Here is another post on the Hebrew Bible from the blog in 2012, written while I was working on the first edition of my Bible Introduction.  It is an excerpt from my first rough draft of a discussion of an unusually important passage in the book of Isaiah.

Brief context: at this point I was  discussing Second Isaiah (Isaiah 40-55), almost universally thought by scholars to be written by a different author from chapters 1-39 (themselves written by Isaiah of Jerusalem in the 8th c. BCE). Second Isaiah was writing after the destruction of Judah and Jerusalem (including the temple) in 586 BCE, while the leaders of the people and many of the elite had been taken into exile in Babylon, in what is known as the Babylonian Captivity. 

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No passage of Second Isaiah has intrigued readers and interpreters – especially among Christians – more than the four passages that are dedicated to describing a figure known as the “Suffering Servant.” Some scholars have called these passages “songs,” or “songs of the suffering servant.” The passages are Isa. 42:1-4; 49:1-6; 50:4-11; 52:13-53:12. It is not known whether the author of 2 Isaiah has inherited these passages from an earlier tradition that he has incorporated into his book or if they are his own creation.

In these passages, the Servant of Yahweh is said to have suffered horribly for the sake of others; but God will vindicate him.  He, in fact, is the delight of Yahweh and will be used by him to accomplish his will on earth:  “I have put my spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations … He will not grow faint or be crushed until he has established justice in the earth (Isa 42:1, 6).

The author believes that this unnamed servant “shall prosper; he shall be exalted and lifted up” (Isa 52:13).  But the most important, impressive, and well-known comments involve his horrible sufferings for the sake of others.   The reason this has been of such importance to Christian interpreters is that since the times of the New Testament, Christian readers have thought that Isaiah was describing the crucifixion of Jesus for the sins of the world.

He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity; and as one from whom others hide their faces he was despised and we held him of no account.  Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted.  But he was wounded for our trasngressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed.  All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way, and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. (Isa 53:3-6)

The author goes on to say that he was silent before his oppressors; that he was cut off from the land of the living; that he made his tomb with the rich, and that it was “the will of the LORD to crush him with pain.”  Doesn’t this sound exactly like Jesus?  Isn’t this a prophecy about what would happen to the messiah?

In response to that common Christian interpretation, several points are important to make:

  1. It is to be remembered that the prophets of the Hebrew Bible are not predicting things that are to happen hundreds of years in advance; they are speaking to their own contexts and delivering a message for their own people to hear, about their own immediate futures;
  2. In this case, the author is not predicting that someone will suffer in the future for other people’s sins at all.  Many readers fail to consider the verb tenses in these passages.  They do not indicate that someone willcome along at a later time and suffer in the future.  They are talking about past suffering.  The Servant has already  suffered – although he “will be” vindicated.  And so this not about a future suffering messiah.
  3. In fact, it is not about the messiah at all.  This is a point frequently overlooked in discussions of the passage.  If you will look, you will notice that the term messiah never occurs in the passage.  This is not predicting what the messiah will be.
  4. If the passage is not referring to the messiah, and is not referring to someone in the future who is going to suffer – who is it talking about?  Here there really should be very little ambiguity.  As I mentioned, this particular passage – Isaiah 53 – is one of four servant songs of Second Isaiah.  And so the question is, who does Second Isaiah himself indicate that the servant is?  A careful reading of the passages makes the identification quite clear: “But now hear, O Jacob my servant, Israel whom I have chosen” (Isa 44:1); “Remember these things, O Jacob, and Israel, for you are my servant” (Isa 44:21); “And he said to me, ‘You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified” (Isa 49:3).

The book of Second Isaiah itself indicates who the Servant of the Lord is.  It is Israel, God’s people.  In Isaiah 53, when the author describes the servant’s past sufferings, he is talking about the sufferings they have experienced by being destroyed by the Babylonians.  This is a suffering that has come about because of sins.  But the suffering will be vindicated, because God will now restore Israel and bring them back to the land and enter into a new relationship with them.

It may be fairly objected that the Servant is said to suffer for “our” sins, not “his” sins.  Scholars have resolved that problem in a number of ways.  It may be that the author is thinking that the portion of the people taken into exile have suffered for the sins of those in the land – some of them suffering for the sins of all.   Those who have been taken into captivity have suffered displacement, loss, and exile for the sake of everyone else.   But now the servant – Israel – will be exalted and restored to a close relationship with God – and be used by him to bring about justice throughout the earth.

There may be problems with this interpretation – as there always are with every interpretation! – but the facts remain that the suffering servant is never described as the messiah, his suffering is portrayed as past instead of future, and he is explicitly identified on several occasions as “Israel.”

-Bart Ehrman