Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 139:556 (Oct 1982)
Article: Isaiah’s Songs of the Servant Part 4: The Career of the Servant in Isaiah 52:13-53:12
Author: F. Duane Lindsey

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BSac 139:556 (Oct 82) p. 312

Isaiah’s Songs of the Servant
Part 4:
The Career of the Servant in Isaiah 52:13-53:12

F. Duane Lindsey

[F. Duane Lindsey, Registrar and Assistant Professor of Systematic Theology, Dallas Theological Seminary]

[Editor’s Note: An exposition of the remaining portion (Isa 53:4–12) of this Servant song will appear in the January-March 1983 issue.]

The fourth Servant song (Isa 52:13–53:12) “may without any exaggeration be called the most important text of the Old Testament.”1 This is confirmed first by its numerous citations in the New Testament (e.g., Luke 22:37; Acts 8:30–35; 1 Pet 2:22–25),2 and second by the voluminous Jewish and Christian literature which has been based on this prophecy down through the centuries.3

The messianic significance of the song is the basis of the New Testament quotations and accounts in large part for the extensive debate that surrounds this prophecy. While the sufferings of Christ are expanded at length in the song (“there is only one brow which this crown of thorns will fit”4 ), the dominant theme in reality is the exaltation of Christ “victorious and triumphant through his vicarious sufferings.”5 Pieper perceives that the theme of the prophecy is “not the suffering of the Servant as such, but rather His triumph over suffering and His exaltation out of this humiliation.”6 Kelley similarly points out that the song is not primarily concerned with suffering, for the suffering has already come to an end (it is described in the past tense in 53:3–6, and the verbs in the future tense speak of the Servant’s triumph and glory—52:12; 53:10–11).7 Only a premillennial understanding of Christ’s second advent, however, catches the significance of the Servant’s exaltation.8

This twofold theme of “the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow” (1 Pet 1:11) simply draws together the

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