Identifying Isaiah 53’s ‘Suffering Servant’ may involve a major chronological review
Part One: Some introductory remarks
by
Damien F. Mackey
In an earlier series, which I now intend to replace, the best candidate I could identify for the “Suffering Servant” of Isaiah (particularly chapter 53), who was chronologically right within range of the great prophet, was King Hezekiah of Judah himself.
Some others have already suggested this identification, and I tended to take my comparisons from various of these.
King Hezekiah ought to be fairly well known to me, since I wrote a lengthy thesis largely around his era:
A Revised History of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah
and its Background
AMAIC_Final_Thesis_2009.pdf
There are probably other, better developed characters throughout this thesis, however – Hezekiah himself proving to be frustratingly illusive, especially after his 14th year of reign. Moreover, although this king of Judah does bear comparison, to some extent, with Isaiah 53’s “Suffering Servant”, the match is far from being a perfect one. King Hezekiah was, unlike Isaiah’s humble “Servant”, a “strong proud” king (the very words of his Assyrian foe, Sennacherib).
And more recently I have read of comparisons between Isaiah 53 and the prophet Jeremiah that I believe to dovetail far more perfectly than do those with Hezekiah.
Although Jewish tradition (e.g. Rashi) might tend to identify the “Suffering Servant” as the nation of Israel, which Isaiah certainly intended, in part, there is also an old tradition according to which this refers to a single person.
Mordecai Schreiber writes of the long-standing disagreement over this passage between Jews and Christians (“THE REAL "SUFFERING SERVANT": DECODING A CONTROVERSIAL PASSAGE IN THE BIBLE”):
http://jbqnew.jewishbible.org/assets/Uploads/371/371_sufferingservant.pdf
The most controversial passage in the Hebrew Bible is, arguably, Isaiah 53:1-7. For centuries, Jews and Christians have been debating the meaning of the so-called "Suffering Servant" described in these verses. A quick search of material on Internet sites reveals impassioned claims by various Christians who fervently believe the Servant in question is Jesus, and equally fervent counterclaims by Jews who believe that the Servant is the Jewish people. As a prophet, the Christian argument goes, Isaiah foresaw the future coming of the Christian messiah who "carried our affliction" and "in his bruises we were healed" (Isa. 53:4-5). References to this text are made in the New Testament, asserting the claim that Isaiah in Chapter 53 prophesied the suffering of Jesus (see John 12:38, and Romans 10:16). Not so, runs the Jewish argument.
The prophet makes it clear he is not speaking about future events. Rather, he is repeating an ancient Jewish belief, according to which God's servant is Jacob and, by extension, his descendants, the people of Israel. The implication of the Jewish argument is that the Jews suffer because of the misconduct of the world, and their suffering has a redeeming power for humankind.
This may have been true prior to the time of Jesus, Christians might concede, but it is the death of Jesus on the cross that replaces the old Covenant and grants redemption to all people for all time.
In centuries past, this kind of polemic often resulted in violence, and many Jews suffered for it and even paid with their lives. Thankfully, this is no longer the case, and it is to be hoped that it is a thing of the past.
It is common to find amongst many Christians a tendency to identify the “Suffering Servant” directly as Jesus Christ. Isaiah, as a great prophet, was able they say to reveal far distant things. In similar fashion will these identify the “Immanuel” of Isaiah 7:14 as Jesus, without any due regard to the historical context of the biblical chapter.
I probably shared this view once.
I know from experience that such Christians whose knowledge of the Old Testament may be poor can become irate if one should suggest that Immanuel was actually one of Isaiah’s children – which he undoubtedly was.
Though I would accept, with these, that Jesus Christ, as a Son of God, later fulfilled the meaning of “Immanuel” (“God is with us”) more perfectly than anyone else (including anyone previously named Immanuel) was capable of doing.
But the fact remains, he was not named Immanuel, but “Jesus” (Matthew 1:21).
Now, if Isaiah’s ‘Suffering Servant” were the prophet Jeremiah, then we must consider the possibility that the life of Isaiah overlapped with the boyhood/youth of Jeremiah, a seeming chronological absurdity, though made somewhat less so now, perhaps, in light of my radical:
De-coding Jonah
(DOC) De-coding Jonah | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu
Commentators have a method of getting around apparent chronological difficulties associated with the Book of Isaiah by Procrusteanising the great prophet of Israel, cutting him up into parts and thereby creating a Deutero-Isaiah, or a Trito-Isaiah (the same with the prophet Zechariah), who, they say, was not the actual Isaiah.
This is a methodology that - due to its departing from tradition - I personally do not accept.
Part Two:
Hezekiah by no means a proper fit
Were King Hezekiah of Judah to have been firmly identified as Isaiah’s Suffering Servant, then there would be no chronological problem involved at all, given the contemporaneity of the prophet Isaiah and King Hezekiah. And some have indeed sought to make this connection, which I, too, had most favoured before on conventional chronological grounds. The explanation that had then most appealed to me was this one, by Jacob Joseph Mordecai:
http://jaymack.net/isaiah-commentary/Iy-The-Death-of-the-Suffering-Servant.asp
The Death of the Suffering Servant
…. many Jewish commentators have come up with different interpretations to the identity of the Suffering Servant. Some say he is Moses, some say king Josiah, but most interpret the passage symbolically and say the Servant is Israel in exile. Others, like Jacob Joseph Mordecai try a more literal approach. His interpretation is very logical and makes perfect sense. He himself says that Scripture never bears any other than the simple and literal meaning. But without the mind of Christ, it is clear that there is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end leads to death (Proverbs 14:1-13). Jacob Joseph Mordecai said that the Suffering Servant is King Hezekiah.
52:13a Behold my Servant shall prosper, as it is said in Second Chronicles 32:30, And Hezekiah prospered in all his works, therefore, Hezekiah is rightly called God’s servant, for he not only turned himself, but also brought back Judah, and a great part of Israel as well, to the service of God – an achievement which none of his ancestors, in spite of all their excellent intentions, ever contemplated. For he put away the high places, and sent runners throughout all Israel and Judah with the letters from the king and his leaders, and spoke according to the commandment of the king: Children of Israel, return to ADONAI the God of Abraham (Second Chronicles 30:6).
