Context No. 2599 of 4322 · Isaiah

Isaiah 42:17-25: in context

17“Those who trust in engraved images, who tell molten images, ‘You are our gods,’ will be turned back. They will be utterly disappointed. 18“Hear, you deaf, and look, you blind, that you may see. 19Who is blind, but my servant? Or who is as deaf as my messenger whom I send? Who is as blind as he who is at peace, and as blind as the LORD’s servant? 20You see many things, but don’t observe. His ears are open, but he doesn’t listen. 21It pleased the LORD, for his righteousness’ sake, to magnify the law and make it honorable. 22But this is a robbed and plundered people. All of them are snared in holes, and they are hidden in prisons. They have become captives, and no one delivers, and a plunder, and no one says, ‘Restore them!’ 23Who is there among you who will give ear to this? Who will listen and hear for the time to come? 24Who gave Jacob as plunder, and Israel to the robbers? Didn’t the LORD, he against whom we have sinned? For they would not walk in his ways, and they disobeyed his law. 25Therefore he poured the fierceness of his anger on him, and the strength of battle. It set him on fire all around, but he didn’t know. It burned him, but he didn’t take it to heart.”

Isaiah turns on God's own servant with a stinging paradox: hear, you deaf; look, you blind. Who is blind but my servant? Israel had seen many things and observed nothing; their ears were open, but they did not listen. Robbed and imprisoned by their enemies, they did not grasp that this had come because they would not walk in God's ways. He burned them, Isaiah says, but they did not take it to heart.

The tragedy named here is experience without perception. Israel saw much, God's works, God's law, even God's discipline, and took none of it in. You see many things but do not observe. The most chilling line is the last one: it burned him, but he did not take it to heart. It is possible to go through fire, real consequences, real suffering, and learn nothing from it, to be scorched and not lay it to heart. Discipline only works if we let it in. To pass through hard experiences, even God's correction, without ever pausing to ask what they mean, is to be the blind servant with open eyes.

Am I passing through experiences, even hard correction, seeing much but observing nothing, scorched and yet not taking it to heart?

Sources

Isaiah 42:20: You see many things, but don't observe. His ears are open, but he doesn't listen.
Isaiah 42:25: It burned him, but he didn't take it to heart.
Isaiah 42:18: Hear, you deaf, and look, you blind, that you may see.