Who is the blind servant of Isaiah 42:19?

Introduction

Isaiah refers to a ‘blind’ servant in Isa 42:19,

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? Isa 42:19 (KJV)

Today, this individual is mostly taken to be a personified Israel/Judah,[1] but some older commentators have thought that the Servant was the prophetic author of these oracles and some have said that his name was Meshullam.

This ‘collective’ reading arises from the fact that the Servant Song of Isa 42:1-4 is a glowing recommendation of an individual, and commentators do not see how such a figure can be accused of blindness a few verses later in the text. They observe the plural in v. 18 (‘ye’) and bring that reference to the people (or their leaders) forward into v. 19 as a ‘collective’ singular, although the LXX and the Targum paraphrase v. 19 with the plural ‘my servants’. In this essay we examine this reading.

Background[2]

A new oracle unit begins in v. 18 with ‘Hear, ye deaf (~yvrx); and look, ye blind (~yrw[)’. This injunction alludes to prior prophecies:

And in that day shall the deaf (~yvrx) hear the words of the book, and the eyes of the blind (~yrw[) shall see out of obscurity, and out of darkness. Isa 29:18 (KJV)

Then the eyes of the blind (~yrw[) shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf (~yvrx) shall be unstopped. Isa 35:5 (KJV)

The prophecies of Isa 29:18 and 35:5 index two days in which ears and eyes will be opened—one that is after the defeat of Assyria (Isa 29:6, 14) and one that is after the (but still future) Edomite campaign (Isa 34:6-8; 35:4-5[3]). It is the first occasion which Isaiah 42 presupposes,[4] because the order of the words ‘deaf-blind’ is the same and there are two verbs in common (‘hear’ and ‘see/look’). Thus,

Hear, ye deaf (~yvrx); and look, ye blind (~yrw[)

is indexed to the aftermath of the deliverance of Jerusalem but before the Edomite Campaign.

The exhortation to ‘hear and see’ in Isa 42:18 is delivered after the raising up of the One from the North (Isa 41:25) and the rehabilitation of Hezekiah (Isa 39:8; 42:1). There may have been victories in the east liberating Judahites; the town of Sela is the example given of a centre that was liberated (Isa 42:11, KJV ‘rock’, [ls). The injunction is for the people (plurals in v. 18) to see that Yahweh is redeeming them. This exhortation is set against the fact that they were still blind and deaf, for they had quickly put aside the lesson of the deliverance of Jerusalem. The exhortation is especially directed towards the princes of Judah who sought alliances with the nations and city-states (cf. Jesus’ description of the Pharisees in John 9). There is censure in the exhortation and the oracle unit goes on to record the cut of the dialogue between Yahweh and the people as he pleads with them to be faithful to him.

The Servant

There is a difficulty with the normal ‘collective’ interpretation. Since, the previous verse is plural, ‘ye are blind’, Yahweh is presumably talking to a ‘them’, the people or their leaders. He asks the question of them, ‘Who is blind but my Servant?’, shifting to the singular. It is awkward to read this as God asking of them a question about themselves as a group, taking them to be the reference of a collective ‘my Servant’. It is more natural to read ‘my Servant’ as an individual about whom God is talking to them.

Elsewhere, where we have ‘my Servant’ used of Israel/Jacob, it is used in a direct address (‘you are my Servant’ (Isa 41:8-9; 44:21); ‘Yet hear now, O Jacob my Servant’ (Isa 44:1-2)), or they are being spoken to about an individual (Cyrus, Isa 45:4). There is no example of God talking to Israel/Jacob about Jacob/Israel as ‘my Servant’. Rather, the pattern is that God talks to Israel/Jacob about an individual ‘my Servant’ (Isa 42:1; 52:13; 53:11).