He restored the crown to its former state, entreating the favor of his princes and ministers, almost prostrating himself before them, while he said: Hear me, Levites! Now sanctify yourselves, sanctify the house of ADONAI the God of your fathers, and carry out the rubbish from the holy place (Second Chronicles 29:5).
52:13b He shall be exalted and extolled and be very high, for so it said in Second Chronicles 32:23: And many brought gifts to the LORD at Jerusalem, and presents to Hezekiah king of Judah, so that he was exalted in the sight of all nations thereafter.
52:14 Because of the dangerous illness that attacked him, his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man and his form marred beyond human likeness as he drew near to the gates of Death (Psalm 107:18).
52:15a Many kings and princes were amazed exceedingly at the miracle wrought for him, for not with sword or spear did ADONAI save his anointed from the hand of Sennacherib.
52:15b but greater far was the miracle which displayed itself in the world when the orbit of the sun turned backward before the eyes of all, and when Merodach-Baladan sent ambassadors to him to enquire about the portent which had occurred in the earth; this is what is meant by the words: What had not been told to them they have seen; for they perceived clearly that so highly favored was he in the eyes of God that the order of creation was altered for his benefit.
53:1 Who has believed our message? Feigning surprise, asks the prophet of his pious contemporaries; for good Hezekiah was a descendant of the wicked Ahaz, and upon Hezekiah was the arm of ADONAI revealed in the destruction of Sennacherib.
53:2 At the time when all were immersed in idolatrous worship, Hezekiah grew up before Him like a tender shoot, out of dry ground, in which was no religion or fear of God.
53:3 As, from his birth upwards, Hezekiah rejected the deeds of his fathers, and the shameful customs of his age, the people abominated him, and held aloof from him, and hence he was despised and rejected by men, his father in particular hating him even to the day of his death, for he made him pass through the fire of Molech (Second Kings 16:3 and Sanhedrin, fol. 69), though he was delivered miraculously by God. Still, however, the few righteous who were to be found at that time felt a longing and desire for him saying, “O that the shoot were to come up from the stump of Jesse (Isaiah 11:1) and that the Spirit of knowledge and fear of ADONAI were resting on him (Isaiah 11:2),” and this is the meaning of the words: He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him (Isaiah 53:2), yet we desired him. When, after his father’s death, he ascended to the throne, his servants were so much dissatisfied that, with Shebna at their head, they rebelled against him, and sought to submit themselves to the wicked Pekah, son of Remaliah, king of Israel, as Isaiah narrates in 53:6 and when they saw him afflicted with severe illness, their hatred carried itself still further, and they poured contempt upon their prince, judging maliciously that his sufferings were because he had despised their own wicked faith, and that the graven images of their gods would hide their faces from him.
53:4 They did so even more when they saw that his affliction prevented him from maintaining the style and manners of a court (Sanhedrin, fol. 94), for he would eat only a pound of meat a day: since, then, he did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, with a whole heart, just as his father David had done (Second Chronicles 29:2), and removed all defilement from the sanctuary (Second Chronicles 29:5) and restored all Israel to the true faith, the sufferings which he endured must have been for the sake of his generation; almost, indeed, had the Almighty determined to quench the coal that was left, and to give Jerusalem to the hand of Sennacherib, and only in consequence of Hezekiah was the redemption of their soul achieved, and deliverance wrought for them by his transcendent merits, so far surpassing the sufferings which he bare.
53:5-6 After this, however, all perceived that he was pierced for their transgressions, and crushed for their iniquities, in order to make atonement for them unto God; for the attribute of judgment, displaying itself before them, laid on him the iniquity of them all, as the text says, for the transgressions of My people (Isaiah 53:8), even the wounds which should have fallen upon them.
53:7 When his sickness was at its worst, he acknowledged the justice of the LORD’s judgment upon him, but like a dumb man who did not open his mouth, he expected from hour to hour the moment of his death, as he declares himself in his writing (Isaiah 38:9): I said in the cutting off of my days, let me go through the gates of death, etc, and accepted his afflictions as sent upon him in love, without murmuring, or complaining of the shortness of his days.
53:8 When, however, he heard the prophet Isaiah’s command: Put your house in order, because you are going to die; you will not recover (Isaiah 38:1), he entreated God to grant him a longer life in order that he might be enabled to serve him; by oppression and judgment he would have been taken away in the prime of his life and when his reign had but lately commenced: now, if his death had occurred before he had time to restore the faith of his people to its pristine integrity, who would have told of his generation?
53:9 It would have been rather a generation departing in darkness until it was all consumed without having seen the mighty acts of the LORD, wrought by him on behalf of himself after him, but would have been buried with his wicked father – as the text states: He was assigned a grave with the wicked, implying that it was so determined – in spite of the innocence of his hands, and the fact that he had done no violence.
53:10 Yet, it was ADONAI’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and to put the guilt of his generation on his soul; accordingly, after his prayer, when God had heard his supplication and seen his tears, the promise is given that He will see his offspring and prolong his days; thus God added to his life fifteen years, and let him “see seed”, for previously he had no children.
53:12 Therefore, I will give him a portion among the great and he will divide the spoils, or the spoils of Sennacherib, because he bore the iniquities of the age, and was counted as a transgressor, and above all interceded for the remnant that were still left (who were the transgressors), as it is said in Second Kings 19:15: And Hezekiah prayed to the LORD, “ADONAI, God of Israel, enthroned between the cherubim, you alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth,” and in Second Chronicles 32:20, “King Hezekiah and the prophet Isaiah son of Amos cried out in prayer to heaven.” This, then, is the meaning of made intercession for the transgressors, in order that the city might not fall into the hands of the King of Assyria. And so, when all Judah and Jerusalem and the remnant of Israel returned to the services of ADONAI, and the sanctuary was restored to its original purity, and the priests to their ministrations, and the Levites to their pulpits (all which Ahaz had neglected), and when they beheld the miracles, then all his servants began to love and honor him; and when he died, he was not assigned a grave with the wicked, as had been determined, and as nearly took place, but he ended his life honorably and Hezekiah rested with his fathers and was buried on the hill where the tombs of David’s descendants are. All Judah and the people of Jerusalem honored him when he died (Second Chronicles 32:33).
