Perhaps you’ve heard of the Puritan Richard Sibbes and his famous work The Bruised Reed and Smoking Flax. Though you may not have read it, you’ve likely been influenced by it. If you hear the phrase “bruised reed,” and your first thought is of a suffering person desperate for hope, you largely have Sibbes to thank. And while Sibbes’s work is packed with exceptional pastoral wisdom that looks to Jesus, our Chief Shepherd, it’s frankly lacking in careful contextual Bible study. No matter how familiar we are with biblical phrases, let’s make every effort to observe them carefully and heed their context.
Context matters. If we learn to read the Bible for what it is—and not as a collection of independently assembled proverbial sayings—we’ll discover that some of our most familiar passages don’t actually mean what we’ve always assumed.
Crack the Code
When people throw around phrases like “Jesus never broke a bruised reed,” they use it like a code. Almost an allegory. The “reed” is a person. The “bruise” is their suffering. To “break a bruised reed” would be a failure of tenderness or compassion that crushes the spirit or destroys the trust of the wounded soul.
Pastorally, these principles are crucial to understand. I would not condone any efforts to ignore them or justify harsh treatment of Christ’s sheep. Those who suffer are particularly wounded and vulnerable. And our Lord’s tenderness and compassion sound forth from the Scripture at high decibels (Ex 19:4, Ezek 34:11-16, John 21:15-19, Mark 5:33-34, Mark 5:39-43, Luke 7:11-15, etc.).
So I am not challenging the wisdom of compassionate tenderness, especially when someone has gone through the valley of the shadow of death. I think only that we need to be careful with our metaphors, so we don’t run afoul of the biblical author’s intent.
I’ve written for Desiring God on this topic of the bruised reed. But let me repeat here the arguments of both Isaiah and Matthew, in their use of the bruised reed metaphor. Please suspend your disbelief with me, try to set aside your familiarity, and look at these texts with fresh eyes.
Dominic Alves (2006), Creative CommonsIsaiah 42
The image of the bruised reed is in verse 3, but let’s follow Isaiah’s thought before and after it. This poem speaks of Yahweh’s servant, upheld, chosen, and delighted in (Is 42:1a). Yahweh put his Spirit into this servant, with the goal that “he will bring forth justice to the nations” (Is 42:1b).
This goal of justice is no small matter for Isaiah. We could trace the theme of justice all through his book of prophecy. The lack of it is a major accusation against Judah (Is 9:18-10:4, etc.) and the surrounding nations (Is 14:4-6, etc.). Its restoration in the future is the hope of Israel and her promised Davidic king (Is 11:1-5, etc.).
And in chapter 42, the Spirit is on Yahweh’s servant to bring forth justice (Is 42:1). He will bring forth this justice faithfully (Is 42:3). And he will not grow faint or be discouraged until he establishes this justice in the earth (Is 42:4). The main idea here is that the servant will bring justice on earth, even though we might expect him to grow faint or be discouraged before he’s able to do so.
Now how will he do it?
“He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street” (Is 42:2). He will not force the unjust to comply. He will not open a picket line until he gets his way. He won’t even be a major public figure. His voice will work effectually away from the typical forums of civil discourse or political advancement.
And that’s when Isaiah brings in his metaphor. “He will not cry aloud…a bruised reed he will not break…he will faithfully bring forth justice” (Is 42:2-3). The metaphor illustrates the point made in verse 2, that he will not cause political change through typical political channels. He will be an unlikely hero. He will accomplish Yahweh’s purpose of justice, but not according to the world’s expectations of someone who can or will exercise justice (along with great power, pomp, pizzazz, or military might).
Isaiah expands on this idea later in the chapter, where Yahweh confesses, “For a long time I have held my peace; I have kept still and restrained myself; now I will cry out like a woman in labor; I will gasp and pant” (Is 42:14). The servant will faithfully labor to bring forth justice by working behind the scenes, quietly and carefully. But after a while, the time will come when Yahweh will, in fact, cry out and simply “lay waste” and “dry up” and “turn darkness into light” (Is 42:15-17).
The point is this: When Isaiah speaks of the bruised reed, he is not using it as an allegory of ministry to hurting people. He is using it as a word picture to describe the quiet and unobtrusive machinations of Yahweh’s servant establishing justice. This servant keeps such a low profile that, as he passes through the marshes, not even bruised reeds will break off. Not a twig will snap. His draft won’t have enough force to blow out even a smoldering wick. And this unpretentious strategy will not last forever. The time will come for him to eventually beat his chest, get everyone’s attention, and just get the job done.
