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Originally Posted by Diogenes the Cynic
It's established in prior passages (Isaiah 41 :8-9; 44:1-2, 21; 45:4; 48:20; 49:3)
God repeatedly says. "You are my servant, Israel."
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Well, that brings up an interesting question. There are four Servant Songs in Isaiah; is the Servant the same in each Song?
[For the record, I don't necessarily disagree with you, or the common scholarship here -- which I'll cite in a second -- it's just that I've had a protracted and painful debate with the worst kind of opponent -- an Evangeilcal Fundamental Christian apologist who's also a lawyer...<shiver!>... -- and I'd like to build a more solid case. Much love to Peter Kirby of EarlyJewishWritings for taking the time to provide us the following excerpts.]
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Gerald T. Sheppard writes: "Scholars have, for many years, observed that the latter half of the book addresses the conditions of people in the Babylonian exile; in the times of Isaiah, Assyria alone was a threat and Babylon was viewed as a friendly, historically minor nation (see Isa. 39). Furthermore, on its own terms, the prophet's message in Isaiah 40-55 describes social circumstances in which the audience is positioned in a time after 'former things' have been fulfilled. This fulfillment could have occurred only during the time of the Babylonian exile (see Isa. 40:21; 41:4, 27; 42:9), a fulfillment that provides the basis for the prophet's argument that trustworthy 'new things' can be announced. Among these 'new things,' the prophet states that Cyrus will expedite the restoration of the nation of Israel and its return to the promised land. The logic of the prophet's argument turns on a recognition that the historical setting is the Babylonian exile and that previous oracles have been fulfilled in that time. For that reason, the prophet can mock other prophets who pretend to promise things without similar proof, namely, that they actually have come to pass (see Isa. 41:21-24). This prophet to the Babylonian exiles could not be identified with the historical Isaiah without either violating the logic of the argument or introducing a strange understanding of prophecy, one at odds with even a traditional view of how prophets performed and what they foresaw. Still, a modern admission of underlying similarities in theme and subject matter between the two parts of the books inspired critics to call this later unknown prophet Second Isaiah. One could speculate, without explicit biblical support, that this later prophet must have been a gifted disciple of the eighth-century 'First Isaiah.'" (Harper's Bible Commentary, p. 543)
John Scullion writes: "The reasons for separating chaps. 40-66 from chaps. 1-39 are always the same and convincing: 1) historical background: destruction, exile and suffering are presumed; there is familiariarity with the history of the 6th century, above all with Cyrus, and firsthand experience of Babylonian religion; and a prophet speaks both out of and into the situation of his contemporaries. 2) themes: there are the themes of comfort and salvation, a new salvation under a new covenant; God is presented as creator and maker, and his action in history as redeemer and saviour is rooted in his action as creator. 3) style and vocabulary: chaps. 40-66 are more prolix; there is constant repetition and doubling of words; there is familiarity with the style of the psalms of descriptive praise with their heaping up of present participles; Jerusalem and objects are personified." (Isaiah 40-66, p. 17)
J. Alberto Soggin writes: "As has been mentioned several times already, in 1892 B. Duhm suggested in his commentary that Isa. 56-66 should be separated from Deutero-Isaiah. From this time onwards, the independence of Trito-Isaiah from the texts which precede it has been generally accepted, outside conservative theological circles. The difference between chs. 56-66 and those which precede them is too great for the former to be considered as in any way the continuation of the latter. Throughout the greater part of Trito-Isaiah we continually find ourselves in the community of the restoration: there is mention of the temple and of rebuilding it, of sacrifices, of the observance of the sabbath and the regulations of the Torah, and htis observance is considered to be an essential qualification for membership of the community. None of these arguments appears even once in Deutero-Isaiah, and since the setting of Deutero-Isaiah is Babylon, it is difficult to see how that would be possible. However, in a number of places there are notable analogies between Deutero-Isaiah and Trito-Isaiah: we have similar hope for the imminence of the kingdom of God in 61.1-3, and in 42.1-4 (the latter is a servant passage) we have an almost identical