplied by human hands.
- Gift two: spirit. The line does not repeat itself. It names breath and spirit as two gifts, and reading them as one word twice drains the sentence of meaning.
- Reach. The spirit sets man apart from the animals. It makes him the image of God, able to recognise God, and it returns to the God who gave it.
- Result. A God this great owes no idol anything, and no obstacle stops Him. So the Servant He calls in righteousness cannot fail. Is anything too hard for Him?
I, Jehovah, have called thee in righteousness, and will take hold of thy hand; and I will preserve thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the nations,
Isaiah 42 opens with God pointing to a Servant He delights in. By verse 6 He speaks to that Servant directly, and the words raise two questions: who is this Servant, and how can a person be a covenant?
The chapter turns on a change of subject. Earlier in Isaiah the nation itself is called God's servant, but here a different figure steps forward, and the New Testament settles the identification.
This is Jehovah's Servant above all others, beyond any comparison. It is not Cyrus here, and not Israel, though Isaiah 41:8 calls Israel His servant. It is Christ. Only of Him does Isaiah 42:6 say that He is given "for a covenant of the people and a light of the Gentiles." This is not an ideal figure, but the real Messiah.
The contrast is deliberate. One servant failed; the other does not.
This highlights the opening of Isaiah 42. There the prophecy turns from Israel, the failing servant of God, and introduces the Lord Jesus as the true Servant of God. We are to fix our attention on Him, for He is the chosen One in whom God's delight rests.
Verse 5 has just described God stretching out the heavens and giving breath to the people on the earth. That same power stands behind the calling in verse 6.
Now that our attention has been drawn to this true Servant, verses 5-9 give us words spoken to Him in prophecy. Verse 5 stresses the acts of God in creation. He has given us not only the breath of our bodies but also the spirit, which sets man apart from the animals. Now this mighty Creator has called His true Servant in righteousness. He has established Him as a covenant to the people and a light to the nations. In verse 9 Jehovah declares new things, so we can see that the new covenant is predicted here.
Israel already knew about covenants. What is new here is that a Person, rather than a set of terms, is handed over as the covenant itself.
In Isaiah 42 verse 6 we read that God gives our Lord Jesus Christ, the faithful Servant, "for a Covenant of the people." God had made an unconditional covenant with Abraham and a conditional one with Israel at Sinai. But He who centres all things in Himself is the Covenant.
That shifts where security rests.
So how secure, how stable, how sure everything must be in Him. In the letter to the Hebrews we read that He is "the Surety" of the new covenant, that His precious blood is "the blood of the everlasting covenant," and that He is "the Mediator" of the new covenant. But here He Himself is the Covenant. So it must be, like Himself, unfailing and perfect. Who would not rejoice in such a Saviour! Everything depends upon Him, not upon us.
The verse pairs two phrases, and the grammar keeps them distinct. The covenant is singular and national; the light is not.
When did God enter into covenant with the Gentiles? God has given Christ, the rejected Christ, as a light to the Gentiles, so that He may be His salvation to the ends of the earth (Isaiah 49:6). But He is a covenant of the people, not of peoples. So Scripture never says the Gentiles are grafted in instead of the Jews.
The second half of the verse pushes the Servant's range past any one nation, and commentators warn that losing this breadth is where error starts.
This same verse shows us another shining glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is given "for a Light of the Gentiles." He is not only a Covenant for the people of God; He is given as a Light for all. High privileges belong to Israel, and higher ones still to the assembly, the body of Christ. But as the Light He shines for the world. We need to pay attention to this, for every falling away from the faith begins with wrong thoughts of Him.
The apostles treated this word as a command to act on.
His hearers still refused to believe in the Son of God. So the apostle turned the gospel invitation to the Gentiles (Acts 13:46). He did this in line with what Jehovah said to His Servant, Who is His Son (Isaiah 42:6; Acts 13:47).
Commentators see two time frames in the verse.
