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The Suffering Servant of Isaiah - Who Is He?

Initially this Servant is described in Isaiah 42.1-4. “Behold My Servant whom I uphold. My elect, in whom My soul delights. I have put My Spirit upon him, he will bring forth justice to the Gentiles. --- He will not fail or be discouraged until he has set justice on the earth, and the isles shall wait for his instruction”. Thus God’s intention for him was that he should establish a standard of justice and instruction for the whole world.

And who is the Servant? The answer would seem to be clear, “Thus says the Lord Who created you, O Jacob, and Who formed you, O Israel. Fear not, for I have redeemed you, I have called you by your name, you are Mine --- since you were precious in My sight, you have been honourable and I have loved you --- you are My witnesses, and My Servant whom I have chosen” (Isaiah 43.1-11). God’s purpose for restored Israel is that they should bring the nations to God.

The theme continues, “Listen now, O Jacob My Servant, and Israel whom I have chosen, thus says the Lord Who made you, and formed you from the womb, Who will help you. Do not be afraid, O Jacob, My Servant, and you, Jesurun (upright one), whom I have chosen. For I will pour water on him who is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground. I will pour My Spirit upon your children, and My blessing upon your offspring” (Isaiah 44.1-3 see also Isaiah 44.21; 45.4).

So Israel have been called to be God’s Servant, and His witnesses. But they were not fulfilling their responsibility, so a Servant arises who will bring them to face up to that responsibility. His description is found in Isaiah 49.1-7.

“Listen to me, O isles, hear you people from afar, the Lord has called me from the womb, from the bowels of my mother has He named my name. He has made my mouth like a sharp sword, in the shadow of His hand He has hid me, He has made me a polished arrow, in His quiver has he hid me, and said to me, ‘You are my Servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified’. Then I said, ‘I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nought and in vain, yet surely judgment on me is in the Lord’s hands, and my reward is with my God”.

At first sight this would seem again to make Israel the Servant, but the next verses make clear that this is one who acts on behalf of Israel, their representative, for he has been formed from the womb as God’s Servant to bring Jacob to God and to gather Israel to Him (v.5). He is to ‘raise up the tribes of Jacob and restore the preserved of Israel’ (v.6). But he is also to be a light to the Gentiles, bringer of God’s salvation to the ends of the earth. This Servant will represent all that Israel was meant to be. So God is speaking to a holy remnant of Israel who represent all that Israel was meant to be. They are the true Israel.

His task will not be easy. “The Lord has given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him who is weary. He wakens me morning by morning, He awakens my ear to hear as the learned. The Lord has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious, nor turned away back. I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to those who plucked off the hair. I did not hide my face from shame and spitting. For the Lord will help me, therefore will I not be confounded. Therefore have I set my face like a flint, and I know that I will not be put to shame. He Who declares me righteous is near, who will contend against me? Let us stand up together. Who is my adversary? Let him come near me. Behold the Lord God will help me. Who is the one who will condemn me?” (Isaiah 50.4-9)

Here we have the vivid picture of one who is not among the recognised learned men, although he has the ability to appear as one because he has been taught by the Lord. But for this he is shamefully treated and degraded. Then he is brought before the court to be accused. But God is his advocate, so who can stand against him? He knows that he will in the end be vindicated. For God has declared him righteous.

Because Israel has failed, he stands in the place of Israel to bring about their restoration and carry out their task to the world. And for this he is brought to judgment. But some of Israel will hear, “Who is among you who fear the Lord, who obey the voice of His Servant, who walk in darkness and have no light? Let him trust in the name of the Lord, and lean upon his God” (Isaiah 50.10). So even his followers are not going to have an easy time, they will walk in darkness and have no light. But they can be sure that they too will be vindicated, for they can lean upon God.

The picture has now come down to one man who, as it were, bears the degradation heaped upon the righteous in Israel. The prophets had each known something of this experience as they conducted their ministries in the face of opposition and hatred. Another would arise to experience even more of the same.

But it is his enemies who will in the end pay the heavier price. They will become old, like ragged garments, and the moth will eat them up (50.9). “Behold all you who kindle a fire, and surround yourselves with sparks, walk in the light of your fire, and in the sparks that you have kindled. This you will receive from My hand. You will lie down in sorrow (terror, a place of grief)” (50.11).

Indeed, after his humiliation, this Servant is to be lifted high. “Behold, My Servant shall prosper. He will be exalted and praised, and be very high. As many were astonished at you - his face was marred more than that of any man, and his form more than the sons of men. So will he sprinkle many nations. Kings will shut their mouths at him, for they will see what no one has told them, and will consider what has not been reported to them” (Isaiah 52.13-15).

The world will be astonished at the ill treatment meted out to him. But they will be even more astonished when he is exalted and becomes a priest to the nations (the sprinkling refers to the sacrificial rites which were used to cleanse from sin). Though what has happened to him is not considered newsworthy, yet kings will see it and be amazed

And it is not surprising that no one reported the events. “Who could have believed what we have heard, and who could have seen in this the arm of the Lord?” (53.1). (This is an equally possible translation).

“For he will grow up before Him as a young and tender plant (barely able to stand the inclemencies of the weather), as a root out of dry ground (withered and struggling to survive)”. This is not the growth of a hero.

“He has no fine form nor comeliness, and when we shall see him, he has no beauty that we should adulate him”. He will not be a physically striking figure. This Servant is not to be sought after because of unique physical attributes.

“He is despised and rejected of men, a man bowed down with sorrows, and humiliated by grief” (the Ugaritic texts have shown that yatha’ - ‘to know’ - can also mean ‘to be humiliated’). “And as one from whom men hide their faces (literally ‘as a hiding of faces from him’), he was despised and we esteemed him not”. He will be a man who is overburdened with sorrows and grief (like Jeremiah in his lamentations), despised and unwanted because of his unpopular message, without the esteem of men. Indeed they will be ashamed to be connected to him.

And why will he be like this? “Surely he has borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows”. He is a man burdened with the griefs and sufferings of others.

“Yet we came to the measured decision that he was stricken, smitten by God and afflicted”. His contemporaries, seeing what he was going through, would interpret it as a sign that God was displeased with him. So he will be completely misunderstood by his own people, although the prophet himself can see the true situation. All the prophets had been misunderstood. How much more the one who bore the future sorrows of Israel.

But the suffering and grief was not to be without purpose. “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 coming Servant will take on himself the sins of his people and the sufferings they deserve. ‘The chastisement of our peace was upon him’ must mean ‘we were at peace, and content, although in fact deserving the harshest of disciplines because of our gross insensitivity, and he was disciplined in our place’.

“We have all gone astray like sheep, each of us has turned to his own way, and the Lord has made all our iniquities to meet on him (caused all our iniquities to fall upon him)”. The Servant is to be the sheep that carries the burden of the guilt of all, the sacrificial lamb, as the next passage makes clear.

“He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth, he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and just as a sheep is dumb before his shearers, so he did not open his mouth”. When he is brought low to be stripped of all and put to death there will be no protest from him, he will bear it patiently as his destiny. He will know that it has to be.

“From oppression and judgment he was taken away, and who of his generation considered that he was cut off from the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people”.

As in Isaiah 50 the oppressed Servant is brought to court, and now sentence is passed upon him and he is sentenced to be cut off from the land of the living. His own generation will look on it as a deserved punishment, failing to recognise what the prophet sees, that it was for the transgression of Israel that he was dying. Here is the unique irony. The people who were supposed to be God’s servant, will put the true Servant to death, because he is carrying out their function, and his death will carry out that function. As the prophet says, it is a necessary death, for the Servant, through his suffering, will acomplish his mission. He is suffering on their behalf and in their place.

“And he made his grave with the wicked, and in his death was with the rich, even though he had done no evil, nor spoken deceitfully”. The prophet parallels the Servant’s death with those of the wicked and the rich, both of whom are seen elsewhere as under God’s disapproval (the two are parallelled in Micah 6.9-12. See also Psalm 49.16-19). He too lies under God’s disapproval, even though totally innocent, for he is bearing the sins of others.

“It pleased the Lord to bruise him, he put him to grief”. Only a prophet who had experienced something of what the Servant would endure could use such language reverently. This awful thing was the Lord’s doing. Men appeared to have taken the advantage, they thought they were in control. But behind it all they were just instruments in the hand of God. (Not that this makes them excusable. They chose freely to do it, and were fully guilty. But where men rule, God over-rules. This is the wonder of sovereignty).

The prophet now turns, almost overcome by what he has just said, and speaks to God. “When you will make his soul an offering for sin, he will see his seed, he will prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord will prosper in his hand”. In his righteous heart he know that in the face of this suffering God must vindicate His Servant. Having been offered up by God as a sin-offering, he must come out victorious. This can only refer to resurrection. The prophet cannot conceive of anything else (compare Isaiah 26.19). The Servant will rise to see his work successfully completed and his vindication sure. What he has sown he will reap, and God’s good pleasure will be accomplished.

God now replies, confirming the prophet’s instincts. “From the travail of his soul he shall see light and shall be satisfied” (for this translation see note at end). “By his humiliation shall My righteous Servant put many in the right, for he will bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide him a portion with the great, and he will divide the spoil with the strong”.

The result of the Servant’s awful suffering is that he will ‘see light’. This can be contrasted with the wicked rich who on his death “will never see light” (Psalm 49.19). It is thus a confirmation of resurrection. This idea would also seem to be contained in Psalm 36. In contrast to the workers of iniquity who have fallen, and are cast down and shall not be able to rise (v.12), the Psalmist is convinced that for the righteous there is light and life, “With You is the fountain of life, in Your light shall we see light” (Psalm 36.9) - see also Isaiah 42.16; 60.19-20. To ‘see light’ then is to rise again into God’s presence.

He will ‘see light and will be satisfied’. We can compare this with Psalm 17.15 where the Psalmist says, “As for me, I will behold your face in righteousness: I will be satisfied when I awake with your likeness”. The Psalmists elsewhere regularly spoke of ‘the light of His face (countenance)’ (Psalm 4.6; 18.28; 44.3; 89.15). So the Psalmist will see the light of His countenance and be satisfied. This ties in with the promise to the Servant, and again demonstrates that resurrection is in mind.

He will receive “a portion with the great”. Compare this again with the same Psalm (17.14-15) where in contrast to the wicked who have their ‘portion’ in this life the Psalmist’s portion is to ‘behold Your face in righteousness; I will be satisfied when I awake with Your likeness’. While not stated this is in contrast to ‘the portion’ given to the wicked, and he must therefore see it as his portion, which satisfies him.

However, the righteous are never called ‘the great’ in the Old Testament so that the phrase ‘divide a portion with the great’ is unique. David was told that he had been given ‘a great name like the name of the great men of the earth’ (2 Samuel 7.9), but while the general idea is probably the same it is not really parallel. The great men do not necessarily receive God’s portion. It is therefore more probable that the phrase to ‘divide a portion with the great’ had become a stereotyped phrase meaning ‘being well and deservedly rewarded, receiving a great reward, looked on as great’ rather than having specific significance.

“He will divide the spoil with the strong”. Again there is no Old Testament parallel for ‘the strong’, but we can probably see the idea as referring to those who have demonstrated their spiritual strength by continuation in righteousness. Those whom he has put in the right will share the rewards of his victory.

This is possible because he “has poured out his soul to death, and was numbered with transgressors, and he bore the sin of many and interceded for the transgressors”. It is because of his sacrifice of himself, and because he aligned himself with the transgressors, that he is able to offer to those who will hear him the ‘spoils’ of his victory.

(Note on the rendering ‘from the travail of his soul he shall see light’. This was the reading of the Septuagint (the Greek Old Testament) but was looked on as possibly a method of dealing with a difficulty. The hebrew in the Massoretic text (the ‘recognised’ Hebrew text) was - ‘from the travail of his soul he shall see’ which was difficult to translate. The translators did the best they could but no translation was satisfactory. What would he see? However the problem has almost certainly been solved by discoveries from Qumran where a hebrew text of Isaiah was discovered which parallels the Massoretic text almost word for word (and is of course older) and included the word ‘light’. The consonants ‘awr’ representing the word ‘light’ could easily have dropped out, possibly when in more ancient hebrew texts ‘ahr’, for the place where it dropped out has ‘ahr’ in sequence now, suggesting that a copyist jumped three letters in copying, a common error).

SUMMARY

The Servant of God in Isaiah in what are often referred to as ‘The Servant Songs’ has a mission to both Israel and the world, to take them justice and God’s instruction and to turn them to God. He will be empowered by the Spirit, and act with great gentleness. He will find the task onerous but will persevere because of his confidence in God. Because he is not a recognised scholar he will be persecuted and shamed, and finally brought to the bar of justice to be tried. In the end he will be sentenced to death, and cut off from the land of the living like a sacrificial lamb. He will be buried as an evildoer. But this suffering and death will be because he is bearing the sins of others, and he will finally be vindicated by resurrection.

Initially Israel was seen as potentially the Servant of God, but the ministry described for him showed that he had to minister to Israel. Israel had proved unworthy. He could therefore only be the ‘righteous remnant’.

But as with the prophets, who often stood, as it were, alone, representing the righteous few, this righteous remnant became represented by one man who would especially face judgment and death. This fact, and the vivid portrayal, make it clear that we have here the Hebrew idea of the representative who acts for his people. Only this will really satisfy the picture.

A further remarkable fact must be borne in mind. The Servant shows no consciousness of sin. Nowhere does he or the prophetic writer suggest that he is humbled by his own unworthiness. It is always the unworthiness of others that he bears. He may have a very human feeling of the onerous nature of his task, and feel that it is not working out like it should, followed immediately by confidence that God will put all to rights, but there is no suggestion that it is the result of his own moral failure. He is always sure that he will be vindicated. This is in direct contrast with the prophets who are the first to declare their own sinfulness and inadequacy. This counts heavily against any suggestion of connection with a known prophetic figure, or indeed any identification with the remnant of Israel.

The New Testament, and especially Luke’s Gospel, make clear that they see in Jesus the fulfilment of this prophecy, and there can be no doubt that the descriptions of the Servant fit perfectly into His life, ministry and death, almost as though they had been written after the event. Jesus specifically referred to Himself as the Servant in Luke 22.37 and also when He said that He had come “not to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many’ (Mark 10.45). He referred this latter to Himself as ‘the Son of Man’. But He was clearly combining the two ideas in one.

The idea of the Servant surely lies behind His constant declaration that He must suffer at the hands of men, be put to death at the hands of Jewish leaders, and rise again, for while the Son of Man title includes the idea of suffering and heavenly vindication, it does not carry the idea of suffering at the hands of the Jewish leaders.

He is declared to be the Servant at His baptism - ‘my beloved, in whom I am well pleased’ (Mark 1.11 compare Isaiah 42.1) and the idea is applied to Him in Matthew 12.17-21; Luke 2.32; 9.35 RV and RSV; 23.35. The Servant is also probably to be identified with the prophet in Isaiah 61.1-3 which Jesus applied to Himself in Luke 4.16-21. When John the Baptiser declares Him to be ‘the Lamb of God’ (John 1.29, 36) this identification is also made by him.

As Christians have read the above outline they will no doubt have rejoiced in the way that the ideas spoke to their souls. They too will have recognised Jesus as the Servant ‘par excellence’. The picture is so vivid and so realistic that they can be in no doubt of whom the prophet spoke, just as Philip revealed it to the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8.34-35).

Indeed there is only one person in all history who adequately fits the picture of the Servant (not a position to be universally sought after). He alone is worthy. He alone claimed to be without sin, and revealed it in His life. He must alone therefore be seen as the central figure. Yet His task had to be in some part fulfilled by others. That is why He called the twelve Apostles. And that is why in Acts 13.47 the conception of the Servant is applied to them. So while the idea is summed up in Him it is also applied to the wider ‘church of God’. We too are ‘the Servant’ commissioned to the fulfilling of his task by the Spirit. This is both our great privilege and our great responsibility. This is why we must go to all nations proclaiming to them the Good News of Jesus and what He has accomplished.

However, the Jews today try to argue (as they must if they reject Jesus) that the Servant is Israel. They try to dispute that it can be applied to one man. But they do find it difficult when they come to chapters 50, 52 and 53 which so clearly portray an individual. But where is the righteous remnant who, without sin, are good enough to bear the sins of others? Where are those righteous men whose teaching has changed the world? Through the ages the Jews turned in on themselves. They admit that prophecy has ceased. Who then is to carry the idea through to its conclusion? They are caught in an impasse. They will admit that Jeremiah and Ezekiel and the other prophets stood, and even suffered, as the representatives of Israel. But none of them ever claimed even remotely to a status required by this prophecy. Why then will they not recognise in their greatest of all prophets, whose teaching has been acclaimed by all religions, that He was truly the Servant of God?

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