Hi all

As I ponder over this marvellous passage of scripture, a question occurs to me over who the person is writing about the Suffering and Glory of the Servant.

13 See, my servant will act wisely ;
he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted.

1 Who has believed our message
and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?

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.

4 Surely he took up our infirmities
and carried our sorrows,
yet we considered him stricken by God,
smitten by him, and afflicted.

5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed.

11 After the suffering of his soul,
he will see the light of life [g] and be satisfied [h] ;
by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many,
and he will bear their iniquities.

12 Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, [j]
and he will divide the spoils with the strong, [k]
because he poured out his life unto death,
and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.

The author seems to tie himself in with the sinful, who have been redeemed through Jesus, but why then is Jesus his servant, and why is it the author who will give him a portion among the great, not God?

Any help?

The shift from 1st person singular to plural in Isa 53:1 marks a change in speaker, so that Isa 52 record’s God’s words, but Isa 53 moves to the comments of an unidentified group of people, perhaps with the prophet as representative. There are some helpful notes on the NET Bible for the opening verses of Isa 53 which might prove helpful.

Dear Geoff;
At the risk of stating the obvious, I think we just have to make a judgement about the implied speaker from the use of the pronouns, usually. So based on the version of the Bible I have on my desk (NRSV) I would say the passage goes:

Is 52:13-15 the LORD ("my servant")
Is 53:1-10a the prophet Isaiah speaking on behalf of himself and the people of Israel (as you note, refs to “we held him of no account”, “our infirmities”, “our transgressions"). I have cut this off at 10a because it seems to me we have
Is 53:10b-11a the prophet Isaiah directly addressing the LORD ("when you make his life an offering for sin...")
Is 53:11b-12 the LORD speaks again: “The righteous one, my servant, shall...”; “I will allot him a portion with the great”.

Now no doubt this overlooks many possible textual issues but as a general interpretation I can’t see a problem. It is not at all uncommon for passages of the OT to change the speaker or the mode of address (1st person, 2nd person, etc) with no other signal.

I can’t help adding that in this case we do have one other good piece of evidence- the passage in Acts 8:32-34 where the Ethiopian eunuch is reading from this passage (specifically Is 53:7-8) and he says to Phillip “About whom… does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?” While I don’t think we’re necessarily meant to take the Ethiopian’s words as inspired here, it does provide further evidence that vv 7-8 at least are spoken by the prophet. But the very question that he asks indicates that he, for example, must have thought it was a possibility that the prophet was using the 3rd person “he” but was in fact talking about some task that he (Isaiah) was to undertake.

I don’t actually think the Ethiopian’s implied premise is right; but you can be comforted to know that you are not the first person in history to see the problem!

Regards
Neil F

Neil Foster - 13 August 2007 03:17 PM

Dear Geoff;
At the risk of stating the obvious, I think we just have to make a judgement about the implied speaker from the use of the pronouns, usually. So based on the version of the Bible I have on my desk (NRSV) I would say the passage goes:

Is 52:13-15 the LORD ("my servant")
Is 53:1-10a the prophet Isaiah speaking on behalf of himself and the people of Israel (as you note, refs to “we held him of no account”, “our infirmities”, “our transgressions"). I have cut this off at 10a because it seems to me we have
Is 53:10b-11a the prophet Isaiah directly addressing the LORD ("when you make his life an offering for sin...")
Is 53:11b-12 the LORD speaks again: “The righteous one, my servant, shall...”; “I will allot him a portion with the great”.

Thanks Neil. It’s kinda strange though isn’t it? Who writes a book like that? Normally someone writes “This is what the Lord says” or “thus sayeth the Lord” or some kind of clue!

I’m happy to accept it, but it is fascinating how it was written, with no clues (outside the pronouns, of course). Imagine buying a book today that read like that.

Thanks Martin “What does your middle name mean?” Sheilds and Neil.

Geoff

Martin (Enkidu) Shields - 13 August 2007 03:15 PM

The shift from 1st person singular to plural in Isa 53:1 marks a change in speaker, so that Isa 52 record’s God’s words, but Isa 53 moves to the comments of an unidentified group of people, perhaps with the prophet as representative. There are some helpful notes on the NET Bible for the opening verses of Isa 53 which might prove helpful.

Hi Martin. Maybe the link you gave answers this. But who do you think is dividing with Jesus the spoils of the strong in the last verses of Isaiah 53?

[quote author="Geoff Chambers"]Hi Martin. Maybe the link you gave answers this. But who do you think is dividing with Jesus the spoils of the strong in the last verses of Isaiah 53?

I’m not sure if I’ve misunderstood your question, but the text reads something like “he will divide the spoils of victory with the powerful,” where “he” refers to the servant (Jesus) who has been victorious and so receives the “spoils of victory.” So Jesus is doing the dividing.

Martin (Enkidu) Shields - 13 August 2007 04:08 PM

[quote author="Geoff Chambers"]Hi Martin. Maybe the link you gave answers this. But who do you think is dividing with Jesus the spoils of the strong in the last verses of Isaiah 53?

I’m not sure if I’ve misunderstood your question, but the text reads something like “he will divide the spoils of victory with the powerful,” where “he” refers to the servant (Jesus) who has been victorious and so receives the “spoils of victory.” So Jesus is doing the dividing.

whoops!

I mean, who is it that gives him “a portion among the great”. Sorry, I was working from memory and obviously stuffed it up.

Cheers

Geoff

Andrew, could you please fix your post, it makes it very difficult to read the posts on this page. You need to include use tags where you enter url= followed by the long URL enclosed in square brackets, then a short description, before you enter /url enclosed in square brackets.