Here is my servant
1 ① Here is my servant whom I uphold,
my chosen one in whom I delight.
I have put my spirit upon him,
and he will bring justice to the nations.
2He does not shout or raise his voice
proclamations are not heard in the streets.
3A broken reed he will not crush,
nor will he snuff out the light
of the wavering wick.
He will make justice appear in truth.
4He will not waver or be broken
until he has established justice on earth;
the islands are waiting for his law.
5Thus says God, Yahweh,
who created the heavens and stretched them out,
who spread the earth and all that comes from it,
who gives life and breath to those who walk on it:
6I, Yahweh, have called you for the sake of justice;
I will hold your hand to make you firm;
I will make you as a covenant to the people,
and as a light to the nations,
7to open eyes that do not see,
to free captives from prison,
to bring out to light those who sit in darkness.
8I am Yahweh, that is my name,
I will not give my glory to another;
or my praise to graven images.
9See, the former things have come to pass,
and new things do I declare:
before they spring forth I tell you of them.
Song of victory
10Sing a new song to Yahweh;
let his praise reach the ends of the earth.
Let the sea and all that it holds,let the coastlands and their inhabitants resound with song and praise of him. 11Let the wilderness and the cities lift up their voice,
together with the villages of Kedar. Let the inhabitants of Sela sing, and shout from the top of the mountain. 12Let them give glory to Yahweh and praise him in the far islands.
13Yahweh comes like a mighty warrior,
he stirs up his fury before the fight.
He threatens, he raises the battle cry,
and he triumphs over his enemies.
14For a long time I have been silent; I have kept still and restrained myself, I moaned like a woman in labor, breathing and panting:
15I will lay waste mountains and hills and wither all their vegetation; I will turn rivers into wasteland and dry up the pools.
16I will lead the blind by ways
which they do not know;
along unseen paths I will guide them. I will turn darkness into light before them and make the rough ground smooth. These are the things that I will do, and I will not forsake them.
17But those who trust in graven images and say to idols, “You are our gods” will be turned back in shame.
18Listen, O deaf,
look, O blind, that you may see! 19Who is blind, but my servant, or deaf as the messenger I send?
Who is blind but the one I am lifting up? Who is deaf but the servant of Yahweh?
20You have seen many things without observing; your ears were open but without hearing.
21It pleased Yahweh, the Just One, that his Law receive glory and fame.
22But this is a people robbed and plundered,
all of them ensnared in pits or languishing in prison.
They have become a prey,
with no one to rescue them;
they have become a spoil,
with no one to order, “Send them back!”
23Who among you will give ear to this?
Who will listen and hear for the time to come? 24Who handed Jacob to the spoilers and Israel to the plunderers? Was it not Yahweh, against whom we have sinned,in whose ways they would not walk, and whose law they would not obey?
25Therefore he poured out on them the fury of his anger –
the violence of war.
It blazed round about them,
and they failed to know what it meant; it burned and consumed them, and they remained in bewilderment.
- Is 42,1 Here is the first of the songs of the Servant of Yahweh (see the introduction to this book). The other poems of the Servant are in 49:1; 50:4; 52:13. The servant is at times Israel, in other passages it is the minority of the faithful, conscious of their vocation, who try to struggle against the indifference of the majority. It would also signify the prophet (or prophets) who share with the faithful the word of God. In different passages of the Gospel Jesus assures his disciples that they are the sons of the prophets, and the Apostles, in their turn would understand that the Servant after all and before all others, is Jesus (Mt 12:8; Acts 3:13; 4:27). Jesus, Servant of his Father and Son of his maid servant (Ps 116:16 and Lk 1:38). The prophet had just celebrated the victories of Cyrus. Those victories actually only prepared another victorious step forward, of a people of believers who, freed from captivity in Babylon, would declare to the world their faith and their hope. This minority is the covenant of the nation: thanks to these faithful believers God continues to be present among this Jewish people where a majority do not listen to him. It is this same people that will re-establish the covenant with God. It will then give to the nations (the peoples of the East), and to the islands (the western world) justice, that is to say a new order willed by God. Is 42,8 The first verses of the chapter have celebrated the victories of Cyrus. Now God addresses Israel. It will be delivered from exile. A new departure is being prepared, greater than the exodus from Egypt. God will work miracles for those who want to return to their homeland: all he asks of his people is to open their eyes and trust him. Apparently, an exaggeration! The return from exile would be a matter of small caravans, meeting many difficulties, but it is a fact that the nation was to rise again and salvation history would continue to be written. We have here an example of what God offers to minority groups of believers, the small communities of his Church who cling to the hope given them in the Gospel: we often have the impression of achieving little, yet in reality the whole venture of the Kingdom is at stake in our will to exist. Is 42,10 Cyrus' steps are God's victory. Yahweh marches as a warring God (see Jdg 5:4), but inspired by maternal love. The poem recalls the mission entrusted to Isaiah (6:9): Through you the hearts of these people will be hardened and their eyes blinded. Yahweh has forgiven and wants to heal this people who do not know how to see and who have been called blind in 42:7. After being liberated they will be witnesses to the God who saves. At times, it seems to us that the prophets were mistaken in announcing so often that God's coming was near, when they were still at an early stage of their history. In fact, they were not so very different from us, when we believe we have won everything with the victory of one of our own people either in an election, or a sports event. We do not abandon Christ, the only savior and the only hope, when we struggle for very human goals and become excited about human saviors. We walk with them for a time, and then, let go of them to move forward, again to wherever Christ calls us. Is 42,18 This passsage could be entitled: Exploited Peoples. Is 42,21 This passage celebrates Cyrus between two victories. When we read these verses, we understand that the prophet had anticipated the successes of the liberator when no one could have forseen them. Thus, God revealed future events to his prophets as a proof that he himself was the real savior of his people. He had planned that Cyrus should come from afar to restore freedom to the Jews.
