CHILD’S COMMENTARY
Especially is this true for chapter 53, which provides a continuation of a lengthy prophetic narrative extending from chapters 40—55 and climaxing in the sequence that follows in chapters 49ff. God intervenes to end the exile and to usher in his eschatological reign.
The passage both begins and ends with reference to “my servant.”
The structure of the unit is also remarkably clear in dividing into three sections:
[52:13–15] The oracle of God begins with an elevated presentation: “Behold, my servant . . .” The parallel is immediately evident with the servant song of 42:1 in which the servant is introduced with the mission to bring mis=pa\t≥ (“justice”) to the nations. However, this intertextual reference to 42:1 has been decisively affected by the subsequent call in 49:1ff., which transferred the office of the servant from the nation Israel to the individual prophetic figure of 49:3: “And he said to me, ‘You are (now) my servant, you are Israel, in whom I will be glorified.’” Then in 50:4ff., following the sequence of the prophetic narrative, the reception of his call as God’s servant is related as he is tortured and humiliated by his oppressors, who are not from outside, but from within the nation of Israel itself. It is highly significant that the divine oracle in 52:13 begins, not with the servant’s humiliation, but with his exaltation, a theme that returns to climax the second divine speech concerning the servant in 53:11ff. His exaltation in 52:13, “[he] shall prosper, be exalted,” also forms the initial perspective from which the voice of the “we” speaks. This group confesses finally to have understood his true role in their salvation. To the sense of prospering there is also included in the Hebrew verb (s=ql) the connotation of insight, wisdom, and true knowledge. The divine word next describes the astonishment and confusion that the figure of the servant evokes. The broken style of the confession, which begins in the first colon of v. 14 and is completed in v. 15, has caused many commentators to reassign v. 14b to another position within the oracle (cf. BHS). Yet there is no textual evidence to support this reordering of the sentence, and the striking effect of the sudden shift to the servant’s humiliation—“so marred was his appearance, unlike that of man,” is lost by such an alteration. Such stylistic breaks are found elsewhere in the prophetic literature (e.g., Isa. 31:4; 55:10; Zech. 8:14, etc.). Verse 14b therefore anticipates the response of the confession “we,” but the note of disfigurement is first sounded in the divine oracle. The full force falls on the astonishment and shock of many of the nations, whose kings shut their mouths in confused silence. The Hebrew verb in v. 15 (yazzeh) has as its primary meaning “to sprinkle,” but there are several reasons that have caused most commentators to prefer a broader, secondary sense of the root (cf. W. Gesenius, Commentar über den Jesaia 2:174ff.). First, the Greek reads “surprise,” which BHS conjectures— probably wrongly—to reflect a different Hebrew root from the MT. More likely, the issue is one of semantic range rather than a textual variant. Second, the verb nzh (hiphil) never designates the person or thing sprinkled, but the blood being applied. In English the sense is expressed in the archaic distinction between sprinkling a liquid, and besprinkling a person. Third, it is an exegetical misconstrual in seeking to heighten the cultic context of the passage that never actually surfaces to the foreground.
The difficult exegetical problem turns on determining the persons referred to in these verses. The “many” in v. 14 who were astonished join smoothly with the subject of v. 15a: “So will he startle many nations.” In the Psalter the reference to the “many” usually refers to the advisories or bystanders who observe the suffering petitioner (Ps. 3:1–2; 4:7; 31:14; etc; cf. Beuken, 202). Melugin (167) argues that the antecedent in v. 15b is a continuation of v. 15a, namely, the nations and kings: “what has not been told them [the nations] they will see and that which they have not heard they will understand.” Because v. 15 then joins closely to 53:1, the effect of this interpretation is naturally to assign the voice of the confessing “we” in chapter 53 to that of the nations. In my judgment, this interpretation carries with it major difficulty (cf. below).
Rather, as Beuken has convincingly shown (II/B, 203ff.), a different subject has been introduced in v. 15b. The issue at stake is not the astonishment evoked in the nations, but rather in their seeing and understanding. They key to this interpretation is found in the intertextual reference to 48:6ff. Israel is challenged to see and to hear the new things God is about to reveal. “Before today you have not heard of them” (v. 7). The people’s ear has been closed. Now suddenly in 52:15b, a group, different from the nations, is promised by God both to see and understand: “what they were not told, they will see, and what they have not heard, they will understand.” The reference is to a group within Israel to which has been revealed the “new things,” hitherto hidden. What then follows in 53:1ff. is the confession of that group, who suddenly is made to understand the will of God through their experience with his suffering servant.
[53:1–11a] The connection between the new unit and the preceding divine speech is skillfully made with a chiastic device. The metaphor of seeing (52:15b and 53:1b) brackets that of hearing (v. 15b and 53:1a) and confirms the continuity between the group of Israel in v. 15b and the confessing voice of 53:1ff. In addition, from a form-critical perspective, the confessing “we” of the Old Testament is always Israel and not the nations (Hos. 6:1ff.; Jer. 3:21ff.; Dan. 9:4ff., etc.) Finally, reference to the nations and the “many” only returns in the second divine speech when they also are brought into the purpose of God for all his creation, which has been accomplished in the mission of the suffering servant (53:12).
[1] The confession of Israel begins in v. 1 with a question: from the outset, those within Israel who confess understand that their new knowledge came from divine revelation, that is, derived from the arm of Yahweh. The sense of the question is not simply rhetorical, but serves to identify among them those who now also believe what they have seen and heard from God’s disclosure. The note had already been sounded in 50:10–11 that the response to the servant would divide the people of Israel into two groups, those who believe and those who oppose.
[2–3] The actual narrative of the servant’s humiliation begins in v. 2. The description is clearly retrospective in nature, and looks back on an experience in the past that continues to evoke painful reflection. The figure who is portrayed appears in every way to have been a historical personage. The language cannot be rendered metaphorically as the nation without straining the plain sense of the text in a tortuous fashion. The figure remains anonymous, and is identified throughout simply with the pronoun “he.” However, the description is not merely biographical. Certainly it does contain some biographical elements. He grew up unobtrusively from nowhere, isolated, and without a known lineage. He possessed nothing in his physical appearance that would attract others or even evoke attention. Verse 3b speaks even of his being afflicted with sickness or disease.
However, almost immediately one senses that the chief interest of the narrative is not biographical; rather, the concrete features that encompass the ensuing description focus largely on the response of others to him. He was despised and shunned by all and called forth such [2–3]
KEY
Finally, reference to the nations and the “many” only returns in the second divine speech when they also are brought into the purpose of God for all his creation, which has been accomplished in the mission of the suffering servant (53:12).
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KEY
Rather, as Beuken has convincingly shown (II/B, 203ff.), a different subject has been introduced in v. 15b. The issue at stake is not the astonishment evoked in the nations, but rather in their seeing and understanding. They key to this interpretation is found in the intertextual reference to 48:6ff. Israel is challenged to see and to hear the new things God is about to reveal. “Before today you have not heard of them” (v. 7). The people’s ear has been closed. Now suddenly in 52:15b, a group, different from the nations, is promised by God both to see and understand: “what they were not told, they will see, and what they have not heard, they will understand.” The reference is to a group within Israel to which has been revealed the “new things,” hitherto hidden. What then follows in 53:1ff. is the confession of that group, who suddenly is made to understand the will of God through their experience with his suffering servant.
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