Matthew 12
According to Matthew, Jesus heals a man’s withered hand, on the Sabbath, in direct defiance of the ruling elite (Matt 12:9-13). As a result, those elites begin conspiring to destroy him (Matt 12:14).
Jesus knows what’s going on, and he withdraws (Matt 12:15a). He doesn’t put up a fight or launch a PR campaign; he just slinks back into the shadows. And many follow him, and he heals them (Matt 12:15b), but his goal right now is not to make too much of a fuss. He has to keep laying low. So he orders these people not to make him known (Matt 12:16).
This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah…my servant…a bruised reed he will not break…until he brings justice. (Matt 12:17-21)
According to the flow of Matthew’s gospel, it was not yet time for Jesus to make a fuss. For this season, he backs off and avoids too much attention. “His messianic mission had a noteworthy ninja element” (DG).
But while going up to Jerusalem one last time, he can talk about almost nothing but his coming victory over death (Matt 20:17-19, 22, 28). He will faithfully bring forth justice. The time for silence has ended. So he must pick a fight in the most public forum—the temple during the Feast of Passover—in order to get himself killed (Matt 21-23). They take up their plot once again (Matt 26:3-5). This is his path to victory.
Conclusion
This contextual study of the bruised reed metaphor is not meant as an excuse to ever be harsh, demanding, or manipulative with wounded people. By no means! Instead, I hope merely to show you the glory of your Savior Jesus Christ, who accomplished all he set out to do.
And by way of application, perhaps we ought to be slow to use Jesus’ harsh words with the Pharisees as a model for our own public dialogue. That is, unless we are called by God to get ourselves killed for the sin of the world.
Context matters.
Been loving this series. Thank you!
Your reasoning is sound.
This did speak to my heart and when you said that he was so quiet that not even a red would be bruised, I saw Him walking through the reeds and not one of them being swayed by His touch! Since I never did have the assumption that He was ordering to a suffering person. This did touch my heart. Thank you and God bless! I will ask Holy Spirit to guide me.
Correction on typing
“RED” should be “REED”
Also, “that he was ordering to” is NOT correct. It should have been; “that a bruise Reed” is a….
This has touched my heart…..my soul is at rest. I so love His Word
Praise GOD for your time and effort to bring forth awesome exegesis with sound, relevant commentary.
I had heard this so much that my mind had proceeded my understanding and coming across this article has truly been a blessing.
When I read Isaiah 42:14, I was reminded about the first sermon the Lord allowed me to preach years ago: “the Spirit of the Lord is upon me” passage. Sunday, January 6, the minister was sharing the concern about children being abused and sexually exploited, and I doubled over and began to rock, moan and cry, like I was in serious labor. I know now the meaning. A minister told me many years ago that Isaiah and Galatians are the books that God wanted me to focus on. I am going to go back and read them again with fresh eyes. Thank you so much!
I enjoyed this read! Thank you. If Jesus could be so quiet and gentle that his draft will not put out a flickering wick, or break even a bruised reed (and for those of us who have walked through reeds, we know how impossibly hard that is), then for sure, it shows He knows how to be gentle with people too. To me, this exegesis confirmed even more, rather than challenged, the gentleness of Jesus towards people. If He is that gentle with reeds and flickering flames, then will He not be that gentle with me?
This was interesting! I never knew of that book you mentioned, but I kept wondering what “bruised reed…” meant when reading Isaiah and it was exciting to learn more about it.
From the verse,
2 He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice,
or make it heard in the street;
3 a bruised reed he will not break,
and a faintly burning wick he will not quench;
he will faithfully bring forth justice.
My initial thought: it meant a bruised reed and a smoldering wick is referring to Jesus, that like us, in 2 Cor 4:8-9 “…We are hard pressed on all sides, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed. 10We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.”
Meaning Jesus will be physically “pierced and crushed for our transgressions and iniquities (Isaiah 53:5)” BUT his spiritual faith will remain strong and in power, filled with the Spirit, through his “faithfulness he will bring forth justice; he will not FALTER or be DISCOURAGED” (relating back up to Jesus referring to as a bruised reed or smoldering wick) until, of course, he establishes justice on earth.