Such is the interpretation, which I have been able to give of these verses. And if my view is not in accordance with the mind of the prophet, I pray the Almighty to grant me a reward for what I have done! May the ADONAI lighten mine eyes in His Law! And may the purpose of mine heart be well pleasing to him! This is one rabbinic interpretation of Chapter 53, that the suffering servant was Hezekiah.
In Part One, however, we had learned that King Hezekiah was characterised even by his greatest enemy, Sennacherib, as “proud” (Assyrian Bull Inscriptions): “… the strong, proud Hezekiah …”. This hardly fits with Isaiah 53:2: “He had no … majesty to attract us to him”. The King Hezekiah, who proudly showed off his abundant wealth to the Babylonian envoys (2 Kings 20:12-19), did not lack “majesty”. Far from it.
Nor was he then “like a dumb man who did not open his mouth” (Isaiah 53:7).
The prophet Isaiah had to severely reprimand the king for this showy behaviour, predicting the Babylonian Captivity (2 Kings 20:16-18).
The following description of the ‘proud and ungrateful’ Hezekiah, that we find at:
https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/archives/guzik_david/studyguide_2ki/2ki_20.cfm would, in all seriousness, be quite impossible to reconcile with the docile Suffering Servant:
…. As the coming rebuke from Isaiah will demonstrate, this was nothing but proud foolishness on Hezekiah's part. He was in the dangerous place of wanting to please and impress man, especially ungodly men.
…. "It was not spiritual pride, as with his great-grandfather Uzziah; but worldly pride - 'the pride of life,' we might say. It was his precious things, his armor, his treasures, his house, his dominion, etc., that he showed the ambassadors from Babylon." (Knapp)
…. Hezekiah faced - and failed under - a temptation common to many, especially those in ministry - the temptation of success. Many men who stand strong against the temptations of failure and weakness fail under the temptations of success and strength.
Think about the extent of Hezekiah's success:
- He was godly
- He was victorious
- He was healed
- He had experienced a miracle
- He had been promised a long life
- He had connection to a great prophet
- He had seen a remarkable sign
- He was wealthy
- He was famous
- He was praised and honored
- He was honored by God
…. Nevertheless, he sinned greatly after this great gift of fifteen more years of life and the deliverance of Jerusalem. We might say that Hezekiah sinned in at least five ways:
- Pride, in that he was proud of the honors the Babylonians brought.
- Ingratitude, in that he took honor to himself that really belonged to God.
- Abusing the gifts given to him, where he took the gifts and favors to his own honor and gratification of his lusts (2 Chronicles 32:25-26).
- Carnal confidence, in that he trusted in the league he had made with the King of Babylon.
- Missing opportunity, in that he had a great opportunity to testify to the Babylonian envoys about the greatness of God and the LORD's blessing on Judah. Instead, he glorified himself.
v. "Why did he not show these learned heathen God's house? 'Every whit' of which showeth 'His glory' (Psalm 29:9, margin).
There he could have explained to them the meaning of the brazen altar, and the sacrifices offered thereon; and who can tell what the results might not have been in the souls of these idolaters?" (Knapp)
One gets the distinct impression that Hezekiah, whose trust in God will waver under duress, tends to rides heavily on the shoulders (on the faith and trust) of the great prophet Isaiah. Sirach (Ecclesiasticus), writing in a later era, will attribute the triumph over the Assyrians more directly to Isaiah than to the Hezekiah whom he nevertheless lauds (Sirach 48:17-21):
Hezekiah
Hezekiah fortified his city,
and brought water into the midst of it;
he tunneled the sheer rock with iron
and built pools for water.
In his days Sennacherib came up,
and sent the Rabshakeh;
he lifted up his hand against Zion
and made great boasts in his arrogance.
Then their hearts were shaken and their hands trembled,
and they were in anguish, like women in travail.
But they called upon the Lord who is merciful,
spreading forth their hands toward him;
and the Holy One quickly heard them from heaven,
and delivered them by the hand of Isaiah.
The Lord smote the camp of the Assyrians,
and his angel wiped them out.
Part Three:
Jeremiah seems to fit like a glove
“The suffering prophet par excellence is Jeremiah. He is called by God against his own protestations, mocked and persecuted by his fellow villagers of Anathoth and others ….
Beaten and put in the stocks by the priest Pashhur, he barely escapes the death sentence demanded by a mob and must go into hiding for his preaching during the reign of King Jehoiakim. He is accused of being a traitor for announcing God’s judgment on Jerusalem through the Babylonians”.
Waldemar Janzen
Introduction
Given that the prophet Isaiah appears to have been writing about a young contemporary male whom the community had familiarly known from his infancy (53:2): “He grew up like a tender shoot before us, like a root from dry ground. He possessed no splendid form for us to see, no desirable appearance”, I had been inclined to opt for King Hezekiah, a younger contemporary of the prophet who had begun to receive the word of God as far back as Hezekiah’s great-grandfather, King Uzziah of Judah (Isaiah 1:1): “The vision about Judah and Jerusalem that Isaiah, son of Amos, saw in the days of Judah’s kings Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah”.
The words, “like a shoot” or “sapling” (כַּיּוֹנֵק) “like a root” (כַשֹּׁרֶשׁ) in Isaiah 53:2 could suggest Davidic lineage (hence e.g. Hezekiah).
As for collective Israel, or Judah, the prophets invariably (but not always) spoke of these in feminine terms: Virgin daughter of Zion; heifer; and the less flattering harlot, whore, prostitute. The Hebrew verb in Isaiah 53:2 וַיַּעַל “For he grew up …”, is masculine.
If the prophet Jeremiah were to be intended by Isaiah, as I am now greatly favouring, then this would – as we have noted – involve a major chronological reconsideration of biblico-history.
Either that, or do what many biblical commentators tend to do, artificially create other (Deutero, Trito) prophets ‘Isaiah’, who are not the original one, but later scribes.
This I am not inclined to do.
