TedM

The following is an analysis I did over a year ago. I'm interested in any mistakes in judgement others may find in it--or ideas I missed..


THE SUFFERING SERVANT--ATONED FOR SINS, RESURRECTED
Isaiah 52:13 "Behold, my servant shall prosper, he shall be exalted and lifted up, and shall be very high. Isaiah 53:3, "He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not." 5 "But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities." 8 "By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living..." 9 "..he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth" 10 "when he makes himself (or thou makest his soul) an offering for sin, he shall prolong his days" 11 "by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous"

This is an amazing passage because one can draw many parallels to Jesus. However, the purpose here is to determine if the passage is referring to a Messiah and what a reasonable interpretation is.

The book of Isaiah is not always easy to understand. The tense is not always clear--moving from past tense to future tense. In Chapters 40 onward the context is primarily often one of the nation of Israel in peril, and sometimes in captivity (or prophecied to be) due to her sins. A major theme is that a time would come when the nation's troubles would end, and a period of peace would follow. The predominant use of tense supports that the nation was in trouble, or in exile, at the time of the writing, though not every chapter clearly supports this. The preceeding chapter is consistent with this theme. 52:2-3 "Shake yourself from the dust, arise, O captive Jerusalem; loose the bonds from your neck, O captive daughter of Zion. For thus says the Lord: "You were sold for nothing, and you shall be redeemed without money."" 5-6 "..Their rulers wail, says the Lord, and continually all the day my name is despised. Therefore my people shall know my name; therfore in that day they shall know that it is I who speak; here am I."

The passage refers twice to the 'servant', in 52:13, and 53:11. It seems pretty clear that the person referred to in the entire passage is that servant.

This passage is the first prophecy I see which suggests that possibly one person or group of persons could atone for the sins of others. This need not be a divine entity, but the concept is so powerful that it is reasonable to say the passage is Messiac in nature. Some attributes of this Messiah are as follows, in the order of the passage:

1. He will prosper
2. His appearance will be marred--unrecognizable
3. Kings will see and understand and be quiet because of Him
4. He had no beauty
5. He was despised and rejected by men, considered smitten by God--an outcast
6. He was a man of sorrows (or grief)
7. He knew grief (or sickness)
8. Atones for other's sins and selfish disobedience through suffering--wounded and bruised
9. He carries the sorrows of others
10. He perhaps was whipped (described as having stripes)
11. He suffered silently
12. He was taken away by oppression and judgement
13. None in his generation considered that his being 'cut off from the land of the living' was for Israel ('my people')
14. His grave was with the wicked
15. His grave was with a rich man in his death
16. He had done no violence
17. He had no deceit in his mouth
18. It was God's will that he suffer
19. He will see his offspring
20. His days will be prolonged
21. In his hand God's will will prosper
22. He will make many to be accounted righteous, 'by his knowledge'--because of knowledge he has or because of knowledge of Him?
23. God will give him a portion with the great
24. He will divide the spoil with the strong.
25. He was numbered with the sinners (considered to be one of them)


The question I have is whether from the context we can get a better idea of who this servant and possible messiah was supposed to be. Here are some possible answers to choose from:

1. The servant could be the nation itself: 41:8 "But you, Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, the offspring of Abraham, my friend; you whom I took from the ends of the earth, and called from its farthest corners, saying to you, "You are my servantI have chosen you and not cast you off", and 45:4 "For the sake of my servant Jacob, and Israel my chosen I call you (Cyrus (538 BC)) by your name."

2. It could be one person. This may actually be the author himself, who may have come to see himself as a symbol of righteous Israel: 49:3-4 "And he (God) said to me, "You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified." But I said, "I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity; yet surely my right is with the Lord, and my recompense with my God." And now the Lord says, who formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob back to him, and that Israel might be gathered to him, for I am honored in the eyes of the Lord, and my God has become my strength--he says: "It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved of Israel. I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth."" This passage is very strong support that he is the savior-servant in Chapter 53.

3. Another viewpoint is that 49:5 is from the standpoint of not the author, but the true savior-messiah himself. If that is the viewpoint however, one would need to explain the description of the servant in 50:10 as one who 'walks in darkness and has no light, yet trusts in the name of the Lord'.

4. Or, he could be another person the author expected to be a kind of Messiah. This could be someone living at the time, (perhaps a king), or one to come in the future.

I have reflected on this passage many times, and I think it is most reasonable to conclude that it is definitely messiac, but it is in the context of the nation being forgiven and restored to their land. I think the similarities in 11:1 to 53:2 strongly support the messiah connection. One of the biggest differences between this prophecy and the others is the idea that the servant actually atones for the nation. Throughout Isaiah the theme was that the nation was suffering for it's own sins and God would have mercy eventually. This chapter appears to introduce a whole new Messiac theme. So, who is this servant?

Let's see what the language in my Bible supports:

The author himself
Supported by alternative wording in 52:13 "as many were astonished at you", assuming God is speaking.
Not well supported--especially in passages like "Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken." The word 'we' is used a lot, in apparant contrast to the servant. In light of the very strong support that 49:5 refers to the author as the savior-servant, one wonders if the translation of chapter 53 has been modified somewhat to appear differently.

