Isaiah 53

2. Announcement of salvation 52:13-53:12

The second segment of the section in Isaiah dealing with God’s atonement of Israel (chs. 49-55), after the anticipation of salvation (Isaiah 49:1 to Isaiah 52:12), is the announcement of salvation. This is the fourth and most famous Servant Song.

"The profoundest thoughts in the Old Testament revelation are to be found in this section. It is a vindication of the Servant, so clear and so true, and wrought out with such a pathos and potency, that it holds first place in Messianic prophecy." [Note: Robinson, p. 145.]

"The exaltation of the Servant of Jehovah is the theme of the prophecy which follows." [Note: Delitzsch, 2:304.]

The reader of the promises that God would redeem His people with His mighty arm (cf. Isaiah 50:2; Isaiah 51:5; Isaiah 51:9; Isaiah 52:10) could reasonably expect that redemption to come with a great display of overwhelming power. But the careful reader of the previous Servant Songs has picked up some hints that the Servant would not fit the mold of the traditional action hero. In this passage, Isaiah filled out the previously sketchy picture of the Servant with more detail concerning His work, character, and nature. God’s greatest power is evident in His ability to return love and forgiveness for hatred and injustice, not in His ability to crush all opposition.

"No subject connected with the Old Testament has been more discussed than the question of the identity of the Suffering Servant in Deutero-Isaiah." [Note: H. H. Rowley, "The Servant of the Lord in the Light of Three Decades of Criticism," in The Servant of the Lord and other Essays on the Old Testament, p. 3.]

This Song consists of five stanzas of three verses each. The first and last stanzas record God’s commendation of the Servant, and the middle three describe the Servant’s commitment to God’s will. The central one focuses on His substitute death. Two key contrasts mark the passage: the contrast between the Servant’s humiliation and His exaltation, and the contrast between the reader’s expectations of the Servant and reality. [Note: For a study of the rhetorical variations that stress the Servant’s sufferings and exaltation, see Ronald Bergey, "The Rhetorical Role of Reiteration in the Suffering Servant Poem (Isaiah 52:13-53:12)," Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 40:2 (June 1997):177-88.]