Suffering Servant

Text and Content

The term "Suffering Servant" refers to the figure described in the poems about the "Servant of the Lord" in Isaiah 40–55, particularly the servant who suffers on behalf of others. In the late nineteenth century, the German Old Testament scholar Bernhard Duhm grouped the following four passages together as the "Servant Songs," and this division has since come into wide use. Scholars differ slightly on the verse at which each passage ends.

• Isaiah 42:1–9: The servant whom God upholds brings forth justice to the Gentiles.
• Isaiah 49:1–6: The servant, called from the womb, becomes "a light to the Gentiles."
• Isaiah 50:4–9: The servant does not shrink from beatings and insults but endures them.
• Isaiah 52:13–53:12: The despised and pierced servant suffers and is put to death for "our transgressions," and is afterward exalted.

Background

The Hebrew word ebed, translated "servant," can refer to a slave, a royal official, or a person in God's service. In the Old Testament, Moses and David are also called "the servant of the Lord." Isaiah 40–55 is set during the period when the people of Judah had been carried away into the Babylonian exile, and it proclaims comfort and return. Two views of the authorship of this section exist side by side: the traditional view that the prophet Isaiah wrote it in advance, and the historical-critical view that another prophet of the exilic period wrote it ("Second Isaiah" or "Deutero-Isaiah").

Continuation in the New Testament

The New Testament reads this servant in connection with Jesus Christ.

• When the Ethiopian eunuch was reading Isaiah 53:7–8, Philip the evangelist began at this scripture and preached Jesus to him (Acts 8:32–35).
• The Gospel of Matthew presents Jesus' healings as the fulfillment of Isaiah 53:4 (Matthew 8:16–17). In addition, Matthew 12:18–21 quotes Isaiah 42:1–4, and Luke 22:37 quotes Isaiah 53:12.
• 1 Peter 2:24 borrows the language of chapter 53 to explain that Christ bore our sins in our place.

Interpretation and Debates

• Who is the servant? Isaiah 49:3 calls the servant "Israel." Jewish tradition generally reads the servant as the suffering people of Israel. Other theories identify the servant as the prophet himself or as a specific figure of his time. Christianity regards the text as a messianic prophecy fulfilled in Jesus. Conservative evangelicals read it as direct prediction, whereas some scholars hold that the text's primary meaning lay in its original historical setting and that the New Testament reread it as fulfilled in Christ.
• Substitutionary atonement: Chapter 53 is a key text in Protestant explanations of the atonement. It is cited especially often in support of the view that Christ bore in their place the punishment due to sinners.
• Healing: Pentecostal traditions cite "with his stripes we are healed" (Isaiah 53:5) as one of the grounds for divine healing of bodily illness. Others, pointing to the context of 1 Peter 2:24, hold that the verse emphasizes restoration from sin.
• Popular embellishments: On the basis of "he hath no form nor comeliness" (53:2), some claim that Jesus was unattractive in appearance. However, this verse is not a record of physical appearance but a poetic depiction of the servant's despised condition.

In the Korean Church

Isaiah 53 is frequently read and preached during Lent and Holy Week, especially at Good Friday services. The text also supplies lyrics for Part Two of Handel's oratorio Messiah, which church choirs perform.