concept of the work of the spirit of God in man. There are also notable affinities of style. The general setting for Trtio-Isaiah is Jerusalem and the community described by Haggai and Zechariah, that is, about twenty years after the latest part of Deutero-Isaiah and perhaps even later; in 60.13 the temple has been built and it is only necessary to adorn it. However, the situation in the country has certainly not improved; it remains critical because of the high incidence of crime in some areas and of incompetence in others, the immediate result of which is that the righteous suffer (56.9ff.). For this reason god shows his judgment by continually postponing the fulfilment of his promises (cf. also chs. 59-62), though he will not delay to intervene personally and to achieve justice for the elect. Another figure serves Yahweh in place of Cyrus (63.1-6); foreign nations will not be the object of the divine judgment, which will fall instead on the people of God because of their unfaithfulness (65.11). The walls have still not been rebuilt (60.10), so that if Trito-Isaiah is a little after the time of Haggai and Zechariah, we still have not reached that of Ezra and Nehemiah . . . Finally, according to Duhm, 66.1f. would refer to Samaritans who were building their own temple. However, this theory seems improbable, seeing that, quite apart from the fact that we konw little or nothing about the final separation of the two communities, it is reasonably certain that the break did not come about before the fourth century BC: it seems better to think of criticism directed against the hopes of Haggai and Zechariah, which were perhaps considered in some circles to be rather exaggerated. Duhm also tried to argue for the unity of the book, but hardly anyone has taken up his approach. Trito-Isaiah is a book of a composite kind if ever there was one. The majority of scholars in fact regard it as an anthology containing about twelve passages which are all different in date or in purpose. Pfeiffer, Introduction, 480, seeks to explain the differences between Trito- and Deutero-Isaiah as the result of attempts to apply to the situation of the restoration the great promises formulated by Deutero-Isaiah, which apparently had not been fulfilled. This theory is well worth considering, as it would explain both the analogies and the obvious differences between the two works. It would remain to be seen whether the work were purely redactional or whether Deutero-Isaiah himself, whoever he may have been, continued his activity down to the last decades of the sixth century BC. Here, too, we have a solution proposed by the Scandinavian school: as in the case of Deutero-Isaiah, Trito-Isaiah will have been the product of the 'school of Isaiah' mentioned above, which will have continued its work over the centuries." (Introduction to the Old Testament, pp. 335-336)
Frederick L. Moriarty writes of Isaiah: "His career may be divided into three periods, within each of which we can locate with confidence a number of the Prophet's oracles. The first period, extending through the reigns of Jotham and Ahaz, is represented by the material in chs. 1-12. The highlight of this phase was Isaiah's clash with the national policy of Ahaz in the crisis of 735-733 when Syria and Israel formed a coalition and attempted to coerce Judah into armed rebellion against Assyria. The second period brings us to the reign of Hezekiah, who was severely pressured by both Egyptians and Philistines to join in revolt against Sargon of Assyria. Few oracles can be assigned with certainty to this earlier part of Hezekiah's reign when all Palestine lived under the threatening shadow of Sargon the Great. Chapter 20 certainly belongs here and, with the help of the Assyrian annals, can be safely dated to the years 714-711 when Ashdod and other city-states joined in an uprising against the powerful Assyrian. The position taken by Isaiah is clear from ch. 20. Walking about the streets of Jerusalem barefoot and clad only in a loincloth, the Prophet dramatically underlined the folly of trusting in Egypt and her allies. His policy appears to have prevailed on this occasion, for Judah escaped punishment when Sargon crushed the revolt. The last period coincides with the Palestinian campaigns of Sennacherib, who succeeded Sargon on the throne of Assyria in 705. The prose material in the historical appendix (chs. 36-39) provides important information for these trying days that eventually saw the vindication of Isaiah's prophetic word. The military activity of Sennacherib in Palestine remains an historical problem; the two-campaign theory, which appears to satisfy the historical evidence better than other alternatives, will be taken up in the commentary. To this latter part of Isaiah's career belong the oracles assembled in 28:7-33:24. For at least forty long and testing years Isaiah performed his task as Yahweh's spokesman. A late and unverified tradition reports that he was put to death under the impious King Manasseh, who thoroughly repudiated the reforms of his father, Hezekiah." (The Jerome Biblical Commentary, vol. 1, pp. 265-266)