While the Messiah is never a blind servant this does not mean the initial eighth century referent of ‘my Servant’ (the initial application) has not been or is not blind. The fact that the individual servant of Isa 42:1 is evidently not blind is not a sufficient reason to adopt a ‘collective’ reading. We know that Israel is a ‘my Servant’ (Isa 41:8) and from v. 18 we know they are blind (cf. Deut 29:1, 3), but what is v. 19a doing if it is not a contrast between them and a ‘my Servant’ who is an individual who is precisely not blind? Instead of taking the Servant to be blind, the question could equally be rhetorical and sarcastic; if so, this removes the motivation for the ‘collective’ reading.

If the leaders of the people think the Servant is blind (and are saying so), but he is not, and they are, this is the right question to pose to them, ‘Who is blind but my Servant?’ as if to say ‘So, only my Servant is blind, really?’ God has used sarcasm and satire in his attack on idols (Isaiah 44), and sarcasm is a device in disputation. Isaiah could have been engaging the leaders of the people at court, in the temple or in the gate when making this point as God’s spokesman.

The translation of v. 19 is not without difficulty,[5] and some of the translations are,

Who is blind except my servant, or as deaf as my aide whom I am to send? Who is blind like one in a covenant of well-being, blind like the servant of Yhwh? (Goldingay)

Who is blind except my servant, and deaf like my messenger whom I shall send? Who is blind like the covenanted one, and blind like the servant of the Lord? (Oswalt)

Who is blind but my servant and deaf like my messenger whom I send? Who is blind like m^ešullām, and blind like the servant of Yahweh? (Westermann)

Who is blind except my servant? Or deaf like my messenger (that I send)? Who is blind as Meshullam? Or as blind as YHWH’s servant? (Watts[6])

The first question has a construction (~a yk) which conveys the idea of a contrast.[7] The construction is common (156x) and an example with the implied verb ‘to be’ would be, ‘for they were no gods, but (~a yk) the work of men’s hands’ (2 Kgs 19:18; Isa 37:19). Generally, the construction is used between contrasting clauses that depict actions or states, for example, ‘I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but (~a yk) of hearing the words of the Lord’ (Amos 8:11). The clause that follows ~a yk may rely on the verb of the main clause for its sense, or it may include its own verb. For example, the subordinate clause might just be a name as in ‘Your name shall no more be called Jacob, but (~a yk) Israel’ (Gen 32:28; 35:10).

The reason why the Hebrew construction is difficult in Isa 42:19 is that it is part of a question rather than linking contrasting assertoric clauses of a similar form. It is easy to see a contrast, even with implied verbs, in the assertions of ‘for they were no gods, but the work of men’s hands’. It is not easy to see how the contrast is being struck in a question about identity; the syntax of ~a yk…ym is unique to our text.

Our text is the only simple interrogative sentence with a ~a yk construction in the Hebrew Bible. As this construction can introduce a clause that restricts non-assertoric preceding material,[8] it could be restricting the answer to the question of identity here being posed. For example,

Nevertheless the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel; and they said, Nay; but (~a yk) we will have a king over us… 1 Sam 8:19 (KJV)

There is no assertion here: the people are reported as saying ‘No, but we will have a king over us’. An assertion could be implied in the speech of Samuel to which the people respond with the ‘No’; the preceding verses are such a speech that describes (asserts) the disadvantages of having a king. Alternatively, a command or some counsel on the part of Samuel could be implied, to which the people respond with ‘No’; the text does say that they ‘refused to obey’. Either way, what is interesting in this example for our text is the coupling of a simple ‘No’ with ‘but we will have a king over us’. It shows the use of the construction giving an exception to non-assertoric preceding material.

Another example, this time assertoric, is the following:

Wherefore the king said unto me: Why is thy countenance sad, seeing thou art not sick? This is nothing else but (~a yk) sorrow of heart. Then I was very sore afraid… Neh 2:2 (KJV revised)

What is interesting here is the use of the construction to make a statement of identity with the usual implied verb ‘to be’ signaled by italics: ‘This is nothing but sorrow of heart’. Our text has a rhetorical question designed to elicit an answer about an identity and this example would support the reading that the expected answer is that the Servant is blind.

