Who Was the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53?

June 28, 2025

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

 AMERICAN OLIGARCHY

How the Billionaires Took Over
Yes, Donald Trump is a threat to democracy. But the far bigger menace is the monstrous growth in wealth concentration over five decades that made a Trump presidency possible—and maybe inevitable. Here’s how we let it happen.

Timothy Noah/June 19, 2025
The New Republic


Donald Trump is America’s first billionaire president. He entered the White House in 2017 with a net worth of $3.7 billion, according to Forbes, and in 2025 with a net worth of $5.2 billion. Trump’s habitat, unlike yours or mine, is crowded with billionaires. His primary residence outside the White House is in Palm Beach, home to 68 billionaires, including the financiers Stephen Schwarzman and Ken Griffin, who—just those two—spent a combined $144.2 million to elect Trump and other Republicans in 2024.

For his second term, Trump brought eight fellow billionaires into his administration, including “special government employee” Elon Musk, who is the richest person in the world (net worth as of May 28: $431 billion); Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick ($3 billion); Education Secretary Linda McMahon ($3 billion); Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg ($5 billion); Ambassador-at-Large Steve Witkoff ($2 billion); and Small Business Administration Administrator Kelly Loeffler ($1 billion). Jared Isaacman ($2 billion) was nominated for NASA administrator but later withdrawn. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is often described in news accounts as a billionaire, but his declared net worth is only about half a billion, and Bessent’s name does not appear on billionaire lists compiled and updated meticulously by Forbes and Bloomberg.

Add in two billionaire ambassadors, Arkansas banker Warren Stephens (U.K.) and Texas restaurant and casino tycoon Tilman Fertitta (Italy), and the combined wealth of the Trump Nine approaches $460 billion. Trump talks about buying Greenland from Denmark, but if the billionaires in Trump’s administration pooled their resources, they’d have enough to buy Denmark itself (GDP $450 billion). Neither Greenland nor Denmark is for sale, of course, because countries aren’t bought and sold. But it’s characteristic for billionaires to presume that everything is for sale. Including, now, the government of the United States. Which sort of is.

In his farewell address, President Joe Biden warned that “an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power, and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms, and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead.” Biden was talking about his successor, Trump, and he was right. No previous president brought in anywhere near so many billionaires as Trump—not even Trump himself during his first term.

 For sure I lead a jejune life, but what do you expect from a man of my shirt size and limited life experiences? I get off a good witty remark now and then ("That's easy for YOU to say"), make clever observations now and then---my favorite is "Would you look at THAT!"---I play a decent dummy hand in Bridge, and I still eat Grape Nut Flakes for breakfast every morning to stay regular. I keep my finger nails clipped and I only brag so that people can be made aware of my many accomplishments. Mostly I just enjoy my talent for vegetating.

 The End of Publishing as We Know It

Inside Silicon Valley’s assault on the media

By Alex Reisner

We are living in the time of the end of publishing as we have known it and for sure the end of reading as we are being forced by technology into the same intellectual boxes. This is why some of us choose to live in our own creative world as long as we are here. Indeed, the medium is the message now more than ever and probably forever now.

 Asked to name one weak, pitiful, empty human being, only one comes to mind.

 

Shared with Your friendTECHNOLOGY

The End of Publishing as We Know It

Inside Silicon Valley’s assault on the media

By Alex Reisner

We are living in the time of the end of publishing as we have known it and for sure the end of reading as we are being forced by technology into the same intellectual boxes. This is why some of us choose to live in our own creative world as long as we are here. Indeed, the medium is the message now more than ever and probably forever now.

  (12 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

My Least Favorite Passage of the Pastorals: Those Silent and Submissive Women….

June 22, 2025

I’d like to conclude this thread on the Pastoral epistles by discussing at greater length the one passage that I think has done more damage than nearly any other.  It involves women in the church.  The story of women in the entire Bible is long and complex, but it starts in the beginning (Genesis 1-2) and continues all the way through.  The traditional Christian views ultimately derive from the New Testament.

In an earlier set of posts I explained why women were actually prominent, important, and authoritative leaders of the Christian church in its earliest days – they were unusually present and active in the Jesus movement while he was living, as well as in the earliest churches we know about, those connected with Paul (who has received a rather unfair rap as one of the world’s great misogynists).

