Thus says the God, Yahweh,
who created the heavens
and stretched them out,
who spread out the earth and its offspring,
who gives breath to the people upon it
and spirit to those who walk in it. (LEB)
42:5 who created the heavens and stretched them out A common poetic image describing God’s creative activity (see 44:24; 45:12). The people can trust in God’s ability to keep these promises of future justice because He is both the Creator of all things from long ago and the One Who sustains life here and now.
Barry, J. D., Mangum, D., Brown, D. R., Heiser, M. S., Custis, M., Ritzema, E., … Bomar, D. (2012, 2016). Faithlife Study Bible (Is 42:5). Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
5. Previously God had spoken of Messiah; now (Is 42:5–7) He speaks to Him. To show to all that He is able to sustain the Messiah in His appointed work, and that all might accept Messiah as commissioned by such a mighty God, He commences by announcing Himself as the Almighty Creator and Preserver of all things.
spread … earth—(Ps 136:6).
Jamieson, R., Fausset, A. R., & Brown, D. (1997). Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (Vol. 1, p. 477). Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.
5 YHWH is introduced as creator of the world. He is called “the God, YHWH.” (See R. Rendtorff, “El als israelitische Gottesbezeichnung,” ZAW 106 [1994] 4–21; H. Klein, “Der Beweis der Einzigkeit Jahwes bei Deuterojesaja,” VT 35 [1985] 267–73.) The definite article stresses YHWH’s being the one and only God.
Watts, J. D. W. (2005). Isaiah 34–66 (Revised Edition, Vol. 25, p. 660). Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, Inc.
Keil, C. F., & Delitzsch, F. (1996). Commentary on the Old Testament (Vol. 7, pp. 416–418). Peabody, MA: Hendrickson.
Passage Guide | Isaiah 42:5 › Cross References
Page . Exported from Logos Bible Software, 12:39 PM December 29, 2020.
who created the heavens
and stretched them out,
who spread out the earth and its offspring,
who gives breath to the people upon it
and spirit to those who walk in it. (LEB)
42:5 who created the heavens and stretched them out A common poetic image describing God’s creative activity (see 44:24; 45:12). The people can trust in God’s ability to keep these promises of future justice because He is both the Creator of all things from long ago and the One Who sustains life here and now.
Barry, J. D., Mangum, D., Brown, D. R., Heiser, M. S., Custis, M., Ritzema, E., … Bomar, D. (2012, 2016). Faithlife Study Bible (Is 42:5). Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
5. Previously God had spoken of Messiah; now (Is 42:5–7) He speaks to Him. To show to all that He is able to sustain the Messiah in His appointed work, and that all might accept Messiah as commissioned by such a mighty God, He commences by announcing Himself as the Almighty Creator and Preserver of all things.
spread … earth—(Ps 136:6).
Jamieson, R., Fausset, A. R., & Brown, D. (1997). Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (Vol. 1, p. 477). Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.
5 YHWH is introduced as creator of the world. He is called “the God, YHWH.” (See R. Rendtorff, “El als israelitische Gottesbezeichnung,” ZAW 106 [1994] 4–21; H. Klein, “Der Beweis der Einzigkeit Jahwes bei Deuterojesaja,” VT 35 [1985] 267–73.) The definite article stresses YHWH’s being the one and only God.
Watts, J. D. W. (2005). Isaiah 34–66 (Revised Edition, Vol. 25, p. 660). Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, Inc.
