Isaiah 42:5-9

Jehovah's promise to Israel, based on the preceding description.

God in the Heb. hâ-"çl, the God, the God who alone is truly God, who has created and sustains all things.

spread forth or "made firm." The word means to beat out into a thin surface, and probably (as in the noun "firmament") combines the ideas of density and extension (cf. ch. Isaiah 44:24; Psalms 136:6). By a strong zeugma this verb is made to govern a second object, that which cometh out of it, which here probably denotes "vegetation" (see on ch. Isaiah 34:1).

breathand spiritare here nearly identical, the divine principle of life breathed into man at his creation; Genesis 2:7.