Isaiah 52:1-15

This section is not so argumentative in tone as the last. Its distinguishing feature is the development of the prophet's teaching concerning the Servant of Jehovah. The conception seems to arise, as has been noted, with the nation considered collectively as a Servant of God (Isaiah 41:8-9; Isaiah 44:1-2, Isaiah 44:21; Isa 45:4). So long as the attitude and work of God in relation to the nation are solely in view, there is no limitation of the idea; but when the nation's work and attitude to Him and the fulfilment of His purposes come to be considered, the Servant of God seems to take on a narrower sense. The actual Israel, with its many shortcomings—its blindness to the truth, its deafness to God's message—gives way to those more select souls—a part only of the people—through whom the duties and destiny of the nation will be fulfilled. At the same time, it is clear that the idea passes on to an individual distinct from the nation (Isa 49:5-6), in whom are concentrated all the attributes of the ideal nation, and who shall realise all that Israel was intended to be. His character and office are thus delineated: (a) He is prepared by Jehovah from the womb for His lifework (Isa 49:1-2); (b) He is endowed with the Divine Spirit (Isa 42:1); (c) He is not ostentatious or unduly severe (Isa 42:2-3); (d) He is to be the embodiment of a New Covenant between Jehovah and His people (Isaiah 42:6; Isa 49:8); (e) and to teach all nations true religion (Isaiah 42:1, Isaiah 42:6; Isa 49:6); (f) but most remarkable of all, and especially characteristic of this division of the book, are the passages which intimate that this great work is only to be accomplished through humiliation, suffering, and death, issuing in a new and glorious life. The first hint that the Servant's work is to be carried on in face of difficulty and discouragement is found in Isaiah 42:4. His exposure to insult and contumely in the exercise of His mission is expressly indicated in Isa 50:6 then follows (Isaiah 52:13; Isaiah 53:0) a section entirely devoted to the subject, in which the prominent features are the Servant's gentleness and patience under affliction, the vicarious nature of His sufferings, which are not endured on His own account, but for the sins of His people, and the intimation that after pain and death there awaits Him new life full of joy in the contemplation of the success of His work. The correspondence, even in detail, with the Passion of Jesus Christ cannot fail to arrest attention. The way in which the Servant is despised and misunderstood by His contemporaries (Isa 53:3), His patience and silence before His accusers (Isa 53:7), and His association with malefactors in His death (Isa 53:9): these read like a description of what happened in the case of our Lord. How far the prophet understood the meaning of his own words it is difficult to say. No doubt he was thinking at the outset of the faithful core of Israel as being Jehovah's Servant with a great mission to accomplish, and the experience of the exile showed him that this great work for the whole world was only to be wrought through contumely and suffering; yet Jehovah sometimes spake 'with a strong hand' (Eze 3:14), and we can scarcely doubt that the Divine Spirit in these wonderful passages through the prophet foreshadowed the things that should be suffered and accomplished by the perfect Servant of God, the embodiment of Israel's splendid ideal, our Lord Jesus Christ.