But it was not long before men took over the movement and suppressed women’s voices and roles.  We are obviously  still living with that today, in a world where the largest Christian body, the Catholic Church, still will not allow women to serve as priests (let alone higher-ups above priests), and the fastest growing churches in developing countries (very conservative by most American and European standards) look askance at women in leadership roles.  They are to be subservient.

But why?  Because, ultimately, the Bible says so.  Really?  Where? 

The passage most frequently appealed to is in 1 Timothy, which is consistently patriarchal in its injunctions.  Timothy is instructed to appoint male leaders (bishops, elders, and deacons), all of whom were to have been married (e.g., 1 Tim 3:2-5, 12) and who were to keep their households, including, of course, their wives, in submission (1 Tim 2:4).  They were to speak out against those who forbade marriage and who urged the ascetic life (1 Tim 4:3; women, of course, who were unmarried were not controlled by a husband).  They were to silence the women in their churches; women were not to be allowed to tell old wives’ tales and especially not to teach in their congregations (1 Tim 4:7).  They were to be silent and submissive and sexually active with their spouses; those who wanted to enjoy the benefits of salvation were to produce babies (1 Tim 2:11-13).

Really?  Yeah, I’m afraid so.  I often get asked if there were one book in the New Testament that I, deep down, would rather hadn’t made it in, I usually say 1 Timothy.  Here is the passage in question (from the translation of the NRSV):

1 Timothy 2:8-15

I desire, then, that in every place the men should pray, lifting up holy hands without anger or argument; also that the women should dress themselves modestly and decently in suitable clothing, not with their hair braided, or with gold, pearls, or expensive clothes, but with good works, as is proper for women who profess reverence for God. 

Let a woman learn in silence with full submission. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. 

Yet she will be saved through childbearing, provided they continue in faith and love and holiness, with modesty.

The point to stress in connection with my post of yesterday is that the submission of women is based ultimately on the story of the creation of Adam and Eve and the unfortunate little incident involving Eve’s disobedience and temptation of her husband into disobedience, leading to the permanent expulsion of the human race from paradise.

The passage I’ve quoted starts out (first paragraph) by giving women a dress code.  You will notice that there is no dress code for the men.  Women are not to make themselves beautiful or wear particularly nice clothes.  They are instead to adorn themselves with good works.  No need to tell the men that, apparently.  And why shouldn’t women make themselves attractive?  Anyone who knows ancient biblical and other kinds of ethical literature (and the rules of some other cultures today) has no trouble answering:  women should not be publicly attractive because they might seduce men into committing sexual impropriety.  Women have to be controlled because they are dangerous to men.

Moreover, women are to be silent.  This probably means in church, but maybe it means simply that, even in other contexts, they should speak only when spoken to?  In any event, women cannot teach men or exercise authority over them.  And why?  Because it is written into creation itself.  Back to Genesis 2.  Women were second and so secondary, and they were made for men and so should help not lead them.

And what happens when women do to try to lead men?  They get tempted by the Devil, they can’t resist, and they lead the man astray – causing enormous disaster.   That’s how women are.  The first woman proved it.  It was ruinous for the man.  And so women cannot exercise any authority over men.  It will result in catastrophe.  Proven by the Bible itself.

But the good news is that even women can be saved.  If they have babies, they’ll be fine.  So long as they are modest and loving.  Otherwise, all bets are off.

There are feminist scholars who try to salvage the Bible from patriarchy and I completely agree that it should be, as much as possible.  But there are some passages that, at the end of the day, strike me as unsalvageable.  This is one of them.  We live in different times today.  Most of us think the Adam and Eve story is a myth.  In many ways it’s a beautiful myth.  But it also does have sinister implications – at least as read in the way the author of 1 Timothy read it.

We today understand genders differently from the way people did in the ancient world.  We know far, far, more about biology, sex, gender, and sexuality, not to mention human psychology, anthropology, and sociology.  Using ancient guidelines for ethical conduct, when these are based on premises that no thinking person today accepts, is kind of like following ancient medical texts to perform surgery.  It’s a very bad idea….

-Bart Ehrman

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