He will not break a bruised reed or quench a smoldering wick affirms that the Messiah will be gentle and kind to those who are helpless and weak. If it is not possible to retain either of the metaphors, he will not break a bruised reed may be translated as “he will be gentle to those who are weak.” A bruised reed is a metaphor that makes use of a weak and frail object, and the meaning is that the Messiah will not deal harshly with those who are weak. Most scholars interpret the metaphor in this way, and it accords with the figure of speech which follows.

Or quench a smoldering wick is a second metaphor. If it is not possible to retain the metaphor, it may be rendered as “and kind to those who are helpless.” Here the smoldering wick is acknowledged by all to reflect the symbolism of a flickering lamp; in fact, the flame is out and the glowing wick merely gives off smoke. The Messiah is so gentle and kind that he will not even put out a helpless, flickering lamp. Therefore in cultures where these aspects of the language may be misunderstood or noneffective, the figures may be removed and the parallelism done away with, since the two figures of speech each convey essentially the same meaning.

There are essentially three main ways translators can deal with he will not break a bruised reed or quench a smoldering wick. The first is to retain the form, that is, to more or less translate literally. Break may be “break off,” bruised may be “bent,” and quench may be “put out” or “extinguish.” But otherwise the meaning of the metaphors is not given.

A second way is to retain both the form and meaning by using a simile. Examples include “He would no sooner break a bent reed or put out a flickering candle than he would harm people who are weak” and “Just as he wouldn’t break a bent reed or snuff a flickering wick, he would not deal harshly with those who are frail and weak.”

The third manner is to drop the figurative language altogether, just as Good News Translation has done. Examples are “He will not treat harshly those who are weak, nor do any harm to those who are not strong” and “He will always treat in a gentle way the weak and frail so as not to harm them.”

Till he brings justice to victory differs considerably from the Hebrew text of Isaiah, which Revised Standard Version translates as “he will faithfully bring forth justice.” Jerusalem Bible has for the Matthew passage “till he has led the truth to victory,” but it is difficult to see how the translators arrive at this. Moffatt is consistent with what he did in verse 18: “till he carries religion to victory.” Taking this rendering of Moffatt as a model for brings justice to victory, translators can say “until he causes justice to triumph” or “until he causes my salvation to be victorious.” However, this does not make clear enough what it means for justice to have victory. Therefore some have said “until he causes people to accept my justice” or “… to acknowledge the salvation I offer.”

Till gives the meaning that the servant will persist in being gentle with people until justice is victorious. In may be enough to say “until,” but some have said “That’s how he will be until….”

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on the Gospel of Matthew. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1988. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .