Isaiah's Servant

[neilgodfrey]

Does anyone here know where I can locate studies that argue what/who might have been the contemporary reference for Isaiah's Servant as an individual? Most discussions I can find acknowledge the Servant is alternately depicted as a collective (Israel) and as an individual person. What I would like to understand is who was in the author's mind if indeed he did sometimes speak of a single person as the Servant.

[semiopen]

http://www.aish.com/sp/ph/Isaiah_53_The ... rvant.html

While the original Hebrew text clearly refers to the Jewish people as the “Suffering Servant,” over the centuries Isaiah 53 has become a cornerstone of the Christian claim that Jesus is the Messiah. Unfortunately, this claim is based on widespread mistranslations and distortion of context.

The key to deciphering any biblical text is to view it in context. Isaiah 53 is the fourth of the four “Servant Songs.” (The others are found in Isaiah chapters 42, 49 and 50.) Though the “servant” in Isaiah 53 is not openly identified – these verses merely refer to “My servant” (52:13, 53:11) – the “servant” in each of the previous Servant Songs is plainly and repeatedly identified as the Jewish nation. Beginning with chapter 41, the equating of God’s Servant with the nation of Israel is made nine times by the prophet Isaiah, and no one other than Israel is identified as the “servant”:
“You are My servant, O Israel” (41:8)
“You are My servant, Israel” (49:3)
see also Isaiah 44:1, 44:2, 44:21, 45:4, 48:20
The Bible is filled with other references to the Jewish people as God’s “servant”; see Jeremiah 30:10, 46:27-28; Psalms 136:22. There is no reason that the “servant” in Isaiah 53 would suddenly switch and refer to someone other than the Jewish people.

[neilgodfrey]

http://www.aish.com/sp/ph/Isaiah_53_The ... rvant.html

I'm really looking for scholarly arguments about the text. This link is to popular apologetics.

On another thread someone has alerted me to this:

Lessing, R. (2011). Isaiah's servants in chapters 40-55: Clearing up the confusion. Concordia Journal, 37(2), 130-134.

selections:

Those who identify the servant with an individual have named, among others, Hezekiah, Isaiah, Uzziah, Josiah, a leper, Jeremiah, Moses, Sheshbazzar, Zerubbabel, Nehemiah, Jehoiachin, Eleazar, Ezekiel, Cyrus, Job, Meshullam, and Zedekiah.

That's a huge start. Now I'm looking for the arguments made in favour of each of these individuals. So far I only have Goulder's case for Jehoiachin.

[ficino]

^^^^ Glad to see our own Sheshbazzar as one of the folks who have been suggested.

Neil, I don't envy you for your task of going through the arguments in favor of all these individuals. Looks like a case of overdetermination much.

[neilgodfrey]

^^^^ Glad to see our own Sheshbazzar as one of the folks who have been suggested.

Neil, I don't envy you for your task of going through the arguments in favor of all these individuals. Looks like a case of overdetermination much.

It's not so bad. I'm wanting to acquire a feel for the options out there for understanding the way the text could have been originally understood and this is an approach I have not looked at before. I'm not so interested in "proving" or "disproving" any particular person as such. ....

I really want to get some sense of the strength of the idea in general that the author had a contemporary in mind (even if we can have no way of knowing now who it was).

[semiopen]

http://www.aish.com/sp/ph/Isaiah_53_The ... rvant.html

I'm really looking for scholarly arguments about the text. This link is to popular apologetics.

I probably shouldn't have posted that link but, in fact, that is the prevailing Rabbinic opinion. Therefore the "popular apologetics" comment is a little out of line.

As long as the actual servant isn't Yoshke, who cares? The other candidates look pretty dubious.

http://www.teologia-catalunya.cat/recur ... ervant.pdf

Modern scholars have attempted to identify the Servant with Jehoiachin or Zerubbabel, with Jeremiah, Ezekiel, or DeuteroIsaiah
himself, or with the "prophet" class as a whole.'

Footnote 1

Some of the older suggestions are summarized and discussed in the Jewish Encyclopedia, xi, pp. 204 f., s.v. "Servant of God." Later suggestions are analyzed in H. M. Orlinsky, The So-Called "Suffering Servant" in Isaiah 53 (Goldenson Lectureof 1964, Cincinnati, 1964), passim.

After mentioning the issues, Rosenberg then goes into -

The "Suffering Servant" passage (Isa 52 13-53 12) seems to constitute a portion of a ritual drama centering about a similar humiliation, culminating in death, of a "substitute" for the figure of the king of the Jews during the immediate postexilic period. Like the Davidic kings of an earlier day, the substitute" was called uli 73X7 ("the Servant of Yahweh"). An act of "substitution" was, in ancient Assyria and Babylonia, one of the chief rites of preservation and deliverance. When, for instance, a person was deathly ill, it was customary to put a small goat, dressed in his clothing, in bed with him. The goat was then slaughtered and funeral rites held, with the name of the man applied to the dead animal. Letters from the era of Esarhaddon (681-669 B.C.) attest to the appointment of a puh sarri or sar puhi ("substitute for the king") when it appeared that the king was in danger of dying. A
more ancient example comes from Akkad, during the reign of Irra-imittiof Isin (ca. 2000 B.C.). This text relates how the king set his gardener
on his throne and placed a crown upon his head. The "substitution" did not work, however, and the king died. The gardener, being on the throne, remained as king.

I thought I read one guy saying that there was like a king humiliation day in Judah where the High Priest boxed the king's ears etc, but now I can't find it.

http://www.jbq.jewishbible.org/assets/U ... vision.pdf

Maller has ans agenda but -

WHO IS GOD'S SERVANT?
In Jewish thought the prophet Isaiah (52:13-53:12) provides the strongest evidence for the claim that the suffering yet redemptive servant is Israel, the
Jewish People. Several verses in prior chapters of Isaiah specifically state that Israel/Jacob is God's servant.
You Israel are My servant, Jacob whom I have chosen (41:8).
Hear Me now, Jacob My servant; hear Me, Israel My chosen
(44:1).
Have no fear, Jacob My servant: Jeshurun whom I have
chosen (44:2).
Remember all this, Jacob, remember Israel, for you are My servant
(44:21).
These verses make it clear that Israel/Jacob is God's chosen servant. The national community is spoken of in terms of an individual, as is often the case
in the Bible (see Jer. 30:10). However, many rabbis did identify Isaiah's messianic figure as a person, usually as a Messiah, a descendant of David, from the tribe of Judah. Other rabbis had other interpretations. Sa'adyah Ga'on glosses the figure as referring to the Prophet Jeremiah. Isaac Abarbanel rejects that and thinks the suffering servant is Josiah, King of Israel. I think this individual is a messianic figure called by the rabbis mashiah ben Yosef (Messiah, son of Joseph), that is, from one of the northern tribes, who precedes David's son, and is killed in battle by the enemies of Israel. If we keep in mind both the mashiah ben Yosef as well as the role of Israel/Jacob as God's chosen servant, we will understand Isaiah's suffering servant prophecy

[andrewcriddle]

I thought I read one guy saying that there was like a king humiliation day in Judah where the High Priest boxed the king's ears etc, but now I can't find it.

There was a yearly ritual humiliation of the king of Babylon.
Some scholars have suggested that there was something similar in Judah but the evidence IMO is flimsy.

Andrew Criddle

[neilgodfrey]

I probably shouldn't have posted that link but, in fact, that is the prevailing Rabbinic opinion. Therefore the "popular apologetics" comment is a little out of line.

Thanks for the info. Much of it was late rabbinic evidence -- it may well derive from pre-Christian times but I'd still like to understand the Second Temple texts themselves far more.

I must confess I find Jewish rabbis can be as "populist apologetic" as any Christian or Muslim cleric.

[rakovsky]

Does anyone here know where I can locate studies that argue what/who might have been the contemporary reference for Isaiah's Servant as an individual?

Neil,
Try
The Suffering Servant: Isaiah 53 in Jewish and Christian Sources
edited by Bernd Janowski, Peter Stuhlmacher

This book talks about how the rabbis' Targum of Isaiah mentions the Messiah as a candidate.


Click here for passages where it talks about the image of David and the Messiah in Isaiah.

https://books.google.com/books?id=kSawg ... ah&f=false

Most discussions I can find acknowledge the Servant is alternately depicted as a collective (Israel) and as an individual person. What I would like to understand is who was in the author's mind if indeed he did sometimes speak of a single person as the Servant.

In the Tanakh and in Isaiah in particular, David was seen as a poetic archetype of the Messiah, so sometimes when it talks about David, it actually means the Messiah. Besides that, Isaiah refers to David as God's servant, just like the Servant in Isaiah is called.

In Isaiah 37:35, God says He will save Jerusalem "for the sake of My servant David." "David" is a name used again for someone whom Isaiah 55:3-4 describes as a future Messiah: "I will make for you an everlasting covenant, the dependable mercies of David. Behold, a witness to nations have I appointed him, a ruler and a commander of nations."
Also in Isaiah 11, Isaiah speaks of the Messiah as a root from the stump of David's father Jesse.
So referring to a future servant can be a reference to David, and actually to the Messiah using David as a poetic reference.