The tone of the speech and the point of the question are crucial to any interpretation: ‘Look, ye blind, that ye may see. Who is blind but my Servant?’ How do we derive information about tone from a written text? First, the words belong to Yahweh and not to Isaiah; he is speaking on God’s behalf. Secondly, the people and/or their leaders are openly addressed as ‘blind’—the question is therefore not designed to bring about a self-realization of blindness on their part. Thirdly, they are commanded to look, see and hear; they are not being asked to ‘hear themselves’ and realize that they are deaf—they are being asked to ‘look’ outwards and ‘hear’ a message external to themselves. This injunction to ‘look in order to see’ complements the earlier command to ‘Behold, my Servant’ (Isa 42:1).

If the tone and point of the question is to elicit agreement that God’s Servant is blind, it doesn’t cohere well with the commendation of the Servant in v. 1. If the tone is sarcastic, then the point of the question is reversed: Israel/Jacob think the Servant is blind, but he is not. The point of the question is precisely to call out those who are ‘blind’ like the Servant and ‘deaf’ like God’s messenger—their so-called blindness and deafness (so-called by the leaders of the people) are the qualities that God seeks.

To determine the tone and point of the question, we have to take the context into account—v. 20. This requires us to first consider the identity of the messenger.

The Messenger

The next clause refers to a messenger and commentators divide on whether this is a separate individual to the Servant. The clause does not have an exceptive construction and it is a comparison: Who is deaf like my messenger that I am sending? The verb ‘to send’ is Imperfect, so we can see the action as on-going and incomplete (RSV, ‘I send’). Recognising that two individuals are referenced begs the question as to who is the messenger.

• It would be unusual to refer to Hezekiah as one who was sent (or being sent), as he is the king resident in Jerusalem.
• The One from the North, as one raised-up by God, would be properly described as someone sent by God (cf. Isa 43:14; 48:16; 61:1[9]), but he is not elsewhere configured as a ‘messenger’.
• Equally, the ‘collective’ reading of the messenger does not work; we do not have corresponding support for equating Israel as the messenger.[10]
• Rather, we should see in this figure a reference to a messenger who is sent before the One from the North, i.e. the voice of the one crying in the wilderness of Judah. This follows the lead of Mal 3:1 as an application of Isa 40:3;[11] this intertext sees a messenger sent before a ‘lord’.

The immediate point of difference between the commentary translations given above is the representation of the Hebrew word ~lvm (MT: m^ešullām). Westermann transliterates the word; Watts represents it as a proper name, while Goldingay and Oswalt translate the word. The problem for commentaries is that the word occurs everywhere else as a proper name (17x, e.g. 2 Kgs 22:3).

Commentators would naturally resist reading a proper name in an oracle because it is a very particular detail (compare commentary treatment of Joel 2:20—the Zephonite). Nevertheless, Isaiah has a number of proper names in his oracles (Shebna, Hephzibah, and Eliakim). The form of the word would allow a reading as a participle, perhaps meaning ‘covenanted one’ (~lv, BDB, 1002-23), but then the participle would be unique to this text in the Hebrew Bible. As we have no prejudice against proper names in oracles, we read the word as the proper name, ‘Meshullam’.[12] Our proposed translation of the Hebrew is therefore,

Who is blind but my Servant? And deaf like my messenger I send? Who is blind like Meshullam? And blind like the servant of Yahweh?

The two sets of questions confirm that we have two individuals in focus and the chiastic structure illustrates this,

Who is blind but my Servant?

Who is deaf like my messenger I am sending?
Who is blind like Meshullam?

Who is blind like the Servant of Yahweh?

The threefold stress on comparison—God wants his audience to think of comparisons[13]—is because God is seeking people like his Servant and his messenger. The last question brings out the intention of the first question, which is to elicit a response of identification. However, the construction ~a yk is used in the first question rather than the simple comparison k precisely because the Servant was being singled out[14] as ‘blind’ in the ongoing debate by the people/leaders. Hezekiah was the one who responded first to Isaiah’s admonition over the matter of the Babylonian envoys—the leaders in Jerusalem thought that he was being blind to the facts of their situation. The Servant had been blind, but he had listened to Isaiah and God’s messenger and he was now (again) no longer blind (Isa 42:1); the Servant was now to be a light to the Gentiles.

