Isaiah 53:13–53:12 Response

May 26, 2009

Isaiah 53:13–53:12 Response

I believe this is my favorite passage from Second Isaiah. Now that I’ve stated this, I have to translate this initial emotional response into a rational explanation. So here goes. One, this section has a beauty of poetry and metaphor:

He was cut off from the land of the living (Is. 53:8b).
He was led like a lamb to the slaughter (Is. 53:7).
His grave was located with the wicked (53:9).

Two, there is a pathos in the character of the servant – he an outsider, shunned, afflicted:

He was despised, shunned by people,
a man who suffered, no stranger to sickness,
like one from whom people turn their gaze (53:3).

Yes this person suffered and took the punishment for our (is this the reader? The Israeli community, humanity) sins: “He was despised, and we held him of no account. Yet it was he who bore the burden of our sufferings” (Is 53:3b-4a). Thus, this is a heroic figure. Since I’ve been reading and using Gregory Riley for another class this semester, I again use his thesis to identify the servant as somewhat fitting the model of the Greco-Roman hero - someone with extraordinary gifts and talents who suffers unjustly but in the end triumphs over injustice and ordeal through stoic acceptance of fate.

Finally, the third factor which makes this section emotionally and poetically powerful is the comfort gained by the audience/the reader through the sacrificial actions of the servant:

On him was laid the chastisement that made us whole;
we found healing because of his wounds” (Is 53:5b).


All these factors – the pathos of the servant’s suffering and alienation, the beauty of the metaphors, the comfort to the reader/audience and similar to the former, the audiences implication in this suffering – contribute to the poetic and literary power of the text. There is also, similar to the beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount, an inversion of expectations, or in other words, an unexpected juxtaposition of opposing concepts and images:

he will be highly honored, raised up, and greatly exalted.
Just as many were appalled at him,
so will he astonish many nations (52:13b-15a).

He was abused, yet he was submissive (53:7);

we found healing because of his wounds (53:5b).

Therefore, I allot his portion with the great;
with the powerful he will share the spoil,
since he poured out his life blood to death
and was numbered among transgressors (53:12).


Aside from the poetry and the pathos, we move to the question, what does this passage mean, who is this suffering servant? Obviously, from a Christian perspective, and in accordance with this week’s readings, it is Jesus. From the perspective of the audience for whom this was written – post-exilic or post-captivity Jews, we might propose Cyrus but does Cyrus fit here? – “so marred was his appearance beyond human semblance, his form beyond human likeness” (52:14b).

These lines are a puzzle to this reader, but again, this adds to the appeal of the passage – it adds mystery. Could this be Isaiah the prophet or Israel itself. Clearly, this will be a topic for class discussion. It’s beyond my capability to offer an answer.

Finally, perhaps this passage, which seems to encompass tragedy, pathos, the existential nature and injustice of existence, cannot be completely explained. The purpose of art and poetry, according to some theorists, is to point to the mysteries and the sublimities that cannot be articulated or described otherwise.