dualizing designation of the whole genus
of _personae miserabiles_; comp. John v. 3. But this individualizing
designation must be carefully distinguished from the image. The blind
and deaf are mentioned as the most perspicuous _species_ in the
_genus_; but they themselves are, in the first instance, meant, and
that which has been said must, in the first instance, be fulfilled upon
them. _Farther_--as blind and deaf are, without farther remark and
qualification, spoken of, we shall, in the first instance, be obliged
to think of the bodily blind and deaf, inasmuch as they, according to
the common _usus loquendi_, are thus designated. But a collateral
reference to the _spiritually_ blind and deaf must so much the rather
be assumed, that they, too, form a portion of the genus here
represented by the blind and deaf; and the more so that it is just
Isaiah who so frequently speaks of spiritual blindness and deafness;
comp. chap. xxix. 18: "And in that day (in the time of the future
salvation, when the Lord of the Church shall have put to shame the
pusillanimity and timidity of His people), the deaf hear the words of
the book, and the eyes of the blind see out of obscurity and darkness;"
xlii. 18: "Hear ye deaf, and look ye blind and see;" xliii. 8: "Bring
forth the blind people, that have eyes, and the deaf that have ears;"
lvi. 10; vi. 10; Matth. xv. 14; John ix. 39; Ephes. i. 18; 2 Pet. i. 9.
Spiritual blindness and deafness are specially seen in the relation of
the people to the leadings of the Church, and to the promises of
Scripture. The blind cannot understand the complicated ways of God; the
deaf have, especially in the time of misery, no ear for His promises.
Besides the natural and spiritual blindness, Scripture knows of still a
third; it designates as blind those who cannot see the way of
salvation, the helpless and drooping; compare my Commentary on Ps.
cxlvi. 8; Zeph. i. 17; Isa. xlii. 7. Now, it is blindness and deafness
of every kind which, along with all other misery, shall find a remedy
at the time of salvation.--If we ask for the fulfilment, our eye is, in
the first instance, attracted by Matt. [Pg 161] xi. 5, where, with an
evident reference to the passage before us, the Lord gives to the
question of John: "Art thou he that should come, or do we look for
another," the matter-of-fact answer, that the blind receive their
sight, the deaf hear, the lame walk: comp. Matth. xv. 31: [Greek: hoste
tous ochlous thaumas