Jeremiah as the Suffering Servant
Various commentators have arrived at the conclusion that the life of the prophet Jeremiah best fulfils the terms of the Suffering Servant – chronologically ‘plausible’ when the Book of Isaiah is attributed to a trio of writers. Waldemar Janzen, for instance, writes in “Suffering Servants”: https://www.baylor.edu/ifl/christianreflection/SufferingarticleJanzen.pdf
The suffering prophet par excellence is Jeremiah. He is called by God against his own protestations, mocked and persecuted by his fellow villagers of Anathoth and others …. Beaten and put in the stocks by the priest Pashhur, he barely escapes the death sentence demanded by a mob and must go into hiding for his preaching during the reign of King Jehoiakim. He is accused of being a traitor for announcing God’s judgment on Jerusalem through the Babylonians.
After being thrown into a dry well to perish, he eventually is rescued and kept in a prison, only to be carried off to Egypt against his will.
…. Suffering under this burden of obedience to proclaim a message painful to the prophet himself and hateful to his hearers is portrayed most articulately in the so-called Laments of Jeremiah (11:18-20; 12:1-6; 15:10-12,15-21; 17:14-18; 18:18-23; 20:7-18). They resemble the individual lament psalms, but their content is tied to the specifics of Jeremiah’s life. He cries out:
O LORD, you have enticed me,…
you have overpowered me,….
If I say, “I will not mention him [the LORD],
or speak any more in his name,”
then within me there is something like a burning fire
shut up in my bones;
I am weary with holding it in,
and I cannot….
Why did I come forth from the womb
to see toil and sorrow,
and spend my days in shame?
Jeremiah 20:7a, 9, 18
Though some statements seem to construe Jeremiah’s sufferings as sacrificial or vicarious—like “But I was like a gentle lamb led to the slaughter” (11:19)—von Rad rightly denies this, but perhaps too categorically, when he says: “Never for a moment did it occur to him that this mediatorial suffering might have a meaning in the sight of God.” …. Did Jeremiah simply cry out in anguish?
Why then did he commit these intimate prayers to writing, for others to read? Sheldon Blank argues convincingly that Jeremiah realized his suffering, though not propitiatory for others in the sight of God, was a paradigm that transcended his personal experience; it was representative for the coming suffering of his people, and thus was in some sense significant for them. ….
More satisfactory, I find, is the argument of Mordecai Schreiber, who, after a discussion of the authorship of the Book of Isaiah - Schreiber believes that a “Second Isaiah” was the author of chapter 53 - asks, and answers, the question (op. cit.):
But herein lies the key to the question: Who, after all, is the Suffering Servant in Isaiah 53?
It appears that the Second Isaiah knew the answer, but as with his own identity, it was kept a secret. It also appears that someone else at a later date knew the Servant's identity. To find the answer, we need to turn to the Book of Jeremiah. A better understanding of Jeremiah is essential to understanding the Second Isaiah and his mysterious Servant, and the method available to us is a textual and linguistic analysis of the words of those two prophets.
That Jeremiah has a great deal to do with the Suffering Servant is something that was observed at least as early as the tenth century by Saadia Gaon, the great philosopher and exegete. According to Ibn Ezra, in his commentary on Isaiah 52:13, Saadia identified the Servant with Jeremiah, an interprertation that Ibn Ezra (12th century) concurred with:
"The Gaon, Rav Saadia, his memory be blessed, interpreted the whole chapter as referring to Jeremiah, and well he interpreted." But Saadia's view was rejected in his own lifetime, particularly by his Karaite adversaries, who contended that he had lost his senses. (The Karaites, a Jewish sect that still exists today, were strict literalists when it came to biblical interpretation, rejecting rabbinical interpretations and innovations.) Sheldon Blank, a 20th-century Jewish biblical scholar who has written books about both Jeremiah and Isaiah, rejects the view that the Servant is Jeremiah. Blank writes:
The bitter experience of Israel, whom the Second Isaiah here personified as servant-prophet, led him necessarily to Jeremiah for the features of his personification – to that prophet within his tradition who, more than any other, had, like Israel, endured reproach and suffering. Inevitably, Jeremiah must sit as model for his portrait of God's servant-prophet. This is not to say that the servant and Jeremiah are to be identified. ….
R.E.O. White, a Christian contemporary of Blank who also wrote a book about Jeremiah, has this to say about the identity of the Servant:
So Isaiah sketches his portrait of the coming Servant of the Lord who should save Israel, and in that portrait Jesus himself saw his own lineaments and destiny prefigured. But of whom was Isaiah thinking when he asked his questions? With Jeremiah's story in mind, we may reverently wonder if the words do not describe his experience with astonishing accuracy. And reverent surmise becomes moral certainty when we hear Isaiah at once quote Jeremiah's words about himself: "But I was like a gentle lamb led to the slaughter. I did not know it was against me they devised schemes, saying, . . .'Let us cut him off from the land of the living'" (Jer. 11:19; cf. Isa. 53:7-8). ….
What makes these two quotes from two contemporary biblical scholars so telling is that even though they both sense the strong presence of Jeremiah in Isaiah 53, they are wedded to their traditional views of the Servant being the Jewish people (for Blank), and Jesus (for White). Neither one of them goes far enough in analyzing these difficult verses in which the Mystery Prophet embedded a unique message, left for future generations to be deciphered.
(This reminds us of some of El Greco's large canvasses, in which the artist painted miniatures in the folds of the robes of the prelates and the saints, expressing his true artistic feelings.)
This message amounts to a capsule biography of Jeremiah, who is indeed the Servant in these verses: Who can believe what we have heard? And on whom was Adonai's power revealed?(Isa. 53:1).
The story of Jeremiah is absolutely amazing. Jeremiah lived during the last years of the Judean monarchy. He foresaw the coming destruction of Jerusalem, and spent his years as a solitary voice calling his people to turn back from their evil ways. He was scorned and ridiculed, and on several occasions he came within a hair's-breadth of losing his life. It was only after the fall of Judah that the exiles in Babylon began to realize that his was the voice of God. For a while his story was unknown in Babylon, but when the Second Isaiah first heard it he was amazed to learn what Jeremiah had gone through, and how God chose such an afflicted person as his messenger. Indeed, Jeremiah should be credited for saving Judaism. He did much more than prophesy doom. With the help of the scribe Baruch ben-Neriah, he began the process of preserving the Law and transitioning Judaism from a religion centered around Temple sacrifices to a faith based on Torah, prayer and ethical behavior. In this respect, Jeremiah may be considered the first Jew, while Abraham is the first Hebrew. In comparing the language of Isaiah 53 to Jeremiah's, it is clear that this Mystery Prophet was a disciple of Jeremiah, in whom he saw the savior of Judaism. Jeremiah to him becomes the prophet par excellence, the true servant of God. As the pivotal prophet in the Bible, Jeremiah comes to embody for the Second Isaiah the entire Jewish people, and so the Servant becomes interchangeably Jeremiah and the Jewish people. Why Second Isaiah does not come out and identify Jeremiah by name will be discussed later on.
He rose like a newborn baby before Him, And like a tree trunk in an arid land (53:2).
This is a direct biographical reference to Jeremiah. We are told in Jeremiah 1 that God chose Jeremiah at his birth. We are further told that when God first appears to Jeremiah, the young boy is looking at a blossoming almond tree.
The boy is overwhelmed by his first contact with the Divine, and when he rises and watches the tree in full blossom, the voice of God becomes his. He is told not to fear, for he will be made strong against his adversaries. The two words "arid land" are borrowed from the next episode in the Book of Jeremiah (2:6), where the prophet reminds his people of the wandering through the desert: Who leads us . . . through arid land. He had no rank and was given no respect, We did not find anything attractive about him (53:2).
Jeremiah was born a priest but gave up his priestly rank. He was not an official prophet of the court until the very end, when a desperate King Zedekiah began to consult him without actually engaging him as a court priest.
Jeremiah's contemporaries showed him no respect. At best, he was tolerated.
A man of constant sorrow, he made few friends and had little influence over his contemporaries, who were too far gone in their idolatry and immorality to understand his message.
He was despised, shunned by all, A great sufferer, greatly afflicted (53:3).
Jeremiah was the most afflicted prophet in the Hebrew Bible. He foresaw the destruction of Jerusalem years before it happened, and mourned it for many years. The Judeans, particularly in Jerusalem, despised him, for he disturbed their complacency and smugness. (God was on their side, they argued, and no harm would come to them.)
He seemed to hide from us, Despised, we took no account of him (53:3).
Hiding is a running theme in Jeremiah's life. After he prophesies at the Temple, the priests try to put him to death. He is banned from the public and goes into hiding. Later, after King Jehoiakim throws Jeremiah's scroll of prophecies into the fire, he has to go into hiding again to save his life.
Indeed, he carried our affliction, And he suffered our pain (53:4).
No other prophet in the Bible suffers the pain of his people more vividly than does Jeremiah. When the Temple is destroyed and the people are exiled, Jeremiah takes on the suffering of his people and, according to rabbinic tradition, authors the Book of Lamentations, Judaism's official lament for the destruction of the Temple.
And we thought him diseased, God stricken, tortured (53:4).
When Jeremiah parades in the streets of Jerusalem in a soiled and soggy loincloth, or with iron bars around his neck, he certainly does not convey the image of a happy and level-headed person. He is repeatedly scorned by his listeners, and rather than see him as God's messenger, they regard him as a misguided and tortured soul.
But he was stricken because of our sins (53:5).
God indeed makes Jeremiah carry the burden of the sins of his generation.
Oppressed because of our iniquities, The lesson of our welfare is upon him (53:5).
The life of Jeremiah and his teaching were an object lesson for his generation.
That they recovered their national welfare was because of him and the legacy he bequeathed them, namely, the Torah and prophetic teachings he helped preserve for them with the help of his scribe, Baruch ben-Neriah.
And in his bruises we were healed. We all went astray like sheep (53:5-6).
When Jeremiah is flogged, or when he is lowered into the mud pit, he emerges full of bruises. But he is doing it for the sake of his people, who went astray and did not see the impending doom.
Each going our own way, And God visited upon him the guilt of us all (53:6).
The people were divided during the time of the siege of Jerusalem, and Jeremiah had to live through that time of national divisiveness and bear its consequences. This continued during the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians, and after the assassination of Gedaliah, whom they had appointed governor.
He was attacked, yet he remained submissive, He did not open his mouth (53:7)
When the priests in the Holy Temple try to pass a death sentence on Jeremiah, he humbly accepts his fate, and is only saved by the last-minute intercession of a highly-placed friend.
He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, Silent like a ewe about to be sheared (53:7).
Here we have Jeremiah's own words being quoted: But I was like a gentle sheep led to the slaughter (Jer. 11:19).
To the Second Isaiah, Jeremiah came to symbolize the Suffering Servant, whom God chose to help save His covenanted people. In a broader sense, the Servant is the Jewish people as a whole. Why, then, does the author fail to identify Jeremiah by name?
To begin with, the Second Isaiah does not identify anyone by name, not even himself. He remains the Mystery Prophet throughout. But it should be clear by now that he knew Jeremiah quite well, and was greatly influenced by him. Furthermore, since his prophecies were inserted into an already-existing book, namely, the Book of Isaiah, it is clear that other hands were involved in the compilation of the book as we know it. (It is a rather ancient compilation, dating back before the Common Era, as evidenced by the Isaiah scroll found among the Dead Sea Scrolls.) We need to ask ourselves: What were the circumstances under which this text was written and compiled, and how did they affect the presentation of the Servant concept, so clearly depicting none other than Jeremiah? ….
Part Four:
Pointing to Jesus Christ
“The Suffering Servant, who has the guilt of all laid upon him (53:6), giving up his life as a sin-offering (53:10) and bearing the sins of many (53:12), thereby carries out the ministry of the high priest, fulfilling the figure of the priesthood from deep within. He is both priest and victim, and in this way he achieves reconciliation”.
Pope Benedict XVI
“Suffering Servant”
prefigures Jesus Christ
Richard B. Hays, writing a review of Pope Benedict XVI’s book, Jesus of Nazareth Holy Week From the Entrance Into Jerusalem To The Resurrection (2011), acknowledges an outstanding feature of Benedict’s book: how the Old Testament prefigures and leads to the New Testament: https://www.firstthings.com/article/2007/08/001-benedict-and-the-biblical-jesus
BENEDICT AND THE BIBLICAL JESUS
….
From beginning to end, Benedict grounds his interpretation of Jesus in the Old as well as the New Testament. The significance of the gospel stories is consistently explicated in relation to the Old Testament’s typological prefiguration of Jesus, and Jesus is shown to be the flowering or consummation of all that God had promised Israel in many and various ways. The resulting intercanonical conversation offers many arresting insights into Jesus’ identity and significance. Many of the connections that Benedict discerns are traditional in patristic exegesis, but his explication of them is artful and effective.
On p. 81, Pope Benedict credits French priest André Feuillet with pointing out how well Isaiah’s Suffering Servant Songs throw light upon the high-priestly prayer of Jesus (John 17):
....
Before we consider the individual themes contained in Jesus’ high-priestly prayer, one further Old Testament allusion should be mentioned, one that has again been studied by André Feuillet. He shows that the renewed and deepened spiritual understanding of the priesthood found in John 17 is already prefigured in Isaiah’s Suffering Servant Songs, especially in Isaiah 53. The Suffering Servant, who has the guilt of all laid upon him (53:6), giving up his life as a sin-offering (53:10) and bearing the sins of many (53:12), thereby carries out the ministry of the high priest, fulfilling the figure of the priesthood from deep within. He is both priest and victim, and in this way he achieves reconciliation. Thus the Suffering Servant Songs continue along the whole path of exploring the deeper meaning of the priesthood and worship, in harmony with the prophetic tradition ....
On p. 136, Benedict returns to this theme:
For we have yet to consider Jesus' fundamental interpretation of his mission in Mark 10:45, which likewise features the word “many”; “For the Son of [Man] also came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many”. Here he is clearly speaking of the sacrifice of his life, and so it is obvious that Jesus is taking up the Suffering Servant prophecy from Isaiah 53 and linking it to the mission of the Son of Man, giving it a new interpretation.
And then, on pp. 173 and 199, he broadens it:
This idea of vicarious atonement is fully developed in the figure of the Suffering Servant in Isaiah 53, who takes the guilt of many upon himself and thereby makes them just (53:11). In Isaiah, this figure remains mysterious: the Song of the Suffering Servant is like a gaze into the future in search of the one who is to come.
….
The history of religions knows the figure of the mock king — related to the figure of the “scapegoat”. Whatever may be afflicting the people is offloaded onto him: in this way it is to be driven out of the world. Without realizing it, the soldiers were actually accomplishing what those rites and ceremonies were unable to achieve: “Upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed” (Is 53:5). Thus caricatured, Jesus is led to Pilate, and Pilate presents him to the crowd — to all mankind: “Ecce homo”, “Here is the man!” (Jn 19:5).
Before concluding his treatment of the subject on pp. 252-253:
A pointer towards a deeper understanding of the fundamental relationship with the word is given by the earlier qualification: Christ died “for our sins”. Because his death has to do with the word of God, it has to do with us, it is a dying “for”. In the chapter of Jesus’ death on the Cross, we saw what an enormous wealth of tradition in the form of scriptural allusions feeds into the background here, chief among them the fourth Song of the Suffering Servant (Isaiah 53). Insofar as Jesus’ death can be located within this context of God’s word and God’s love, it is differentiated from the kind of death resulting from Man’s original sin as a consequence of his presumption in seeking to be like God, a presumption that could only lead to man’s plunge into wretchedness, into the destiny of death. ….
A ‘Christian’ tendency to skip over Old Testament
Such Christians as those who tend to relate solely to the New Testament, having an extremely poor knowledge of - even sometimes seeming to be virtually allergic to - the Old Testament, will immediately identify Isaiah’s “Suffering Servant” as Jesus Christ the Messiah, without any consideration that the ancient prophet might have intended, directly and literally, some younger contemporary of his.
Now, whilst I could never accuse Pope Benedict XVI of discounting the Old Testament - he who in his book, Jesus of Nazareth (2011), is at pains show how the Old Testament prefigures and leads to the New Testament - and that Jesus Christ cannot be properly understood without the Old Testament - also writing along such lines as (p. 202):
What is remarkable about these [Four Gospel] accounts [of Jesus’ crucifixion and Death] is the multitude of Old Testament allusions and quotations they contain: word of God and event are deeply interwoven. The facts are, so to speak, permeated with the word – with meaning; and the converse is also true: what previously had been merely word – often beyond our capacity to understand – now becomes reality, its meaning unlocked [,]
- Benedict does, nevertheless, seem to bypass any possible ancient identification of Isaiah 53’s Suffering Servant in this next statement of his:
“In Isaiah, this figure remains mysterious: the Song of the Suffering Servant
is like a gaze into the future in search of the one who is to come”.
The “figure” becomes far less “mysterious”, I would suggest, if he is to be grounded in some literal flesh and blood person of Isaiah’s day, Jeremiah as I am now arguing - one who also points to “the one who is to come”, who perfectly fulfils Isaiah’s prophecy, but who also re-interprets it, thereby, in the words of Benedict, ‘unlocking its meaning’.
Along somewhat similar lines, the prophet Job has remained “mysterious”, and “like a gaze”, without any known genealogy; or era; or country, unless he be “grounded” in his more historically-endowed alter ego, Tobias, son of Tobit. See my:
Job's Life and Times
https://www.academia.edu/3787850/Jobs_Life_and_Times
Part Five:
Towards a fusion of eras of Isaiah and Jeremiah
This bold blueprint for a closer fusing of the era of the prophet Isaiah with that of Jeremiah
can be considered to be only most tentative at this stage.
Introduction
In conventional biblico-historical chronology, the respective eras of Isaiah and Jeremiah would be separated the one from the other by probably more than half a century.
Tradition has Isaiah being martyred during the reign of king Manasseh of Judah, son of Hezekiah. Presumably this incident (if it happened) would have occurred at an early stage during the 55-year reign of Manasseh, given that Isaiah’s prophetical career had already seen off four previous kings of Judah (1:1): “The vision concerning Judah and Jerusalem that Isaiah son of Amoz saw during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah”. The prophet Jeremiah claimed to be only “young” when his career began in the 13th year of Josiah (Jeremiah 1:2, 6), who was the grandson of Manasseh and great-grandson of Hezekiah.
Thus one would conventionally expect a gap of some 5-6 decades between the departure from the world of Isaiah and the rise of Jeremiah.