James King West writes: "Not all of chapters 1-39 come from the original Isaiah. Three sections in particular are later additions. (1) Chapters 24-27, 'the Isaiah Apocalypse,' represents a fully developed apocalyptic style which did not appear until the exile and later. It should be noted, however, that Isaiah's own oracles are marked by certain features which the later apocalyptic school found compatible with its point of view, such as the dualistic contrast between light and darkness (cf. 9:1-7) and the prophet's quiet trust that God is sure to act on behalf of his people (cf. 7:30). (2) Chapters 33-35 bear an exilic coloration; 34 and 35 are in the style of Deutero-Isaiah. (3) Chapters 36-39 are historical narratives nearly identical with II Kings 18:13-20:19, having been taken from the same source utilized by the Deuteronomist. Obviously they were attached to the Isaiah collection due to their accounts of the prophet's involvement in the crisis of the Hezekiah period." (Introduction to the Old Testament, pp. 269-270)
Samuel Sandmel writes: "Curiously, the happiest, most lyrical, most optimistic passages in the Tanak have found their way into the Book of Isaiah. The beating of swords into plowshares (2:4) and the lying down of the wolf and the lamb (11:6) are both from this book. In the view of many traditional intepreters, Isaiah emerges as a man of happy expectations for the future. These joyful passages, however, are not from Isaiah, the eighth-century prophet. The recognition that these parts are late insertions reveals Isaiah as even more of a prophet of doom than Amos and Hosea. In all three, but especially in Isaiah, the early Hebrew religion expresses a basic hopelessness. Israel's doom, synonymous with mankind's doom, was regarded as inevitable. Isaiah proffered his age a gripping, stirring faith but man's inability to achieve that faith or abide in it spelled only disaster." (The Hebrew Scriptures, p. 96)
Jay G. Williams writes: "As a Judean, Isaiah seems to have placed great faith in the Davidic kingship as a source of hope. At the same time, he was quite critical of the particular kings who sat on the throne of Judah during his day. His messages say little about Uzziah and Jotham, but concerning Ahaz he is less than laudatory. Hezekiah receives somewhat more favorable treatment, but he too is attacked when he seeks to secure himself through political alliances. On the whole, however, Isaiah spends less time talking about the present kings than about the future king who will restore the glory of Israel. Although he does not use the term Messiah (the anointed one), the prophecies of Chapters 9 and 11 are thoroughly Messianic. There is much disagreement among scholars as to whether these passages are original with him, but to this author there seems to be no compelling reason to think they are not. If they are, Isaiah looked forward to a son of David who would again lead Israel to greatness, not through the power of the sword but through the strength of holiness. There are some indications that Isaiah actually expected the fulfillment of these dreams during his life-time, but such was not to be the case. In fact, after Hezekiah, the evil Manasseh came to the throne and adopted a thoroughly pro-Assyrian policy and many pagan religious practices. Tradition has it that in his old age Isaiah was killed by Manasseh who could not countenance his pronouncements. There is no way to confirm or deny this belief, but it is certainly within the realm of possibility that Isaiah eventually met a martyr's death." (Understanding the Old Testament, pp. 197-198)
William J. Dumbrell writes: "What follows [in Isaiah, commencing with 52:13] is a commentary explaining how this return has been achieved, namely through the ministry of the servant who has suffered so extremely, 52:13-53:12. The disfigured servant whose ministry was nonetheless so effective is presented in 52:13-15. Then in 53:1-9 we seem to be confronted by the confession of the Gentile kings of 52:15 who stand astonished at the new Exodus and restoration, followed by a prophetic (vv. 10-11) and a divine (v. 12) assessment of the servant's ministry. What is clear is that it has been the servant's ministry which has made possible this great change involving the return of God's people to his city. The confession of the kings thus bears eloquent testimony to the eschatology of 2:2-4." (Tyndale Bulletin 36 [1985], p. 126)