After reading yours, I totally agree the point was that Jesus will ultimately bring justice to his people. But I think referring to Jesus quietly not revealing his purpose to his followers in a “motion” sense as he moves around healing the ill or evading his oppressors using the verse “a bruised reed he will not break… a smoldering wick he will not snuff out” is something I have to say, in my opinion, might be slightly interpreted. But that makes my statements on the same boat as yours, to be just interpreted by my limited knowledge.
I have no theological study at all, just a college student who attends Bible studies and tries to read the Bible on her own and uses multiple pastor preachings and their revelations to aid my study of the Bible.
Thanks for your post! I will be happy to hear what you think.
Thank you for taking the time to engage with the post. I am not sure what you mean in third to last paragraph that my proposal is “slightly interpreted.” Because I don’t know what that means, I’m not sure what I think.
Thank you for posting this! God has been speaking to me so much lately and this interpretation really pieced something together for me that I couldn’t connect yet on my own.
This is quite persuasive. However, there are still certain things that make me hesitate regarding your interpretation.
1. In the Hebrew, “bruised” and “smoking” in verse 3 are the same terms as “be discouraged” and “fail” in verse 4 (using the KJV translation here). In other words, Christ will not “be crushed” or “glow faintly” in his mission. Now, if the mention of the bruised reed is merely to indicate the “incognito” nature of his mission (which I think it also does), I don’t see the point, then, of this contrast. The fact that he is NOT like a bruised reed and a smoking flax makes me think that these terms may be referring to the weakness and brokenness of real people, while he is presented as the ideal person (see also Isa. 36:6, where “bruised reed” refers to Egypt in its weakness).
2. If there were no weak, broken people in the vicinity of Matthew 12:17-21, I think your argument would sound stronger. But there are! In verse 15, “great multitudes followed him, and he healed them all.” It is these people that Jesus charged not to make him known. The quotation of the prophecy, then, certainly (even primarily) indicates the secrecy of Jesus’ s mission, but I don’t think there’s a need to exclude his tenderness towards the people in his healing of them.
3. Another clue is found in Isa. 61:3. In that passage, the servant of the Lord is seen doing many things similar to what is found in Isa. 42:1-7. One of these things is to “give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.” The Hebrew term translated as “heaviness” is the same term found in “smoking flax.” In this case, it is clear that the spirit of heaviness refers to the faintness, weakness, and depression of people. It becomes likely, then, that Isa. 42:3 also refers to suffering people.
I do think that Sibbes stretches this text much farther than warranted, in typical Puritan fashion. But I can’t say for sure that he’s entirely off the mark.
Josh, thank you for your insightful engagement with my argument in this post! Sadly, many critics of my argument have simply said, “can’t have been wrong all these centuries,” and refuse to debate the particulars. But I am very grateful for your engagement with the arguments themselves.
Your points are quite compelling, especially the Hebrew vocabulary, which I have not tracked with as closely as you have. At least, until I read your comment. Then I went and double-checked my Hebrew Bible to confirm that you were spot on with your observations. That is quite intriguing, indeed.
I will have to consider this further. If there is further evidence that Isaiah does use his metaphors in this sort of “allegorical” way that I’m arguing against, I may have to rethink or even retract my position.
Again, thank you for arguing so cogently from the text. You have given me much to consider, for which I am grateful. This is what I love about careful observation and discourse analysis of the text!
So my first time coming across this site and, whilst I appreciate the name and sentiment but, if I may be so bold, I feel like you’re taking context out of the text to support your argument.
You use the context of bruised and reissue it into a statement of stealth but the word used in the text has never prior been used for that. It was used to say “oppressed” six times, “broken” four times, “break” three times, “bruised” twice, “crush” twice, “discouraged” once and even to “struggle together” once. In all historic uses of the word rāṣaṣ (the word used here) is not used to describe stealth but either something breaking or people suffering in some form.
My other issue is that you use part of God’s complaint against Judah in your reasoning for this, but in doing this I believe you take context out of the text once again.
“I have long time holden my peace; I have been still, and refrained myself: now will I cry like a travailing woman; I will destroy and devour at once.” is where you stop, but God isn’t done talking, this section continues:
“I will make waste mountains and hills, and dry up all their herbs; and I will make the rivers islands, and I will dry up the pools.
And I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them.
They shall be turned back, they shall be greatly ashamed, that trust in graven images, that say to the molten images, Ye are our gods.
Hear, ye deaf; and look, ye blind, that ye may see.”
This is where this section of thought ends, this is where the overall message of the segment that God is trying to convey is resting. God indeed says he’s going to bring judgement and lay waste, but he is also saying he’s not going to abandon those who need him. He’s not saying that he will be stealthy in bringing about this judgement, in fact he says quite the opposite, that this judgement will be pretty brazen. Regardless, he says that the people who need help will get it and that’s one of the keys of this segment.
With the historical use of rāṣaṣ in the earlier segment and God’s sentiments in this segment combined, the picture it makes tells me that this is indeed about how people are being treated. But it’s more pointed than that seemingly sounds. Specifically, this is saying Jesus won’t break the “Bruised reed” or quench the “Smoking flax” because that’s what Judah is doing. Remember that rāṣaṣ was most often used to refer to the oppressed, people in dire need of justice because the world is functionally built against them from the ground up.
(“And that year they vexed and rāṣaṣ the children of Israel”
“Behold, here I am: witness against me before the LORD, and before his anointed: whose ox have I taken? or whose ass have I taken? or whom have I defrauded? whom have I rāṣaṣ? or of whose hand have I received any bribe to blind mine eyes therewith? and I will restore it you.”
“And they said, Thou hast not defrauded us, nor rāṣaṣ us, neither hast thou taken ought of any man’s hand.” etc)
Meaning God is saying Jesus won’t oppress the already oppressed people further, rather he’s going to bring them the justice that they deserve as Judah should’ve done but refused to. And not only is he going to do it for the people of Israel, but for the gentiles as well.
This is at least what I’ve understood of it.
Ian, thank you for taking the time to interact with me over the text. I am grateful for your push back and argumentation.
In the first rebuttal, you say I am “taking context out of the text.” Your evidence is then to list all the uses of the Hebrew word *primarily in other OT books.* The word occurs in Isaiah only once prior to chapter 42 (36:6). This argument, however, does not provide “context.” It begs the question: How is the word *used* in each of those cases.
I don’t dispute the glosses you provide of “oppressed,” “broken,” etc. But the “meaning” we give to a word is only as good as the author’s flow of thought in the present sentence. It is a totality transfer fallacy to take every use of the word from every text in the Bible, and then to transfer the sum total of possible meanings into the text in question.
Now with that said, I don’t dispute the *translation* of the word as “broken” or “bruised.” The sort of reed Isaiah has in mind is clearly one that is broken, crushed, etc. The real question at hand is “how did Isaiah use the metaphor of the bruised reed in chapter 42? What did he mean by it in the argument here?” In other words, he says “bruised reed” and not “bruised people.” What textual reason(s) do we have for seeing the “reed” as a direct metaphor/allegory for people?
He calls Egypt a “broken reed” in Is 36:6, but in that chapter Egypt is clearly not the “target ministry” for the Messiah’s tenderness. He does call the people of Judah “oppressed” (ratsats) in Is 58:6, so it’s certainly possible he could be doing the same in 42:6. I’m only wondering whether that’s really the case.
Your second rebuttal brings in the rest of Isaiah’s argument in 42:15-18. I don’t deny the Lord’s leadership of the weak into a better place here in Isaiah; just as I don’t deny the presence of that theme in Matthew 12. That’s the main thing that gives creedence to Sibbes’ take on the metaphor. And as stated in the article: “Pastorally, these principles are crucial to understand. I would not condone any efforts to ignore them or justify harsh treatment of Christ’s sheep. Those who suffer are particularly wounded and vulnerable. And our Lord’s tenderness and compassion sound forth from the Scripture at high decibels (Ex 19:4, Ezek 34:11-16, John 21:15-19, Mark 5:33-34, Mark 5:39-43, Luke 7:11-15, etc.).”
My concern is not for this general principle of pastoral care. My concern is only to ask: Did Isaiah (and Matthew) intend the “bruised reed” as a direct metaphor of weak and suffering people? As we trace the flow of thought from the first verse to the last, is that the best way to read the metaphor?
You might be right that it is, so thanks for your help in pushing me to consider it further.
This is such a revelatory piece, and still ministering long after its publication. May God bless you sir; he will remember your service to his fold in your time of need.