18 Pay attention! Are you deaf? Open your eyes! Are you blind? 19 You're my servant, and you're not looking! You're my messenger, and you're not listening! The very people I depended upon, servants of God, blind as a bat - willfully blind! 20 You've seen a lot, but looked at nothing. You've heard everything, but listened to nothing. 21 God intended, out of the goodness of his heart, to be lavish in his revelation. 22 But this is a people battered and cowed, shut up in attics and closets, Victims licking their wounds, feeling ignored, abandoned. 23 But is anyone out there listening? Is anyone paying attention to what's coming? 24 Who do you think turned Jacob over to the thugs, let loose the robbers on Israel? Wasn't it God himself, this God against whom we've sinned - not doing what he commanded, not listening to what he said? 25 Isn't it God's anger that's behind all this, God's punishing power? Their whole world collapsed but they still didn't get it; their life is in ruins but they don't take it to heart.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Isaiah 42:18-25
Commentary on Isaiah 42:18-25
(Read Isaiah 42:18-25)
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 promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of us should be found to come short of it.