Richard J. Clifford writes: "Some observations can be made regarding the passage. Elsewhere in Second Isaiah, the nations are onlookers, the chorus rather than the protagonist. Hence, those whose sins are borne are likely the Israelites, not the nations. Secondly, the sins the servant has borne are not only the sinful acts of others but their consequences; Hebrew words for sin can designate both the act and its unhappy consequences. The ancestors have sinned, and the exiles are bearing the consequences. Now, however, Israel is invited back into existence through the new Exodus from Babylon to Zion. Many exiles were unwilling to undertake the journey. But as long as some of the people make the journey, the servant (and those allied with him), Israel comes into existence. 'The many' who did not make the journey exist as Israel once more because of the servant's obedient act. When they see what the servant has done for them, they cry out that he has borne their sins, i.e., taken away the evil consequences of their refusal to go in the new Exodus. It is noteworthy that the servant's reward is life in the holy land (53:11-12; cf. 9:3). As long as the servant does the act, the whole people live again. The above interpretation is tentative, but it does have the merit of staying within OT categories." ("Second Isaiah" in The Anchor Bible Dictionary)
John Scullion writes: "How then is this fourth song to be interpreted? The servant signifies, is a symbol of, Israel in history and captive Israel. Israel will recognize herself in the persecuted, suffering, sick man, just as she had recognized herself in the words of Isaiah of the 8th century: 'A, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, . . . The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but bruises and sores and bleeding wounds; they are not pressed out, or bound up, or softened with oil.' (Isa. 1:4-6)." (Isaiah 40-66, p. 122)
Walter Brueggemann writes: "First, there is no doubt that the poem is to be understood in the context of the Isaiah tradition. Insofar as the servant is Israel--a common assumption of Jewish interpretation--we see that the theme of humiliation and exaltation serves the Isaiah rendering of Israel, for Israel in this literature is exactly the humiliated (exiled) people who by the powerful intervention of Yahweh is about to become the exalted (restored) people of Zion. Thus the drama is the drama of Israel and more specifically of Jerusalem, the characteristic subject of this poetry." (Isaiah 40-66, p. 143)
Walter Brueggemann continues: "Second, although it is clear that this poetry does not in any first instance have Jesus on its horizon, it is equally clear that the church, from the outset, has found this poetry a poignant and generative way to consider Jesus, wherein humiliation equals crucifixion and exaltation equals resurrection and ascension." (Isaiah 40-66, p. 143)
John Scullion writes: "The servant is regularly identified with Israel outside the songs: 41:8-10; 43:10; 44:1-2; 44:21; 45:4; 48:20; 49:7; in 54:17 the 'servants of the Lord' are God's loyal Israelites; in 42:19 the servant is Israel in exile. There are in all some fourteen instances where the servant is Israel. In the songs, however, the term servant describes an individual: 'my servant' 42:1; 49:3, 6; 'his servant 49:5. The commentary on or elaboration of the third song refers to 'his servant,' 50:10, while the 'Yahweh statements' of the fourth song speak of 'my servant' 52:13; 53:11. The name Israel occurs but once in the songs, 49:3. But if the servant songs belong to chaps. 40-55 and are the work of the prophet then there is no option but to understand the servant as Israel. The servant of the songs speaks or is spoken of as an individual: he is 'thou,' 42:8-16; he has a right hand, 41:13; he has eyes and ears but cannot see or hear, 42:19; he is formed by Yahweh from the womb, 44:1-2, as he is in the second song, 49:2. The servant-prophet speaks as one with his people, 49:1-6; 50:4-9, yet stands over against the people; the people, Israel, is the Israel of history, empirical Israel, faithless Israel, yet at the same time the true Israel which is to be God's instrument to redeem Israel; the servant-people is Israel with a mission to Israel; and the prophet is conscious that he is one with the people that has been hewn from Abraham, 51:1-2. When Israel suffers, she suffers for Israel and for the vindication of Israel by Yahweh (see comments on individual songs). The salvation of Israel by Yahweh the creator and redeemer is the theme of the whole of chaps. 40-55; Israel the people is the centre of the prophet's pronouncements." (Isaiah 40-66, pp. 135-136)
