God's Servant, The Justice-Bringer (Isaiah 42:1-9) Series

This is going to be a pretty ambitious sermon today, so let's dive right in. Isaiah 42:1:

(1) LOOK! My servant, [Isaiah 41:8, 9; 34:10; 44:1, 2; 45:4], I am upholding him, [Isaiah 41:10]

my chosen one [Isaiah 41:8, 9; 43:10; 44:1, 2; 45:4], my soul/inner being has delighted in [or: "shown favor toward"].

I have placed my spirit upon him; [Isaiah 44:3; 48:16; 59:21; 61:1]

justice/judgment for the nations/Gentiles he will produce/bring forth [Isaiah 51:4].

In our passage today, the prophet opens up a new section by inviting his audience to look, and see someone. This someone, is Yahweh's servant.

Now, when you crack open the commentaries, you see a lot of debate about who this servant is, and how this servant relates to the other mentions of "servant" in Isaiah 40-55.

A very famous OT scholar, Bernard Duhm, isolated out four sections of these chapters that describe the servant (in 1892, I think). He called them the "servant songs," and argued that these songs weren't written by Isaiah, or Second Isaiah, but by some other unknown person. And that designation, "servant song," has stuck for well over a hundred years. People debate the outer edges of some of the "songs," but classically, the four are Isaiah 42:1-4, 49:1-6, 50:4-9, and 52:13-53:12. If you crack the commentaries, sometimes you'll see them called "servant poems," but usually, "servant songs." And if you google that, you'll see all kinds of hits. And what Duhm argued, and he's been followed by many (including evangelicals, in a way), is that these four servant songs have nothing to do with the rest of 40-55. If you want to understand these songs, you need to pull them out from the book, separate them, and then read the four together.

Now, more recent scholarship has pushed back pretty hard on parts of this in at least two ways. First, there's nothing in these verses that's more lyrical, or more poetic, or more metaphorical, than anything else we've read. Today's verses, for example, feels much the same in Hebrew as chapters 40 and 41 did. It doesn't feel like all of a sudden, we switched from reading Metallica, to reading Taylor Swift. It all feels the same. So there's no real reason, stylistically, to pull them out and treat them separately.

Second, much of the language in these so-called servant songs is found elsewhere in these chapters, including some key words: servant, chosen one, spirit, justice/judgment, Gentiles. The themes and language are the same. So there's no real reason, linguistically, to pull them out and treat them separately.

Without trying to be super snarky, this is what many scholars have done: they've pulled these sections of Isaiah 40-55 out of their context, set up them up like ducks in a row, in isolation from the chapters, and then said, "These chapters are mysterious, and deliberately open-ended. And specifically, they say, 'It's a huge mistake to ask who the servant is, because that's not the focus of these songs.'"

Just take a second, and reread Isaiah 42:1. Keep these words in mind: "servant," "chosen," "uphold." Now, let's turn back to last week's passage, and read Isaiah 41:8-10. As you look for these words-- and they'll jump out at you-- ask yourself "who" the servant is:

(8) while you-- Israel, my servant,

Jacob, whom I have chosen you,

Offspring/Seed of Abraham, my friend--

whom I have seized/taken hold of/strengthened from the ends of the earth,

while from its edges I have called you,

and I have said to you,

"My servant, you [are] ["my servant" is focused].

I have chosen you,

and I haven't rejected you.

(10) May you not fear,

because with you, I [am]. ["with you" is focused]

May you not be frightened,

because I [am] your God/Elohim.

I will strengthen you (different word, sometimes used in parallel with the first; Isa. 35:3; Job 4:4);

also, I have helped you;

also, I HAVE TAKEN HOLD OF YOU (TAMAK) with the right hand of my righteousness.

It's pretty obvious, right?

Anyone reading/hearing Isaiah was just told that Israel is God's (1) chosen (2) servant, whom God (3) upholds. This is the most straightforward cluster of related words, but if you do a word search, you'll see this language found throughout these chapters outside of the "servant songs," and the language is used consistently for Israel (and I put references in the translation).

So if we read this chapter in context, chapter 42 after chapter 41, we know who the servant is. It's not complicated, or mysterious. The servant is God's people.

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[And this was obvious enough to the translator of the Septuagint, the Greek Old Testament, that this is how he translated the verse (Lexham English Septuagint translation):

42 Jacob is my child, I will help him; Israel is my chosen one, my soul has accepted him. I have given my spirit upon him; he will bring forth judgment upon the nations.