God's Servant, The Solution To Stubbornness And Rebellion (Isaiah 49:1-6) Series

However, my judgment [is] with Yahweh,

while my compensation [is] with my God/Elohim,"

(5) and now He has said-- Yahweh, The One forming me from the womb as a servant for him--

to return Jacob to himself,

while Israel to himself would be gathered,

that I would be honored/"heavied" in the eyes of Yahweh,

while my God has become my strength--

(6) He has said,

"Too light/trivial it is for you to be for me a servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob,

while the preserved ones of Israel to bring back,

and I hereby give you as a light to the nations, [the qatal is a performative speech act?]

to become my salvation/victory to the end of the earth.

The thing that trips up many scholars here, is how to relate verse 3 with verse 6. That's the puzzle piece that's hard to figure out, but that needs to be figured out if all of the servant language in these chapters is supposed to make sense.

In verse 3, God, says to "me," "You are my servant." God then identifies the servant as "Israel." Do you see that?

Based on just this verse, you'd probably decide that the "I" of these verses is Israel. Right? Throughout these chapters, God's servant has been clearly identified as Israel, and the most straightforward reading of this verse in isolation, is to say that continues. I put many of these references in your translation-- you should check them later. But God's servant has consistently identified as Israel throughout these chapters.

But then, as we keep reading, we come to verse 6. And here, God says He is "now" (verse 5) commissioning his servant not just for Jacob-Israel, but also to be a light to the nations, to somehow become God's salvation to the end of the earth.

So on the one hand, the servant is called Israel. And on the other hand, the servant is commissioned to Israel (and the nations).

That's quite the puzzle. How can the servant be called Israel, and at the same time, have a mission to Israel?

The only solution that I think really works, is to say that the servant is God's exilic prophet.

What does it mean that God calls his prophet "his servant Israel"?

We saw, throughout Isaiah 40-48, that Israel as God's people failed to be the kind of servant God desired. He was looking for a people who were committed to him, and who trusted him. He wanted his people to establish justice on earth through teaching (Isaiah 42:4) them about God and what God wants. He wanted his people to turn the nations from blindness, and darkness, to sight (Isaiah 42:7). But everything fell apart. Israel was better at being a Jacob, than at being an Israel (*John Goldingay).

And so what God is doing, in calling his prophet "his servant Israel," is declaring to the prophet that the prophet is the one who will fulfill Israel's calling (John Goldingay, The Message of Isaiah 40-55, pg. 369).

Now, this doesn't mean that the prophet has become Israel, exclusively. This isn't "replacement theology," as