However, if Jeremiah were to be identified with the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53, as I (following others) have lately argued:
Prophet Jeremiah pre-figures the perfect ‘Suffering Servant’
https://www.academia.edu/36076355/Prophet_Jeremiah_pre-figures_the_perfect_Suffering_Servant_
and disallowing for, as I do, a Deutero- and Trito-Isaiah as later writers of the Book of Isaiah, then, not only had the infancy and boyhood of Jeremiah been witnessed by the one prophet Isaiah, but Isaiah must also have lived long enough to have known about the suffering career of the almost universally rejected Jeremiah, the ‘uprooting and tearing down’ phase, whilst prophetically anticipating only (without living to witness it) the ‘building and planting’ phase (Jeremiah 1:10).
Such a contemporaneity between Isaiah and Jeremiah, a seeming chronological absurdity, has already been made somewhat less absurd now, perhaps, in light of my radical “De-coding Jonah”.
See also my more recent article on King Hezekiah in a revised context (of a revised context):
Doctoring King Hezekiah of Judah
(DOC) Doctoring King Hezekiah of Judah | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu
The Chaldean king Nebuchednezzar II is now to be identified with king Ashurbanipal, and Nebuchednezzar II’s lost invasion of Egypt is now to be found in Ashurbanipal’s extensive accounts of it.
Pharaoh Necho I is now to be fused with pharaoh Necho II.
Manasseh’s long reign is spent mainly in Babylonian captivity, and so running concurrent with the dynasty of King Josiah. And that chronological overlap would explain the peculiarity of Jeremiah’s attribution of the then woes of the Jews to a supposedly long dead king Manasseh (Jeremiah 15:4): “I will make them abhorrent to all the kingdoms of the earth because of what Manasseh son of Hezekiah king of Judah did in Jerusalem”.
Possible indications of
a need for shrinkage
Apart from the above, we find that Isaiah writes as if he personally knew of the messianic Cyrus, who does not emerge as a Great King until even after the Chaldean era.
This is another reason for commentators to call for a Deutero-Isaiah, a Trito-Isaiah.
The reigns of the goodly reforming kings Hezekiah and Josiah are so much alike - even with quite an amazing collection of same-named officials - that I had actually once begun an article (but had then scrapped it) in which I attempted an identification of Hezekiah with Josiah.
However, given this new blueprint, there must have been a serious overlap between the two.
There appears to be no biblical evidence for the strong tradition of Isaiah’s martyrdom during the reign of king Manasseh.
My tentative suggestion would be - given the proposed overlap of the reign of Manasseh with the descendants of king Josiah - that Isaiah was the otherwise unknown martyred prophet Uriah (Urijah) (Jeremiah 26:20-23):
There was also a man named Uriah, Shemaiah’s son from Kiriath-jearim, who prophesied in the LORD’s name. He prophesied about this city and this land in words similar to those of Jeremiah. King Jehoiakim, all his troops, and all the officials heard his words, and the king sought to kill him. Uriah heard about this and was afraid, so he fled and went to Egypt. King Jehoiakim sent men to Egypt. He sent Achbor’s son Elnathan, along with a contingent of men into Egypt. They brought Uriah out of Egypt and brought him to King Jehoiakim, who killed him with a sword. Then they threw his body into a common grave.
The name “Uriah” was compatible with “Azariah” – the latter, in turn, being interchangeable with Uzziah: “In Hebrew, the name Uzziah or Azariah means “Yahweh is my strength”. This man was noted as one of the Kingdom of Judah's finest kings”.
https://amazingbibletimeline.com/blog/king-azariah-or-uzziah/
Now Uzziah was another name by which the prophet Isaiah was known whilst he was living in the north.
But how to explain the other terms of Jeremiah 26:20: “There was also a man named Uriah, Shemaiah’s son from Kiriath-jearim …”?
For Isaiah was, as we read above, the son of Amoz (Amos).
According to the above article, “Family of Prophet Isaiah”, Isaiah was of Simeonite stock, tracing its ancestry back to contemporaries of Moses, Shelumiel and Sarasadai (Judith 8:1). Now, the name Shelumiel is compatible with Shelemiah, according to Abarim:
http://www.abarim-publications.com/Meaning/Shelumiel.html#.Wpy8yORlJ9A
And this may perhaps be the background for “Shemaiah” of Jeremiah 26:20.
As for Kiriath-jearim, which “served as a boundary marker between the tribe of Judah and the tribe of Benjamin” (http://www.biblearchaeology.org/post/2009/02/e2809cWe-are-Standing-on-e28098Holy-Grounde28099e2809d-at-Kiriath-Jearim.aspx), this would finally provide us with a city for the great prophet Isaiah, who - despite his sojourn in the northern kingdom - is considered to have been of the southern kingdom of Judah.
We can add to these the extraordinary fact that the high priest, Hilkiah, the father of Eliakim (Isaiah 22:20), was still officiating during the 18th year of king Josiah when Hilkiah found the Book of the Law (2 Kings 22:3, 8).
So far, we have encountered these tentative indications for chronological shrinkage:
- King Manasseh of Judah in Babylonian Captivity during the reigns of King Josiah and his sons, enabling for
- an explanation as to why Jeremiah (15:4) would lay blame for the ills of the time upon Manasseh, rather than upon one or other of Josiah’s wicked sons.
- Isaiah’s traditional martyrdom during the reign of king Manasseh of Judah being the same incident as the martyrdom of the prophet Uriah at the time of Jeremiah.
- Jeremiah, the perfect fit for Isaiah 53’s Suffering Servant, being known to Isaiah even from Jeremiah’s infancy, and still during his early ministry when he was being rejected.
- This, and also the fact that Isaiah also seems to know of Cyrus, means that a Deutero- and Trito-Isaiah can be an artificial Procrusteanisation of the great prophet Isaiah.
- The Chaldean king Nebuchednezzar II now to be identified with king Ashurbanipal, and Nebuchednezzar II’s lost invasion of Egypt to be found in Ashurbanipal’s extensive accounts of it.
- Pharaoh Necho I now to be fused with pharaoh Necho II.
- The reigns of the goodly reforming kings Hezekiah and Josiah, so much alike - even with quite an amazing collection of same-named officials - may overlap to some degree.
