Isaiah 42:18-25--Israel's Failure to Hear and See

Isaiah 42:18-25
English Standard Version

Israel's Failure to Hear and See
18 Hear, you deaf,
    and look, you blind, that you may see!
19 Who is blind but my servant,
    or deaf as my messenger whom I send?
Who is blind as my dedicated one,
    or blind as the servant of the LORD?
20 He sees many things, but does not observe them;
    his ears are open, but he does not hear.
21 The LORD was pleased, for his righteousness' sake,
    to magnify his law and make it glorious.
22 But this is a people plundered and looted;
    they are all of them trapped in holes
    and hidden in prisons;
they have become plunder with none to rescue,
    spoil with none to say, “Restore!”
23 Who among you will give ear to this,
    will attend and listen for the time to come?
24 Who gave up Jacob to the looter,
    and Israel to the plunderers?
Was it not the LORD, against whom we have sinned,
    in whose ways they would not walk,
    and whose law they would not obey?
25 So he poured on him the heat of his anger
    and the might of battle;
it set him on fire all around, but he did not understand;
    it burned him up, but he did not take it to heart.

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The LORD has given His people special revelation and guidance that compares with no other nation in the world as He has used this people to write down His message to all the people of the world.  However, those reasonable for hearing and conveying that message are showing themselves to be bad stewards of what they have been entrusted with.  It is like they are deaf and blind--they cannot hear the voice of the LORD or understand that Word of the LORD when they read it (or have it read to them).  Jesus would later say that this accusation stretched across space and time to the people of His generation.


Matthew 13:13-17
English Standard Version
13 This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. 14 Indeed, in their case the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled that says:

“‘“You will indeed hear but never understand,
    and you will indeed see but never perceive.”
15 For this people's heart has grown dull,
    and with their ears they can barely hear,
    and their eyes they have closed,
lest they should see with their eyes
    and hear with their ears
and understand with their heart
    and turn, and I would heal them.’

16 But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. 17 For truly, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.
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The LORD waits for someone among His people to see and hear and understand. (Yet, He must be the one to reveal it to them and cause them to understand it).  Seeing and hearing is not enough, but it where the process starts.  We must go and tell the message because we never know who will be given eyes to see, ears to hear and minds to understand.

For the sake of righteousness, the LORD wanted His Law to be glorified and to be taught to all people in all places, for it is our understanding that we are lawbreakers that prepares us for the good news that we need someone to take our place, serve our sentence and pay our debt.  Isreal was to show and tell the Law to the whole world, and to tell the gospel too (though they didn't understand it in its fulness they were tell what they did know).  They joined those that were lawbreakers so that there was no distinction between those that were supposed to be the people of God and those that were the people of this world.  In fact, it was getting to the point where the people who called themselves the people of God were actually doing more evil than the people of the world who seemed to fear God at least a little bit, but the Israelites didn't seem to fear God because they thought they could only receive blessings and would never receive any of the curses of the Law.  God had to allow them to be punished so that they would learn that both the blessings and curses were part of the covenant the LORD made with them, and that they needed to be faithful stewards of the message given to them by the Law and the Prophets.