Israel will reject this servant, as prophecy says. But the Gentiles are to see His light and rejoice in His salvation. It is true that most of these predictions wait for His future work. When He comes again, God will give Him the Gentiles for an inheritance. But these predictions also imply what is now in force... Through Him Gentiles are saved now and when He comes again even the ends of the earth will know Him.
- Called — God speaks to the true Servant, Christ, not to Israel, the servant who failed. The Creator Himself stands behind the call.
- Kept — God takes His Servant by the hand and keeps Him; the mighty Creator stands behind the work.
- Given — He is not the go-between for a covenant only; He is the covenant, which is why everything rests on Him and not on us.
- Distinguished — "a covenant for the people" means Israel, one people. "A light for the nations" goes wider. Commentators stress that God made no covenant with the Gentiles.
- Shining — the light is already going out through the gospel, and will be seen to the ends of the earth when He comes again.
to open the blind eyes, to bring forth the prisoner from the prison, them that sit in darkness out of the house of restraint.
Isaiah 42:7 closes the list of tasks God gives His Servant: opening eyes, emptying prisons, ending darkness. Who is this Servant, whose eyes are blind, and when do the prison doors swing open?
The verse belongs to a speech in which the Creator addresses His chosen Servant. Writers identify Him by contrast with the nation that had failed in the same role.
Jehovah, the Creator of the heavens and earth, addresses Christ. In chapter 41 God addresses Israel as the servant of Jehovah, and calls and keeps him (Isa. 41:8–10). Here Christ takes the place of Israel. God declares Him to be Jehovah's servant. He is the One called in righteousness, held, and kept — kept to carry out the promises to Israel and to bring light to the Gentiles.
Later in the same chapter the prophet turns on the nation itself.
Israel is in view here — "perfect," yet "blind." Their privilege was perfect, and so their responsibility was solemn; but their failure was terrible... "But this is a people robbed and plundered. They are all trapped in holes and hidden away in prison houses. They are prey, and no one rescues them."
One writer traces both the cause and the cure.
Israel needs Him to do this for them, for they have become blind, and are "a people hidden away in prison houses" (vv. 18–22). They had sinned against the Lord and turned to idols, so Israel was useless as the Lord's national servant and messenger (v. 19). But once they are brought into contact with Christ the personal Servant, their eyes will be opened, and the works of God will be openly displayed in the nation — as they were in the one blind man of John 9, "so that the works of God might be displayed in him."
Writers tie the tasks of this verse to the words that follow it.
Jehovah has given Him not only to be "a covenant of the people," but also "a light to the Gentiles," "to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness." He alone can do this, and He will do it with no help. What follows surely seals it: "I am Jehovah; that is My name; My glory I will not give to another."
Paul used this promise to explain why he preached outside Israel.
In preaching the gospel Paul, when "the Jews saw the crowds and were filled with envy and contradicted him," said, "See, we turn to the Gentiles; for this is what the Lord has commanded us: I have set you as a light of the nations" (Acts 13:47). The Light, like the gospel and the salvation of God, goes out to all people everywhere.
Christ opened blind eyes with a word.
He questions the two blind men: do they believe He is able to answer what they ask? No doubt He does this to draw out the decision of their faith. When they answer yes, He speaks and acts according to their faith, and their eyes are opened. He is indeed the Son of David, fulfilling the prophecy of Isaiah 42:7.
But the same Servant also sent His apostle to do the work at a deeper level.
The Jews say that opening the eyes of the blind in the physical sense was kept for the Messiah. If that is so, here we see how He sent His apostle to do the work, not for the body only but for the heart. This showed itself when Gentiles heard the call of the Lord and turned from darkness to light — and, to name the source of each more exactly, from the power of Satan to God. Then came the great privileges of the gospel: the forgiveness of sins and a place among those set apart by faith in Christ.
Writers hold that Israel's release comes at Christ's command, not by human arrangement.
Men may seek to restore the land to the Jew, and bring the Jews back to the land. Their efforts may seem to succeed for a time. But they will only bring the Jew back for the judgment of the great tribulation. To come back for blessing they must wait until Christ gives the word. In His time He will say to the prisoners, "Go forth," and to those in darkness, "Show yourselves"... no power will withstand His words.