Isa. 42:5–7. The words of Jehovah are now addressed to His servant himself. He has not only an exalted vocation, answering to the infinite exaltation of Him from whom he has received his call; but by virtue of the infinite might of the caller, he may be well assured that he will never be wanting in power to execute his calling. Vv. 5–7. “Thus saith God, Jehovah, who created the heavens, and stretched them out; who spread the earth, and its productions; who gave the spirit of life to the people upon it, and the breath of life to them that walk upon it: I, Jehovah, I have called thee in righteousness, and grasped thy hand; and I keep thee, and make thee the covenant of the people, the light of the Gentiles, to open blind eyes, to bring out prisoners out of the prison, them that sit in darkness out of the prison-house.” The perfect ’âmar is to be explained on the ground that the words of God, as compared with the prophecy which announces them, are always the earlier of the two. הָאֵל (the absolutely Mighty) is an anticipatory apposition to Jehovah (Ges. § 113**). The attributive participles we have resolved into perfects, because the three first at least declare facts of creation, which have occurred once for all. נֹוטֵיהֶם is not to be regarded as a plural, after Isa. 54:5 and Job 35:10; but as בֹּורֵא precedes it, we may take it as a singular with an original quiescent Yod, after Isa. 5:12; 22:11; 26:12 (cf., p. 71). On רֹקַע (construct of רֹקֵעַ), see Isa. 40:19. The ו of וִצֶאֱצָאֶיהָ (a word found both in Job and Isaiah, used here in its most direct sense, to signify the vegetable world) must be taken in accordance with the sense, as the Vav of appurtenance; since רקע may be affirmed of the globe itself, but not of the vegetable productions upon it (cf., Gen. 4:20; Judg. 6:5; 2 Chron. 2:3). Neshâmâh and rūăch are epithets applied to the divine principle of life in all created corporeal beings, or, what is the same thing, in all beings with living souls. At the same time, neshâmâh is an epithet restricted to the self-conscious spirit of man, which gives him his personality (Psychol. p. 76, etc.); whereas rūăch is applied not only to the human spirit, but to the spirit of the beast as well. Accordingly, עָם signifies the human race, as in Isa. 40:7. What is it, then, that Jehovah, the Author of all being and all life, the Creator of the heaven and the earth, says to His servant here? “I Jehovah have called thee ‘in righteousness’ ” (betsedeq: cf., Isa. 45:13, where Jehovah also says of Cyrus, “I have raised him up in righteousness”). צֶדֶק, derived from צָדַק, to be rigid, straight, denotes the observance of a fixed rule. The righteousness of God is the stringency with which He acts, in accordance with the will of His holiness. This will of holiness is, so far as the human race is concerned, and apart from the counsels of salvation, a will of wrath; but from the standpoint of these counsels it is a will of love, which is only changed into a will of wrath towards those who despise the grace thus offered to them. Accordingly, tsedeq denotes the action of God in accordance with His purposes of love and the plan of salvation. It signifies just the same as what we should call in New Testament phraseology the holy love of God, which, because it is a holy love, has wrath against its despisers as its obverse side, but which acts towards men not according to the law of works, but according to the law of grace. The word has this evangelical sense here, where Jehovah says of the Mediator of His counsels of love, that He has called Him in strict adherence to the will of His love, which will show mercy as right, but at the same time will manifest a right of double severity towards those who scornfully repel the offered mercy. That He had been called in righteousness, is attested to the servant of Jehovah by the fact that Jehovah has taken Him by the hand (וְאַחְזֵק contracted after the manner of a future of sequence), and guards Him, and appoints Him לִבְרִית עָם לְאֹור גֹּויִם. These words are a decisive proof that the idea of the expression “servant of Jehovah” has been elevated in Isa. 42:1ff., as compared with Isa. 41:8, from the national base to the personal apex. Adherence to the national sense necessarily compels a resort to artifices which carry their own condemnation, such as that ברית עם signifies the “covenant nation,” as Hitzig supposes, or “the mediating nation,” as Ewald maintains, whereas either of these would require עם ברית; or “national covenant” (Knobel), in support of which we are referred, though quite inconclusively, to Dan. 11:28, where בְּרִית קֹדֶשׁ does not mean the covenant of the patriots among themselves, but the covenant religion, with its distinctive sign, circumcision; or even that עם is collective, and equivalent to עמים (Rosenmüller), whereas עם and גוים, when standing side by side, as they do here, can only mean Israel and the Gentiles; and so far as the passage before us is concerned, this is put beyond all doubt by Isa. 49:8 (cf., v. 6).
An unprejudiced commentator must admit that the “servant of Jehovah” is pointed out here, as He in whom and through whom Jehovah concludes a new covenant with His people, in the place of the old covenant that was broken,—namely, the covenant promised in Isa. 54:10; 61:8, Jer. 31:31–34, Ezek. 16:60ff. The mediator of this covenant with Israel cannot be Israel itself, not even the true Israel, as distinguished from the mass (where do we read anything of this kind?); on the contrary, the remnant left after the sweeping away of the mass is the object of this covenant. Nor can the expression refer to the prophets as a body, or, in fact, have any collective meaning at all: the form of the word, which is so strongly personal, is in itself opposed to this. It cannot, in fact, denote any other than that Prophet who is more than a prophet, namely, Malachi’s “Messenger of the covenant” (Isa. 3:1). Amongst those who suppose that the “servant of Jehovah” is either Israel, regarded in the light of its prophetic calling, or the prophets as a body, Umbreit at any rate is obliged to admit that this collective body is looked at here in the ideal unity of one single Messianic personality; and he adds, that “in the holy countenance of this prophet, which shines forth as the idea of future realization, we discern exactly the loved features of Him to whom all prophecy points, and who saw Himself therein.” This is very beautiful; but why this roundabout course? Let us bear in mind, that the servant of Jehovah appears here not only as one who is the medium of a covenant to the nation, and of light to the Gentiles, but as being himself the people’s covenant and heathen’s light, inasmuch as in his own person he is the band of a new fellowship between Israel and Jehovah, and becomes in his own person the light which illumines the dark heathen world. This is surely more than could be affirmed of any prophet, even of Isaiah or Jeremiah. Hence the “servant of Jehovah” must be that one Person who was the goal and culminating point to which, from the very first, the history of Israel was ever pressing on; that One who throws into the shade not only all that prophets did before, but all that had been ever done by Israel’s priests of kings; that One who arose out of Israel, for Israel and the whole human race, and who stood in the same relation not only to the wider circle of the whole nation, but also to the inner circle of the best and noblest within it, as the heart to the body which it animates, or the head to the body over which it rules. All that Cyrus did, was simply to throw the idolatrous nations into a state of alarm, and set the exiles free. But the Servant of Jehovah opens blind eyes; and therefore the deliverance which He brings is not only redemption from bodily captivity, but from spiritual bondage also. He leads His people (cf., Isa. 49:8, 9), and the Gentiles also, out of night into light; He is the Redeemer of all that need redemption and desire salvation.