The nation of Israel
supported by 52:13-15. Not supported by 53:2 when 11:1 is considered a link. Again, a number of references to 'we' that contrast since 'we' is likely talking about Israel.

A forgiven Israel, atoned by the suffering of its people/The part of Israel that is suffering (considered righteous)
This requires seeing Israel as it's own Messiah--an odd concept not in sinc with 11:1, which appears to be referenced. It also requires the references to death as applying to only some of them and not the whole nation. It also seems to conflict with 53:6 "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all."

A current messiah other than the author--a real person
All things attributed to him are possible except that it is then hard to explain how after having died in 53:9 he 53:10 "shall see his offspring, he shall prolong his days", unless that is considered to happen in heaven. The big problem with this is that no person is ever named as such.

A future Messiah--during exile
This only works if it is in the category of a hoped-for Messiah to save the nation from exile. The answer might be found in the context..

A future Messiah--beyond exile.
The problem with this is that it disagrees with the tenses. In my bible ALL of the passages regarding suffering are past tense: 'he WAS wounded', 'he WAS cut off from the land of the living','he had done no violence' etc.. The passages regarding atonement have a mixture of tenses: 'he WAS bruised for our iniquities', 'upon him was the chastisement that MADE us whole(then or now?)', 'with his stripes we are healed(then or now?).', 'by his knowledge SHALL the righeous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous; and he SHALL bear their iniquities'. The passages regarding prosperity are all future tense: 'my servant SHALL prosper', 'he SHALL startle many nations','he SHALL see his offspring','he SHALL prolong his days'.

So, in conclusion, it is a very hard to identify who the servant is. The most plausible options we have from prior references the author has made are that it is the nation of Israel or it is the author himself. However, when we examine the passage itself in detail, neither seem to fit the description real well, although I would not rule it out because of the strong degree of suffering both servants--the nation and the author--had endured.

The language of the passage--including the link to 11:1 however more strongly supports the idea of a messiah--a person--other than the author himself. And, I feel, it supports the idea of an unknown--possibly just theoretical--messiah to come immediately out of Israel. One who has suffered and possibly already died and whom God deems to have been righteous enough to have atoned for the nation. The tenses regarding suffering and future prosperity support this idea more than the idea of a future messiah who has not suffered at all yet for the people.

CONCLUSION
The passage is very unclear but the context and the tenses most reasonably support some kind of Messiah considered to atone for the nation during a period of exile. However, the lack of clarity leaves open the possibility of another interpretation.



ted

Secular Pinoy

Peter Kirby posted a long article about Messianic Prophecies which touched upon the suffering servant passages. You might find some of the discussions useful.

TedM

Hey thanks! The article has similar interpretations.

Johnny Skeptic

I do not see anything at all amazing about the passage. Diogenes the Cynic is an expert on this subject and he will no doubt tell you the same thing.

Regarding Isaiah 52:13, there is not any evidence at all that "he shall be exalted and lifted up, and shall be very high." Regarding Isaiah 53:3, many historical characters have been despised and rejected by men. There is not any evidence at all that Jesus' shed blood and death remitted the sins of mankind, or that he was conceived by the Holy Spirit, was born of a virgin, and never sinnned. There is not any evidence at all that "he had done no violence," and that "there was no deceit in his mouth."

The passage is misused by fundamentalist Christians as a fraudulent attempt to pass faith off as apologetics. Micah 5:2, Jesus riding a donkey into Jerusalem, and Joseph of Arimathea's tomb, are more of the same.

TedM

I agree that many people could have fulfilled it--prisoners, the downtrodden, who were believed to have been unfairly treated to the death. My comment about the passage being amazing wasn't really clarified. However, I don't feel like doing so at this point..

Steven Carr

'Atone for the nation?' Which natiion was atoned for, and which nations were not atoned for?

Surely it supports some sort of President, rather than some sort of Messiah.

Of course , the word President is not to be found in Isaiah 52-53, but neither is the word Messiah.

Perhaps I am making an unwarranted assumption that the passage is about a future President who will rule the world, and then fulfill those prophecies about what this President will do.

So feel free to blast that to pieces, and show that the passage is predicting a Messiah, rather than a democratically elected President.

TedM

It seems to me that the conception for a Messiah WAS that of a King who would rule forever or at least restore the kingdom of Israel to its rightful supreme place in the world as God's chosen for a period of eternity. The nation being atoned for was Israel. It seems to me that the tenses of the passage support the idea that the atoning had already taken place but that the deliverance had not yet...thus my conclusion that the passage appears to not be looking forward to a future yet-unknown Messiah.

At the same time, the last section of Isaiah (Ch 40 onward) is complicated by inconsistent uses of Servant and tenses such that nothing can be said definitively about who the servant was supposed to be or when he was supposed to appear.

ted

WishboneDawn

I think it would be useful to keep in mind that the writers of the Gospels likely had just such passages in mind when they wrote their accounts of Jesus's life so the similarities could be intentional additions by those writers. They were trying to convince Jews, amongst other, that Jesus was the messiah after all.