- Servant. Israel failed in the role, so Christ takes Israel's place — called, held, and kept to do what the nation could not.
- Blindness. The first blind eyes here are the nation's own — perfect in privilege, blind in fact, robbed and hidden in prison houses.
- Alone. He alone can do it, and He needs no help. That is why the next line says God gives His glory to no one else.
- Reach. Given as covenant to one people but as light to all — the sentence Paul used when he turned to the nations.
- Release. He opened eyes with a word on earth, He opens them now through the gospel, and the prisoners go free when He says, "Go forth."
I am Jehovah, that is my name; and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images.
Isaiah 42 has just introduced God's chosen Servant, the One who will not break a bruised reed and who comes as a light for the nations. Now the Speaker says who He Himself is: the Name is His alone, and He hands the glory and praise that go with it to no one else.
(Note: some quotes below use older Bible wording. Where the ESV prints "the LORD," they print "Jehovah" — and the point being made depends on it.)
God speaks these words to a nation that had turned to idols.
God will do all this through His lowly Servant. In that light, Jehovah appeals to the nation about their idolatry. He reminds them that their God is Jehovah, the eternal I AM. He will not give His name and His glory to another. He will not let idols take the praise that is due to Him. He alone can bring about what He foretold long ago. He alone can announce what is coming before it appears.
Read on from verse 5, and the same voice that made the heavens is the voice that appoints the Servant. William Kelly notes what holds the passage together:
This leads Jehovah to speak in magnificent terms of what He will accomplish through His own name and glory, in contrast with graven images.
If the divine Name is non-transferable, then every place where Scripture applies that Name to the Son settles the question of who the Son is.
Scripture addresses the Son directly as God and as Jehovah (Heb. 1:8-12). This teaches that His Sonship is eternal. Prophecy gives these names to the Son in His kingdom (Ps. 45), and in His suffering and humiliation (Ps. 102). Their use of Him in those settings proves that the names are His by inherent right. He did not gain them when He became man. If the Son had any right at all to the name God and the name Jehovah, He had that right from all eternity. The divine Name is not transferable: "I am Jehovah, that is My Name; and My glory will I not give to another."
The second half of the verse refuses praise to carved images. One writer sets that refusal against the one true likeness God has given.
God will not give His glory to another; He is jealous over it. But that only underlines that the Son is one with the Father. All images that man might make can only provoke jealousy. But here is "the image of the invisible God." He is jealous for His Son, "that all men should honour the Son even as they honour the Father."
A rival to God's glory need not be carved from wood or gold. The test is what holds first place.
Everything which takes precedence of the Person of Christ is an idol. Take even the church of God, dear as it is. If its blessedness, if the "one body and one Spirit," becomes a slogan and takes even a little of that supreme place in our heart which belongs only to the Lord Jesus Christ, then the church becomes an idol. Or take an evangelist who thinks and aims more at popularity, preaching himself and not the Lord. His preaching is blessed work, and God's means for the saving of souls. Even so, that too becomes an idol.
The reason lies in what God is.
It is impossible for God to give His glory to another. If He did, He would stop being God. He cannot hand over His place to you; He cannot give you the credit that belongs to Himself alone.
Keeping the glory does not make God stingy. It shapes the way He gives.
God does not give His glory to another. But when He gives, He gives in such a way that it all goes back to Him, in the perfect enjoyment of Himself, to His own praise. God is steady, unmovable in His purposes of mercy. He will give blessing. And He gives it in a way that lays the blessing on the heart, so that the heart enjoys it and gives it back to God in praise.
This word still governs how God works today.
"My glory will I not give to another" is always God's word. These are days of the church's unfaithfulness and the confusion that follows. Even so, we may depend on it: God will do His work in a way that displays His glory and makes nothing of man.
- The Name — "I am the LORD" is the eternal I AM speaking; the glory is inseparable from who He is.
