SUMMARY
God calls Israel as a light to the nations to open eyes and release captives. Everything is now opened up.
ANALYSIS
The Lord calls “you” to do the liberating work of God in the world. Who is meant by “you”? The text does not specifically say. Certainly this could be the servant introduced in the previous verses (42:1-4). It could be CyrusPersian leader who allowed Jewish exiles to return home., who will be called later to break open the bars of Babylon’s prisons (compare 42:7 and 45:2). It could be the prophet, who seems to receive a similar commission in 61:1-3. Perhaps the ambiguity is deliberate: God uses all these agents–Israel, servant, prophet, Cyrus–to accomplish the work of liberation that God intends.