God does not send blind and deaf messengers but the people might accuse his messengers of being deaf and blind in their rejection of their message. The tone therefore becomes more obviously sarcastic in the next verse:

You (sing.) have seen many things, but you do not observe them; opening ears, but he does not hear. Isa 42:20 (NASB revised)

The people are addressed with a plural in v. 18 (‘ye’) but here the MT has the singular ‘You have seen many things’ in the main text and the infinitive ‘Seeing many things’ in the margin. The sarcastic tone is clear: they were blind and yet thought themselves insightful. The statement has the same ‘blind-deaf’ polarity of v. 19. The messenger was ‘deaf’[15] and so the sarcasm here is conveyed by the   statement, ‘The messenger was opening ears, but he does not hear—really?’ The messenger did hear and this is shown by the fact that he was opening ears. His success in point was that of the Servant whose ears had been opened (Isa 50:5).

The idea of ‘opening ears’ is unusual since the verb would normally be used for the opening of the eyes. The reason for this choice of verb is the condition of ‘closed ears’ (Isa 48:8, lit ‘not opened’). This condition was a state in which the leaders of the people were not listening to God’s way of doing things and were instead following diplomatic policies of alliance. The role of the messenger was to open the ears of the people to God’s message of liberation (Isa 40:3).

‘Meshullam’ is a name chosen for its meaning. While Goldingay and Oswalt opt for ‘covenanted’ as the basic idea, the idea of a ‘recompensing one’ is more probable.[16] The pointing of the name is the same as that used for the passive Pual participle of ~lv and the corresponding active Piel for ~lv has the sense of ‘recompense’ in Isaiah (e.g. Isa 19:21; 59:18; 65:6; 66:6).[17]

This meaning nicely fits the historical circumstances: Hezekiah had been ‘recompensed’ (against Assyria) in Yahweh’s deliverance of Jerusalem, but he had not returned that recompense in executing the vengeance of the Lord upon the nations (2 Chron 32:25); he had behaved as someone who was blind and deaf. Hence, the Lord has raised-up the One from the North to execute his recompense. Meshullam, God’s messenger, carries the symbolic name (‘Recompensing One’) to go with his message; God will give the recompense. This would come through the One from the North who will become prominent in Isaiah’s later chapters, (Isa 59:18; 65:6; 66:6).

There is an allusion in the third Servant Song (noted in the KJV mg.) that reinforces this reading.

The Lord God hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back. Isa 50:5 (KJV)

They shall be turned back, they shall be greatly ashamed, that trust in graven images, that say to the molten images, Ye are our gods. Isa 42:17 (KJV)

There is an obvious connection between Isa 50:5 and v. 20—the opening of ears. The reference to an incident of ‘turning back’ in v. 5 also connects to Isa 42:17. The historical allusion is to the turning back of the children of Israel by Amalek after the people had refused to take the land, believing instead the report of the spies (Num 14:25, 43).

In Isaiah, ‘turning back’ is a metaphor for what will happen to those who trust in the divination and policy direction coming from the false prophets associated with idols. The leaders in Jerusalem and the people who supported them would be ‘turned back’ from inheriting the land. When the Servant in Isa 50:5 says that he was ‘not rebellious’ and he was ‘not turned back’, he is making a difference between himself and those leaders of Judah who were rebellious and who had been ‘turned back’ from being part of the restoration of Judah.

It is not difficult to imagine how in the situation underlying Isaiah 42 some were to be literally ‘turned back’—God’s disapproval of them could be shown by their estates being plundered and put to the torch; or it could be that their diplomatic embassies were going to be turned back. Similarly, the estates of the king could have escaped the attention of bandits. The Servant’s claim to not being rebellious refers to Hezekiah’s acceptance of Isaiah’s admonition in the wake of the Babylonian envoy’s visit. Hezekiah drew back from the rebellion implied in his courting of their proposals, but the rest of the Jerusalem leadership did not repent as quickly.