R. N. Whybray writes: "for our transgressions; for our iniquities: these phrases are usually intepreted as implying vicarious suffering: the people sinned, buth the Servant was punished. But this is made improbable by the choice of the word translated for. If the author had intended to imply such a transference of guilt, he would almost certainly have used the particle be, which denotes an exchange. The fact that he chose instead the particle min indicates that he regarded the Servant's ill treatment as the result of the people's sin but not as a substitute for the punishment which they had deserved: though more intense than theirs; though intense was fundamentally due to the same causes. They speak of his identification with them in their suffering: there is nothing to suggest that he suffered in their place. They--that is, the whole exilic community in whose name they make their confession--had previously thought of him quite difficulty undergone unusually intense misfortune, with the implication (though smitten by God perhaps means no more than 'terrible smitten') that he had brought divine punishment on himself through his own wickedness--possibly as a false prophet. See further on he bore the sin of many in verse 12." (Isaiah 40-66, p. 175)
Whybray continues: "In the second half of the verse the speakers assert that the prophet's suffering has not been in vain. In saying that they have been made . . . whole and healed, they are summarizing Deutero-Isaiah's own essential message, that Yahweh has forgiven them and is on the point of rescuing and restoring them. They affirm their faith in this message, and recognize that without his readiness to suffer in the course of his prophetic duty, the prophetic word, which was the means used by Yahweh to achieve his purpose (55:11), would not have been pronounced." (Isaiah 40-66, pp. 175-176)
R. N. Whybray writes: "and he shall bear their iniquities: this verb (an imperf.) should also be rendered as a past tense. This statement, like he bore the sin of many in verse 12 (see below), is usually interpreted as a statement that the Servant's suffering was vicarious and atoning. But there is no evidence for this. The phrase 'bear iniquities' (sabal awonot) occurs in only one other passage in the OT: 'Our fathers sinned, and are no more; and we bear their iniquities' (Lam. 5:7). Here it is clear that although the speakers complain that their punishment is the consequence of their dead ancestors' sins, they can hardly claim to be vicariously atoning for them. So also here the Servant, though innocent, has suffered punishment which is the consequence of the sins of others, and which should rightly have fallen only on his guilty compatriots (compare verses 2-6); but he has not suffered in their stead. The meaning of the phrase is 'yet he suffered punishment which only they deserved'." (Isaiah 40-66, p. 181)
R. N. Whybray writes: "It may be noted here that several phrases in this chapter--he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows (verse 4); and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all (verse 6); and he shall bear their iniquities (verse 11); and he bore the sin of many (verse 12)--have been discussed by some commentators as if they were identical in meaning with another phrase, nasa awon, 'bear guilt' or 'bear punishment', which does not occur in this chapter. But even if we can assume that the phrases are virtually interchangeable, nasa awon does not in fact refer to vicarious punishment or suffering. In the four passages from the laws (Exod. 28:38; Lev. 10:17; 16:22; Num. 18:1) which have been cited as proof of this meaning, the subject of the verb 'bear' is not involved in suffering at all. Rather these passages express a belief that a certain ritual actions neutralize or take away a punishment which would otherwise fall on the people. They have nothing in common with the idea of one person's suffering instead of another. Further, in Ezek. 4:4-6, where the prophet Ezekiel 'bears the punishment' of the house of Israel, his suffering is in no sense a vicarious punishment: on the contrary, it is a sign of the punishment which the people are themselves called upon to bear. The roles of Deutero-Isaiah and Ezekiel are here similar in the sense that both share the suffering of the people rather than suffering in their stead." (Isaiah 40-66, p. 183)
Donald Juel writes: "The messianic reading of Isaiah 53 in the Targum does not support the thesis that there existed a pre-Christian concept of a suffering Messiah whose career was understood in light of the chapter. In the Targum, virtually every element of suffering is eliminated from the career of the Servant-Messiah. The resulting portrait, though purchased at the expense of the obvious meaning of the text, accords in every respect with the portrait of the Messiah elsewhere in the Targum and in other Jewish literature. It is thus difficult to argue, as Jeremias does, that the striking interpretation by the targumist represents an effort to conceal an earlier tradition of a suffering Messiah that Christians found too useful. Were that the case, the image of a suffering Messiah would represent a complete anomaly in the Targum as a whole. The painstaking redoing of the passage by the targumist required by the initial identification of the servant as the Messiah need not obscure the usefulness of the passage to the targumist even apart from anti-Christian polemics. The initial description of the servant as exalted and glorified is perhaps sufficient cause for the messianic 'translation.'" (Messianic Exegesis, pp. 126-127)