We can add to these the extraordinary fact that the high priest, Hilkiah, the father of Eliakim (Isaiah 22:20), was still officiating during the 18th year of king Josiah when Hilkiah found the Book of the Law (2 Kings 22:3, 8).
And our shrinkage also allows now for an identification, as this Eliakim (var. Jehoiakim), to be given to the otherwise unknown “Jehoiakim the High Priest, son of Hilkiah” of Baruch 1:7. He is also the Joakim high priest of the Book of Judith. See my:
Jeremiah was both prophet and high priest
(DOC) Jeremiah was both prophet and high priest | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu
https://www.academia.edu/31925425/Sobna_Shebna_the_High_Priest
Comparisons between Hezekiah and Josiah texts
"There was no one like him [Hezekiah] among all the kings of Judah, either before him or after him." 2 Kings 18:5 (NIV?) "Neither before nor after Josiah was there a king like him ..." 2 Kings 23:25 (NIV?)
Previously in this series, I wrote:
“The reigns of the goodly, reforming kings Hezekiah and Josiah are so alike - with quite an amazing collection of same-named officials - that I had actually once begun a series (but then scrapped it) in which I had attempted an identification of Hezekiah with Josiah.
But, given this new blueprint, there must have been a serious overlap between the two”.
Since writing this I have stumbled (again) on The Domain of Man’s Chart 37, which shows up some striking comparisons between Hezekiah and Josiah (though this rather extreme site may need double checking in some cases): http://www.domainofman.com/book/chart-37.html
Comparison of Hezekiah and Josiah Narratives
________________________________________
Hezekiah Narrative
2 Chron. 29-32
2 Kings 18-20
Book of Isaiah Josiah Narrative
2 Chron. 34-35
2 Kings 22-23
Book of Jeremiah
Hezekiah, "son" of Ahaz
mother: Abijah daughter of Zechariah Josiah, "son" of Amon
mother: Jedidah daughter of Adaiah
25 years at ascension, reigned 29 years 8 years at ascension, reigned 31 years
"There was no one like him [Hezekiah] among all the kings of Judah, either before him or after him." 2 Kings 18:5 (NIV?) "Neither before nor after Josiah was there a king like him ..." 2 Kings 23:25 (NIV?)
Jerusalem to be spared destruction in his lifetime
2 Kings 19:1; 20:2-19; 2 Chron. 32:20,26 Jerusalem to be spared destruction in his lifetime
(2 Kings 22:14-20; 2 Chron. 34:22-28)
Revival of Laws of Moses
"according to what was written"
2 Chron. 30:5,16, 18; 31:2-7,15 Discovery of the Book of the Law (of Moses)
2 Kings 22:8-10; 2 Chron. 34:14-15
Passover Celebration Passover Celebration
"For since the days of Solomon son of David king of Israel there had been nothing like this in Jerusalem."
2 Chron. 30:26 "Not since the days of the Judges (Samuel) who led Israel, nor throughout the days of the kings of Israel and the kings of Judah, had any such Passover been observed." 2 Kings 23:22
Year not given
14th day of the second month Year 18
14th day of the first month
17,000 sheep and goats, 1,000 bulls
(not including the sacrifices of the first seven days) (1 Chron. 30:24) 30,000 sheep and goats, 3,000 cattle
Participating tribes: Judah and Benjamin,
Manasseh, Ephraim,
Asher, Zebulun & Issachar
(2 Chron. 31:1) Participating tribes: Judah and Benjamin,
Manasseh, Ephraim,
Simeon & Naphtali
(2 Chron. 34:9,32)
Temporary priests consecrated for service Employed "lay people" 2 Chron. 35:5
". smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles" 2 Kings 18:4; 2 Chron. 31:1 ". smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles" 2 Kings 23:14
High places and altars torn down High places and altars torn down
". broke into pieces the bronze snake" ". burned the chariots dedicated to the sun"
Name Comparisons
Hezekiah Narrative Josiah Narrative
Sennacherib oppresses Jerusalem Assyrian oppression omitted
Name of High Priest omitted Hilkiah, "High Priest"
Eliakim son of Hilkiah, palace administrator Eliakim "son" (?) of Josiah (future Jehoiakim)
Zechariah (descendant of Asaph)
Azariah, the priest (from family of Zadok) Zechariah
Zechariah
(variant of Azariah)
Shaban/Shebna/Shebniah, scribe Shaphan, scribe
(son of Azaliah son of Meshullam)
Hashabiah/Hashabniah (2 Chron. 35:9)
Jeshua
Isaiah son of Amoz, prophet Joshua, "city governor"
Hoshaiah (Jer. 42:1; 43:2)
Asaiah, "king's attendant"
Ma'aseiah, "ruler of the city"
Jerimoth Jeremiah son of Hilkiah
Conaniah and his brother Shemei, supervisors
(2 Chron. 31:12) Conaniah/Cononiah, along with his brothers Shemaiah and Nethanel (2 Chron. 35:9)
Hananiah the prophet, son of Azzur/Azur (Azariah) (Jer. 28)
Nahath Nathan-el/Nathan-e-el/El-Nathan/Nathan-Melech
2 Kings 23:11
Mattaniah, Mahath Mattaniah (future Zedekiah)
Jehiel Jehiel, "administrator of God's temple"
Asaph, Heman and Jeduthun
2 Chron. 29:13-14 Asaph, Heman and Jeduthun
(2 Chron. 35:15)
Shallum/Meshillemoth (reign of Ahaz) Meshullam (the Kohathite)
Shellemiah son of Cushi (Jer. 36:14)
No mention of a prophetess
[Mackey: What about Judith?] Huldah, wife of Shallam/Meshullam,
prophetess (spokeswoman of the "Lord")
Shemaiah Shemaiah
Jozabad Jozabad
Jeiel Jeiel
Joah son of Zimmah ("wicked")
Joah son of Asaph, recorder Joah son of "wicked" Jo-Ahaz (King Ahaz)/
Imnah?
Obed, prophet (reign of Ahaz), Abde-el, Tabeel Obadiah
For a more recent Judith and Huldah connection, see my article of that title:
Judith and Huldah
(DOC) Judith and Huldah | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu
