Insanity, it is said, is doing the wrong thing again and again, expecting better results each time.  That is also what God calls blindness and deafness.  In effect, God told His people, Israel, “Here’s how life is supposed to be lived.  Do it this way and you will be amazed at how wonderful are the results.  But, make up your own way to live, and you will eventually be in agony, stumbling about in your blindness and deafness.”  Sadly, the people didn’t listen and they couldn’t see.  Time after time they rebelled, God rescued them, restored them and gave them the same message.  Each time the improvements were short lived as the people decided they knew better.

Through Isaiah, God appealed:

¹⁸ “Hear, you deaf;
look, you blind, and see!

²⁰ You have seen many things, but you pay no attention;
your ears are open, but you do not listen.”   (Isaiah 42:18&20)

Remember that choice of words as you see how God described the Messiah Who would come to fix things:

⁶ “I, the Lord, have called you [i.e. Jesus the Messiah] in righteousness;
I will take hold of your hand.
I will keep you and will make you
to be a covenant for the people
and a light for the Gentiles,
⁷ to open eyes that are blind,
to free captives from prison
and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness. (Isaiah 42:6-7)

So Jesus, when asked by John the Baptist if He was the Messiah, sent back this word:

⁴ And Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: ⁵ the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them.  (Matthew 11:4-5)

Jesus wasn’t simply referring to the physically impaired. See the connection?  God hopes so.  He continued speaking to His people through Isaiah with this important question for all of us:

²³ Which of you will listen to this
or pay close attention in time to come?  (Isaiah 42:23)

You see?