Isaiah 42:19 (KJV) When God Seems Blind and Deaf

Isaiah 42:19 (KJV)
Who is blind, but my servant? or deaf, as my messenger that I sent? who is blind as he that is perfect, and blind as the LORD’S servant?

Jamieson, Fausset, Brown,
“The language, “my servant” (compare Isa 42:1), “messenger” (Mal 3:1), “perfect” (Rom 10:4; Heb 2:10; 1Pe 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, Psa 38:14). 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].”

The context of the chapter make is plain that the One in view in this verse is Jesus Christ.

He is the servant and the messenger of vs one.He and He alone is perfect.

But we do not think of Him as blind and deaf do we?The view, I believe, takes us back to vs 2-4 and the patience of the Lord:

• In suffering for our sake
• In not defending Himself in His trial
• In withholding judgment against those who persecute his own
• In forgiving our sins, though we have so brazenly committed them

Do we not often wonder why God seems to be so blind to the wickedness in this world and so deaf to our prayers for revival and for His return? Do we not frequently cry out for help and feel crushed that the Lord seems so slow to answer?

It is the righteous act of the Lord that He is patient and slow to wrath. It is His grace coupled with mercy that He keeps a perfectly blind eye and deaf ear to the injustices of this world. It is in His perfect righteousness that he patiently and persistently waits until those we would never have thought possible come to saving faith and those who we surely thought were saved, reveal themselves to be pretenders.

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Isaiah 42:19 (KJV) When God Seems Blind and Deaf

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