- The Name shared — that Name cannot be passed to anyone. So when Scripture calls the Son Jehovah, the title is His by right, not given later.
- The Name rivalled — an idol is anything that takes the first place, which belongs to Christ. Even church work and preaching can do it.
- The Name defended — God cannot hand His glory over without ceasing to be God, so He works in a way that makes nothing of man.
- The Name enjoyed — He keeps the glory, but He keeps back no blessing. He lays each gift on the heart, so that it returns to Him as praise.
Behold, the former things are come to pass, and new things do I declare before they spring forth will I cause you to hear them.
Isaiah 42 opens with God introducing His chosen Servant. Verse 9 turns to God's own record of fulfilled words, and raises two questions: what are the "new things," and why does He tell them in advance?
Verse 9 closes a paragraph addressed to the One introduced at the start of the chapter, and the "new things" belong to His work.
Now that our attention is on this true Servant, verses 5-9 give us words spoken to Him in prophecy. Verse 5 stresses God's acts in creation: the heavens, the earth, and mankind are all the work of His hands. This mighty Creator has called His true Servant in righteousness and established Him as a covenant to the people and a light to the nations. In verse 9 Jehovah declares new things, so we may see that He predicts the new covenant here, though not as fully as in Jeremiah 31.
Verse 8 says God will not hand His glory to idols. Verse 9 gives the reason why.
In the light of all that God will do through His lowly Servant, Jehovah appeals to the nation about their idolatry. He reminds them that their God is Jehovah, the eternal I AM. He will not give His name and His glory to another, nor let idols take the praise that belongs to Him. He alone can bring to pass things already foretold, and declare the things to come before they spring forth.
God's knowledge of what has not yet happened is not like ours.
Who knows the future but God! With us there is a yesterday, today, and tomorrow, but with God the most distant future is as vivid and well known as the present. He is the great I AM (Ex. 3:14), "who calls into existence the things that do not exist" (Rom. 4:17).
The ability is not a trick performed to win an argument. It belongs to God's nature, and what He foretells has a centre.
He does what He does because He is what He is, and in doing it He shows who He is. He tells and foretells because He knows and foreknows... He opens up the future both for blessing and for judgment, all hanging upon Himself as the divine Centre of the whole moral arena.
So who brings these new things in? The answer stands at the head of the chapter.
Isaiah 42 opens by introducing Christ as the true Servant of the Lord. He will not fail or be discouraged until He accomplishes God's will on earth. He is the One who will bring in and establish the new things that verse 9 speaks of.
In Isaiah, these new things have one setting in view.
As far as Isaiah goes, the new things predicted have to do with blessings on the earth. The new song they call out is from both land and sea, from the far distant isles and from the wilderness and the top of the mountains. For heavenly blessing we have to go on to the New Testament.
Later in Isaiah the same declaration comes up again, and its full scope appears.
As far back as Isaiah 42, we had Jehovah's declaration, "new things I now declare" (verse 9), and now we discover the wide scope of it. There is to be a complete sweeping away of the old order and the creation of new heavens as well as a new earth. The verses that follow show that this speaks of the millennial age, not the eternal state, which Revelation 21:1 announces.
The verse leaves no room for human effort to produce the promised age. It is announced by God and carried out by One person.
The Lord Jesus Christ will bring this golden age to pass, and by His work alone. Let us fix that in our minds, so that we do not meddle with present schemes to bring such an age in, whether political or otherwise. It will only come when He comes again. He came first as the Servant to suffer. He will come again as Jehovah's mighty Arm, bringing salvation for the earth by solemn judgments.
- Former — What God said before has already happened. He alone brings foretold things to pass.
- New — God speaks the new things to the Servant of verses 5-9. One commentator sees the new covenant predicted here, stated more fully in Jeremiah 31.
- Declared — No idol can tell the future before it springs forth. God alone can, and that sets Him apart.
- Wide — In Isaiah the new things reach from blessing on the earth to new heavens and a new earth. For heavenly blessing, go on to the New Testament.
- His — The new things come through Christ alone. The response they call out is a new song, not a human scheme.