Keil, C. F., & Delitzsch, F. (1996). Commentary on the Old Testament (Vol. 7, pp. 416–418). Peabody, MA: Hendrickson.
Passage Guide | Isaiah 42:5 › Cross References
| The Lexham English Bible | |
| Genesis 1:1 | In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth— |
| Genesis 1:6 | And God said, “Let there be a vaulted dome in the midst of the waters, and let it cause a separation between the waters.” |
| Genesis 2:7 | when Yahweh God formed the man of dust from the ground, and he blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. |
| Job 5:25 | And you shall know that your offspring are many, and your descendants like the vegetation of the earth. |
| Job 9:8 | He is the one who alone stretches out the heavens and who tramples on the waves of the sea. |
| Job 12:10 | In whose hand is the life of all living things and the breath of every human being? |
| Job 33:4 | The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of Shaddai gives life to me. |
| Psalm 24:1–2 | 1 The earth is Yahweh’s, with its fullness, the world and those who live in it, 2 because he has founded it on the seas, and has established it on the rivers. |
| Psalm 102:25–26 | 25 Long ago you laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. 26 They will perish, but you will endure. And like a garment they will all wear out, you will replace them like clothing, and they will be set aside. |
| Psalm 104:2 | you who cover yourself with light as with a garment, who stretch out the heavens like a tent curtain, |
| Psalm 136:6 | To him who spread out the earth above the waters, for his loyal love endures forever. |
| Isaiah 34:1 | Come near, nations, to hear; and peoples, listen attentively! Let the earth hear, and that which fills it; the world and all its offspring. |
| Isaiah 40:7 | Grass withers; the flower withers when the breath of Yahweh blows on it. Surely the people are grass. |
| Isaiah 40:22 | He is the one who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; the one who stretches out the heavens like a veil and spreads them out like a tent to live in, |
| Isaiah 44:24 | Thus says Yahweh, your redeemer, and he who formed you in the womb: “I am Yahweh, who made everything, who stretched out the heavens alone, who spread out the earth—who was with me?— |
| Isaiah 45:12 | I myself made the earth, and I created humankind upon it. I, my hands, stretched out the heavens, and I commanded all their host. |
| Isaiah 45:18 | For thus says Yahweh, who created the heavens, he is God, who formed the earth and who made it. He himself established it; he did not create it as emptiness— he formed it for inhabiting. “I am Yahweh and there is none besides me. |
| Isaiah 48:13 | Indeed, my hand founded the earth, and my right hand spread out the heavens; when I summon them, they stand in position together. |
| Isaiah 57:16 | For I will not attack forever, and I will not be angry forever, for the spirit will grow faint before me, and the breaths that I myself I have made. |
| Daniel 5:23 | And now you have exalted yourself against the Lord of heaven, and the vessels of his temple you have brought in before you, and you and your lords, your wives and your concubines, have been drinking wine from them, and you have praised the gods of silver, gold, bronze, iron, wood, and stone that do not see and do not hear and do not know, but the God who holds your life in his hand and all of your ways come from him, you have not honored. |
| Zechariah 12:1 | An oracle. The word of Yahweh concerning Israel. “Thus declares Yahweh, who stretches out the heavens, founds the earth, and forms the spirit of humankind in its midst: |
| Acts 17:24–25 | 24 the God who made the world and all the things in it. This one, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by human hands, 25 nor is he served by human hands as if he needed anything, because he himself gives to everyone life and breath and everything. |
| Hebrews 12:9 | Furthermore, we have had our earthly fathers who disciplined us, and we respected them. Will we not much rather subject ourselves to the Father of spirits and live? |
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