Suffering Servant (Isaiah 53)
Who was this suffering servant? The Messiah or the nation of Israel itself?
Acts 8:32-35 The place of the scripture which he read was this, He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; and like a lamb dumb before his shearer, so opened he not his mouth: In his humiliation his judgment was taken away: and who shall declare his generation? for his life is taken from the earth. And the eunuch answered Philip, and said, I pray thee, of whom speaketh the prophet this? of himself, or of some other man? Then Philip opened his mouth, and began at the same scripture, and preached unto him Jesus.
John 12:37-38 But though he had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on him: That the saying of Esaias the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spake, Lord, who hath believed our report? and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed?
Isaiah 53:3-5 He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
The Song of the Servant, the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah is probably the passage most often presented as startling proof of the inspiration of the Bible, and of the Messiahship of Jesus. And, at first blush, the passage does seem to be remarkably accurate. It speaks of a servant who was "despised, and rejected of men" (53:3), who has "borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows" (53:4), who was "wounded for our transgressions", "bruised for our iniquities" (53:5) and "the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all" (53:6). We are further told that he "made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death" (53:9), and the Lord will "make his soul an offering for sin" (53:10). All this seems like an extremely prescient synopsis of Jesus' earthly career. But is it really so clear? We have to ask why so many Jewish people down through the centuries have rejected Jesus as the Messiah, if their own scriptures testify of him so clearly? Is there perhaps another interpretation of this passage?
In order to correctly divine the meaning of this passage, we have to take note of the historical context in which it appears (especially it speaks in the past tense). The second part of Isaiah, from chapter 40 to 55, is generally thought to be the work of a later author, commonly designated deutero-Isaiah. The reasons for this designation are far too complex to go into here, but it should be noted that the name "Isaiah" does not appear anywhere in this section. Nor is this section thematically related to the first thirty-nine chapters of Isaiah. Whereas proto-Isaiah saw the destruction of Israel as imminent, and the restoration in the future, deutero-Isaiah speaks of the destruction in the past (42:24-25), and the restoration as imminent (42:1-9). (Notice, for example, the change in temporal perspective from (39:6-7), where the Babylonian Captivity is cast far in the future, to (43:14), where the Israelites are spoken of as already in Babylon). For this, and other reasons, scholars generally date this second part of Isaiah to about 536 BCE, when Cyrus the Persian first gave permission for the Jews to return back to Israel (Ezra 1:1, Isaiah 44:28, 45:1).
The theme of Isaiah is jubilation, a song of celebration at the imminent end of the Babylonian Captivity. It is in this setting that we find the Song of the Servant, chapter fifty-three. (In fact, chapter 53 is actually the fourth of a quartet of "servant songs". The others are 42:1-9, 49:1-6 and 50:4-9). Who, then, was this servant of whom deutero-Isaiah speaks? It is evident that the word is used in two different ways. First, it is used by deutero-Isaiah to apply to himself, as the servant of God (49:5). The word is used overwhelmingly, however, by the author to refer to the nation Israel itself.
Isaiah 41:8-9 But thou, Israel, art my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend. Thou whom I have taken from the ends of the earth, and called thee from the chief men thereof, and said unto thee, Thou art my servant; I have chosen thee, and not cast thee away.
Isaiah 44:1 Yet now hear, O Jacob my servant; and Israel, whom I have chosen...Thus saith the Lord that made thee, and formed thee from the womb, which will help thee; Fear not, O Jacob, my servant...
Isaiah 44:21 Remember these, O Jacob and Israel; for thou art my servant: I have formed thee; thou art my servant: O Israel, thou shalt not be forgotten of me.
Isaiah 49:3 ...Thou art my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified.
It should be abundantly clear, then, that the servant is the nation Israel. When we combine these two facts, the fact that the theme of second Isaiah is the restoration of Israel after Exile, and the fact that the servant is the nation Israel itself, we then find that the meaning of the Song of the Servant, in chapter 53, becomes clear.
Why Isaiah chose to use the third person is not immediately obvious. Some have suggested that the Song is written from the perspective of the gentile nations. This is certainly the case in 52:15 (the fourth Song of the Servant actually starts at 52:13). Here, the nations are said to be astonished at the restoration of Israel. Another interpretation is that deutero-Isaiah is speaking of the generation that went into Exile so many years ago as "him", and the generation that is now returning to Israel as "us". In this sense, the author casts the former generation in the role of a sin-offering (53:10), who were punished for the sins of the nation (53:5-6) so that the later generation could be forgiven and restored (53:11).
The Christian interpretation does not even fit the context of Isaiah 52-54, and further is not supported by some statements in the Song itself. For example, verse 10 states that the Servant will live a long life, and have many children. It should be fairly obvious that Jesus died at a young age, and never had any children. Christian apologists often claim that this verse is symbolic, that it refers to Jesus' resurrection, and the establishment of the Christian Church. It has not been explained why we are required to take the rest of Isaiah 53 literally, but this one verse as allegorical.
