The New Testament’s Use of the Old Testament [Part 2 in the Series]: Isaiah 53 and the Suffering Servant (Part 1 on Isaiah 53)

🔊 Listen to Post Perhaps one of the most well-known, and I would argue most misunderstood, Old Testament prophecy quoted in the gospels is Isaiah 53, or more properly Isaiah 52:13-53:12. It is quoted numerous times throughout the New Testament: Matthew 8:17 (the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law); Luke 22:37 (in Jesus’ instructions to his disciples); John 12:37-38 (in John’s explanation as to why the Jews did not believe Jesus); Acts 8:26-35 (the scripture that the Ethiopian eunuch is reading, and which Phillip uses to tell him about Jesus); Romans 10:16 (in the middle of a list of Old Testament quotations Paul uses to explain why his fellow Jews have rejected Jesus), and  1 Peter 2:22-25 (when Peter tells slaves who suffer unjustly that their suffering is likened to that of Christ’s).

For our purposes, the key passage of all those is Acts 8:26-35. It is the one people point to most of all to show that the Suffering Servant in Isaiah 53 is a prediction of Jesus’ suffering on the cross and how through that suffering and death he was able to bring salvation to the world. After all, in Acts 8:26-35, the Ethiopian eunuch is reading Isaiah 53, he asks Philip who it is about, and Philip tells him it is telling ahead of time the kind of death Jesus was to die.

…only Philip doesn’t tell him that. Acts 8:34 says that Philip started with that passage and proceeded to tell the eunuch about the Gospel of Christ. The fact is, we tend to read into certain passages things that aren’t there. And so, we are left with the certainty that the early believers used Isaiah 53 in their proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus, but we cannot be so certain as to the how they used it.

Well, needless to say, I have an idea as to how…that is what this post is going to be about. Here is my thesis: In its original, historical and literary contexts, the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53 is the redeemed and refined remnant of God’s people who have come out of the Babylonian Exile. The New Testament writers have then applied Isaiah 53 to Jesus to show that his suffering and death is a like the exile/return from exile of the Jews…but bigger! Now, let’s tease all that out.

The Original Context of Isaiah 53 and the Identity of the Servant of YHWH
The Servant Song of Isaiah 53 has to be seen within the literary context of Isaiah 40-55, a section that scholars call Deutero-Isaiah. This section of Isaiah is set within the historical context of the return from the Babylonian Exile. Isaiah 40 begins with a “voice crying out in the wilderness,” and that voice is telling the exiles that God has forgiven them of their sins, that He will bring them back to their land, and that He will fully restore them. Historically speaking, the Jews came out of the exile in 539 BC, when Cyrus of Persia announced that formerly exiled peoples were free to return to their homelands. Therefore, we can date Isaiah 40-55 to that time period: it is all about coming out of the Babylonian Exile.

Now, within Isaiah 40-55, there are a number of passages that deal with the Servant of YHWH. For the better part of a century, scholars have highlighted four specific “Servant Songs” (42:1-4; 49:1-6; 50:4-7; and 52:13-53:12) and have long-debated the identity of this mysterious Servant of YHWH. Most Christians will read these passages and will say, “Obviously, they are about Jesus—they are predictions of Jesus.” Some scholars argue this very thing, while others argue that the Servant is Israel itself, or perhaps the remnant of Israel, or perhaps the prophet. The reason there is so much debate is because in those four passages, the Servant simply isn’t identified.

The thing is, though, there are numerous other passages in Isaiah 40-55 where the Servant is clearly identified. And a basic common sense rule of reading anything, much less the Bible, is that if something is unclear in one passage, one should immediately look around at the surrounding context to see if there are clues that help clarify and illuminate what one might find unclear. And when we look at the larger context of Isaiah 40-55, what do we find? No less than eight or more references to the Servant outside of those four “Servant Songs” in which the Servant is clearly identified with Israel (41:8-9; 42:19; 43:10; 44:1-2; 44:21; 45:4; 48:20; and 50:10).

So, the question is simple: “If there are more than eight times in Isaiah 40-55 in which the Servant of YHWH is clearly identified with Israel, who do you think the Servant of YHWH is in the four “Servant Songs?” For that matter, is it even right to isolate these four “Servant Songs” in the first place? Take in the full context of Isaiah 40-55, it is pretty clear who the Servant is. If I write a story about “my brother Jim,” and mention “my brother Jim” eight times within five pages, but in four instances just say, “my brother,” is anyone in their right mind going to say, “Hey, who is Joel’s brother in those four instances where he doesn’t say, ‘my brother Jim’?” Of course not, because we all know how to read. Why that same common sense isn’t applied here simply boggles my mind.

Teasing Out the Servant of YHWH
Of course, there is a bit more to tease out if we are to make sense of what Isaiah 53 is specifically talking about, let alone how it applies to Jesus. In order to understand this notion of Israel as the Servant of YHWH, we have to understand the purpose of God choosing Israel as His people. Here is the entire Old Testament plan in a nutshell: When YHWH made His covenant with Abraham, He promised that from Abraham would come a great nation (that would be Israel) and that through that nation, all nations would be blessed. The plan was that God would redeem His creation and bring blessing to all nations through Israel.

Of course, as is clear to anyone who has read the Old Testament, Old Testament Israel proved itself to be largely a failure. It was just as idolatrous, sinful, and oppressive to its own people as any other nation. It most certainly was not a “light to the nations.” And so, since they routinely broke the covenant, they made with YHWH at Mount Sinai, they eventually suffered the consequences of breaking that covenant, namely exile from the land. When the Babylonian Exile happened, they were dead as a nation.

But what we find in the prophets (like Isaiah) is the prophetic promise that after that death of the nation, God would restore His people in some way: there would be a return from exile and a resurrection of the nation. And in light of that, the exile came to be seen as the way by which God would purify His people of their idolatry. If you read through Isaiah 40-55, you see that Israel, as the Servant of YHWH, is called blind and deaf and wayward, on one hand, but then redeemed and purified as well. The overall thrust of Isaiah 40-55, therefore, is that as the Servant of YHWH, Israel had majorly screwed up and therefore suffered exiled. But through the exile, Israel would be purified and redeemed, and that through that, they would somehow become that faithful Servant of YHWH who would not only redeem the unfaithful among Israel but would also be that light to the nations YHWH intended all along.

That is why, I submit, the Servant of YHWH in Isaiah 53 is seen as Israel coming out of the exile. That is what Isaiah 53 is about and reading through this lens makes perfect sense. And that is what we are going to do in tomorrow’s post.