In Isa 42:18-25 we have moved on in the development of events: Hezekiah had shown himself to be blind with regard to returning God’s recompense and in the matter of the Babylonian envoys—but he repented in response to Isaiah’s admonition and the proclamation of God’s messenger, the voice in the wilderness. The mistake that commentators make is twofold: first, they do not read Isaiah 40-48 against the historical record which has been supplied in Kings and Chronicles; accordingly, they take the blind servant to be Israel; and secondly, they read the tone of the text with a conciliatory tone rather than a sarcastic one.

The historical record in Isaiah 36-39 narrates the faith of Hezekiah in his prayer for the deliverance of Jerusalem and then, in the course of the next year, his blindness in the matter of the Babylonian envoys. His diplomatic decisions at this time, no doubt influenced by those at court[18] who favoured alliance, were his blindness[19]—but he is no longer ‘blind’. God’s choice of words, his rhetorical questions, are sarcastic and aimed at getting the people to see that the Servant is not blind and nor is his messenger. In fact, he is actually seeking those who are like his Servant and his messenger.

The NASB or the KJV could be right for the next statement in how they render the Perfect form of the verb ‘to be pleased’; it depends on how we read the historical point being made by Isaiah.

The Lord is well pleased for his righteousness’ sake; he will magnify the law, and make it honourable. Isa 42:21 (KJV)

The Lord was pleased for his righteousness’ sake; he will make the law great and glorious. Isa 42:21 (NASB revised)

Both translations are consistent with our individual reading of vv. 19-20: the singular pronominal suffix (he/his) identifies the Servant as someone who has acted in a righteous way. Following the KJV, we would say that God is pleased with his Servant because he has repented and he has shown this with the bestowal of the Spirit (v. 1). Taking the NASB, we could say that God was pleased because the Servant had obeyed God during the blockade of Jerusalem and prayed on behalf of the people for deliverance.

On either reading, the Servant will make (Imperfect) the Law great and glorious. The term for ‘glorious’ that is used here (rda) is rare (3x; the corresponding adjective is more common) and only used elsewhere in the Song of Moses,

Thy right hand, O Lord, is become glorious in power: thy right hand, O Lord, hath dashed in pieces the enemy. Exod 15:6 (KJV); cf. v. 11

The deliverance allusion to the Exodus sets the meaning of ‘righteousness’, a vindication of the covenant between Judah and God before the nations. Motyer usefully observes[20] that ‘The Lord was pleased’ (#px hwhy) occurs elsewhere in the Suffering Servant Song of Isaiah 53 (v. 10), which supports our application here to Hezekiah.

On balance, we would say that v. 21 is a reference to the time when the Servant was righteous, and the past tense here turns the Imperfect form of the following verb into something like an infinitive: ‘The Lord was pleased for his righteousness’ sake to make the Law great and glorious’.[21]

Conclusion

The interpretation of the Prophets is difficult. A consensus of commentators is not a sure guide to Isaiah 40-66 because they mostly work with a Babylonian framework (Whittaker is the exception). We therefore need to go back to basics and re-think issues of reference and also of the tone in an utterance, especially in the case of Isa 42:19.

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[1] J. A. Motyer, The Prophecy of Isaiah (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1993), 326; J. Goldingay, The Message of Isaiah 40-55 (London: T & T Clark, 2005), 180; J. N. Oswalt, The Book of Isaiah: Chapters 40-66 (NICOT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 131; G. W. Wade, The Book of the Prophet Isaiah (London: Methuen, 1911), 274; H. A. Whittaker, Isaiah (Cannock: Biblia, 1988), 378; C. Westermann, Isaiah 40-66 (OTL; trans. D. M. G. Stalker; London: SCM Press, 1969), 110;