Who’s Who and What’s What in Isaiah 53 -- By: Gordon D. Kirchhevel

Journal: Bulletin for Biblical Research
Volume: BBR 13:1 (NA 2003)
Article: Who’s Who and What’s What in Isaiah 53
Author: Gordon D. Kirchhevel


Who’s Who and What’s What in Isaiah 53

Gordon D. Kirchhevel

Chicago, Illinois

The despised servant of the Lord in Isa 53:3 was the despised “slave of rulers” in 49:7, who was identified as “Israel” in 49:3. The Lord promised to liberate his people from these rulers (52:3-5). The rulers included “the magnates” mentioned in 53:11b and 12a and the king of the unnamed Mesopotamian “people” mentioned in v. 8. That king spoke (53:1-11a) “to the magnates” v. 11b). The slave was unjustly beaten (50:6-9), oppressed (53:7a), and exploited (v. 7b). The king wanted payment to release the slave to work for the Lord (v. 10), but the Lord, who had already said that the rulers would get nothing (52:3), declared that the “innocent” slave should get a share with the magnates and potentates “under whom he exhausted himself to death” (53:11b-12b).

Key Words: servant, slave, rulers, great ones, magnates, ransom, acquit, innocent, profit, suffer

There is no reason to doubt that the Lord was portrayed as speaking in Isa 52:13-15 and 53:11b-12. Who was portrayed as speaking in 53:1-11a, and to whom was he speaking, and about whom was he speaking? The answers can be found by considering questions in a sequence in which each question builds on answers to previous questions.1

Who was the servant of the Lord mentioned in Isa 52:13 and 53:11? The words “he exhausted himself to death” (הערה למות נפשו) in 53:12 recall the servant’s complaint in 49:3-4a (nrsv):

And he said to me, “You are my servant,

Israel, in whom I will be glorified.”

But I said, “I have labored in vain,

I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity.”

Verse 7 calls the servant of the Lord “the slave of rulers” (nrsv), and under those “rulers” (משלים) the “slave” did not benefit from laboring and spending his strength. “My servant” was identified in v. 3 as “Israel,” whose restoration from “hard service” was predicted already in 14:1-4a. The noun “servant” in 49:3, 5, and 6 and the noun “slave” in v. 7 are the...

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