Marco Treves writes of the servant in chapter fifty-three, "we must look for a saintly man murderd not long before 164," based on a dating of Second Isaiah to the Maccabaean age, following Robert H. Kennett (The Composition of the Book of Isaiah in the light of History and Archaeology). Treves stipulates: "He was the high priest Onias, as father Barsotti and Dr. Lassalle have recognized. The story of Onias is told in 2 Macc. iii 1-iv 38. He was a pious and saintly person. When Seleucus Philopator, having to pay a heavy indemnity to the Romans, had tried to confiscate the deposits of the Jerusalem widows and orphans, Onias had succeeded in placating the king without delivering these funds. But he was unjustly accused of conspiring against the government and in 174, on the accession of Antiochus Epiphanes, was supplanted by his unscrupulous brother Jason, who introduced into the city Greek customs contrary to the Torah. Jason, in turn, was supplanted by one Menelaus, who did not hesitate to appropriate some of the gold vessels of the Temple and sell them for profit or give them away as bribes. On being rebuked by Onias, he urged the Greek governor Andronicus to arrest him. Andronicus imprisoned and slew Onias. Menelaus' robberies were followed by riots, massacres and a general apostasy." ("Isaiah LIII" in Veta Testamentum 24)
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Peter's website also provides us with several on and off-line resources. One of these suggests...
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The first servant poem describes God's choice of the servant who will bring justice to the nations. The second poem describes, in the servant's own words, his experience of having been called by God to be a light to the nations. The reference in verse 3 to Israel is generally recognized as a late insertion intended to identify the servant with the nation. The third poem turns gloomy with a first-person description of how the servant was physically abused in the course of his mission. The last and longest servant poem, except for the first few verses, is a third party's observations on the suffering of the servant. What follows is a fragment of this last servant poem.
4 Surely he has lifted our infirmities and carried our diseases. But we reckoned him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. 5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our wrongs; upon him was inflicted the punishment that made us whole, and by his wounds we are healed. (53:4-5)
On the basis especially of this last poem, the servant of Yahweh figure has also come to be called the "suffering servant". The notion is a remarkable one. It appears to represent a transference from atonement by animal sacrifice, the traditional ritual means of atonement in Israel, to atonement by a human being's suffering. By his suffering the servant of Yahweh receives God's punishment for the sins of the group.
No one knows exactly who this servant was or how to interpret the figure in the poems. Some have suggested that the servant of Yahweh is a metaphor for Judah, which suffered terribly in the Babylonian exile (remember, this is the audience Second Isaiah is directly addressing). By suffering, Judah delivered healing to other nations in the form of a witness to the saving power of Yahweh.
Others have suggested that the servant was an individual. Israel's prophetic figures were typically called "my servants, the prophets" and "servant of Yahweh." Moses is called this in Deuteronomy, and other prophets elsewhere. If the servant was a real prophetic figure, Jeremiah is a likely candidate. He was called by God (compare Jeremiah 1:5 and Isaiah 49:5). We know from Kings and the book of Jeremiah that he was socially outcast and physically abused. Besides Jeremiah, others have also been suggested, including Judah's king in exile, Jehoiachin, Second Isaiah himself (Whybray 1983), and Zerubbabel, the first governor of Judea after the exile.
Perhaps the very indefiniteness of the allusion was Second Isaiah's intention. He may have had somebody real in mind as a model; but he may have been suggesting, by keeping the identification vague, that the way of selflessness and suffering is the way salvation comes in God's plan, and not by triumphant military might. By keeping the figure indefinite, such a figure is not an historical curiosity but a model for God's chosen and redeemed people.
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...which I'm quite partial to.
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01-14-2005, 08:44 AM
