Suffering Servant Messiah in the Hebrew Bible?
“O foolish ones, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter then into his glory?”
—Luke 24:25, 26
One view of the Messiah has what is perceived by modern scholars as fewer and less explicit witnesses in the Hebrew Bible, that of the suffering servant. There are several texts in Isaiah which Christians interpreted as showing that the Messiah would suffer, even sometimes as a servant; the most famous one is Isaiah 52:13-53:12; but this position is almost universally and staunchly contested by virtually all secular scholars, and even some Christian ones, despite the explicit application of the passage to Jesus in the New Testament.[1] This view against applying this passage to the Messiah contends that Isaiah 52:13-53 is actually speaking of Israel herself, especially considering that the context of the surrounding passages is the restoration of Israel. Unfortunately, there are simply too many important points to consider for that full debate to be within our scope here. So here are a few points which I believe secular scholarship tends to ignore.
God’s chastisement of the sons of David is made quite explicit, even making him God’s own son who will build a house for God.[2] This language seems to apply well to Solomon, except when was he punished with floggings? I would argue that the writer is, living in the post-exilic period, writing with the various messianic motifs of sons of David found in that history of Samuel and Kings, but also looking forward to some future messiah. Thus, contrary to what many secular scholars contend, we seem to have prophetic language which clearly refers to both the Davidic Messiah and not only suffering, but specifically flogging.
And I will pour out a spirit of grace and supplication on the house of David and those who inhabit Jerusalem, so that, when they look on me whom they have pierced, they will mourn for him, as one who mourns for an only son and bitterly cry over him as one cries over a firstborn.
—Zechariah 12:10
There are a few other passages which are interpreted by Christian apologists as indicated a suffering servant. This one in Zechariah seems to be to be one of the most explicit connections of what I argue is a soteriological literary motif of the rulers of Jerusalem in the narrative of the Torah and the Deuteronomistic history that continues through the histories of the kings, as “shadows” of the coming Messiah, if I may borrow Hebrews’ terminology; I detailed these connection in my previous book by analyzing what I believe are intentionally repeated details for all the rulers of Jerusalem, especially Adoni-Zedek and Absalom.[3] In Zechariah’s understanding of this motif, it associates the house of David with someone (in the first person even) whose side will be pierced, and the mourning for a firstborn, which is at least reminiscent of the account of the death of Absalom. Genesis 3:15 is also used to try to show that the Messiah was expected to be a suffering servant, as the son of woman will experience the serpent’s bruising of his heel, but he will in turn bruise the serpent’s head; what this means is not explained by the author of Genesis, but it certainly seems to fit into the Deuteronomistic soteriology that spans Bible. Psalm 22 obviously refers to David himself, and can only be taken as Messianic if you assume it has a dual nature, which, as we’ve seen, is very much not unprecedented throughout the Bible. And we’ve already mentioned Daniel’s prophetic language that the “prince” would be “cut off”.[4] To fully understand what these authors meant, we’d need to fully appreciate how the biblical authors used historical narrative to couch prophetic messages, both for understanding their own time (especially the post-exilic perspective), and the future, for which they still maintained faith that God will eventually make good on his covenants. I plan to cover this fascinating topic in a later book.
There is yet another modern misconception that should be dispensed with before we go any further in this discussion, as it is probably the biggest evidentiary hurdle that would make any secular scholar shake their head at the apparent ridiculousness of the seemingly anachronistic interpretations of the Hebrew Bible by the earliest Christians that I’m even giving a hearing. I am of course referring to the idea that that one cannot anachronistically apply prophecy to ones own time, centuries later, when the author(s) of Isaiah, for instance, “surely” could not have been writing a prophecy that would not have been fulfilled for hundreds of years, much less one that already had present day application (see below). But I believe the secular scholars, at least in this case, willfully overlook one fact with which they could at least find common ground with the Christians: the Hebrew Bible itself was still looking forward to future fulfillments of prophecies that had not yet been completely fulfilled. Not only that, but even its main overarching narrative, which was arguably their greatest hope and the heart of their religion, was still something they looked forward to, as unfulfilled in their own time. As I’ve amply outlined in this book, and will do even more so in the next book of this series, the story repeated from Genesis to the histories to the latter prophets is a hope that God will give them another Exodus and another redeemer, a Davidic Savior and king. The authors of the New Testament, though they took a quantum leap forward with their mystery revelation, were in this same tradition as the ancient Hebrew prophets. And those ancients did in fact often intend the earlier prophetic hopes to be fulfilled somehow, even hundreds of years after they were first given. One of the best examples of this is the way the redactor/author of the histories in Samuel/Kings applies the hope of Israel, expressed by prophets probably hundreds of years before him, to some future time that is still not realized even in his own time. So let us not approach biblical analysis with any patronizing scoffing, as if the New Testament writers were as shallow as modern preachers trying to anachronistically apply the prophecies of Daniel to 21st century Russia. Those first-century authors were far more sophisticated than that, even if they were in fact applying the most ancient of prophecies to their own time or the near future. For modern secular scholars to ignore the soteriological motifs of the Hebrew Bible is not only evidence of bias, but is also not very scholarly. In fact, it’s outright poor literacy, which is not to be criticized unless its willful ignorance; then it’s of the worst kind. There is almost no chance that any modern scholar will write a book that will be a best seller for hundreds of years, much less that it will change the whole world for thousands of years, so let’s appreciate how the New Testament writers, standing on the shoulders of the ancient prophets, did just that. That, to me, is the what’s so enthralling about the Bible. And if you can’t appreciate that, then what do you think you’re studying it for?
Let’s return to Isaiah. Although we will not settle this debate here, allow me to reiterate that this not merely a matter of properly interpreting, for example, Isaiah 53, a text in isolation. I’ve seen both fundamentalists and unbelieving scholars make the same literalist mistakes of nailing down conclusions based on single passages without taking into account the incredible web of theologies and literature that comprise the Hebrew Bible. I illustrated an example of this in chapter two when considering whether Hosea’s “son called out of Egypt” could refer to the Messiah. And I’ll also argue that the New Testament authors concluding that Isaish spoke of the Messiah as the suffering servant does not preclude them from also believing that Israel herself was also being spoken of, within the same prophetic language. Once again, I’m not taking sides, but I think arguments against Isaiah 53 speaking of the Messiah should fully take into account the mystery that authors like Mark espoused, even following the ancient tradition of the interplay of literary motifs of the Hebrew Bible. So far even the most credentialed biblical scholars that I’ve encountered have not even mentioned the idea of “mystery” in their entire discussion on the topic, or even the overlap of meaning of prophetic language.[5] I’ll further develop the idea of how the biblical writers intentionally used mystery, even sometimes by their own admission, when we get to the greatest mystery of all in the last section of this chapter: how did Jesus become God?
We should also make one more observation that scholars are often keen on pointing out: the way that biblical writers, especially of the New Testament, found mysteries in the Hebrew Bible often were quite outside of the literary context of those passages. This is especially true of the varying prooftexts that contributed to the myriad views of the Messiah that had emerged by the time Jesus came along.[6] But, as we’ve been seeing many examples of, modern methodologies for interpreting texts often lead even very intelligent modern scholars to engage in bad exegesis. To cite just one excellent example examined at more length in chapter 2 above, Matthew 2:15 did not just cherry pick Hosea 11:1 and slap some new meaning on it: there was definitely more to the passage than just God redeeming Israel as a whole. And we’ll see below how the anachronistic imposition of even just the definition of a word such as “hate” leads both modern scholars and preachers to assume that Jesus was not speaking of the Mosaic law in Matthew 5:43.
We should make one more observation about Isaiah 52 and 53 before moving on from the topic of just how much the Hebrew Bible really taught about the Messiah. It does in fact contain a few details that would make you wonder if the apocalyptic author was trying to couch a mystery in the more explicit, obvious context of the passage being about Israel. In 52:8, there is the hope of the return of the Lord’s presence to Zion, something that they had lost as explained in chapter 6 of this book. All the nations would see the Lord’s salvation, in their exodus from exile (10-12). But then beginning in verse 13 the switch is made to the singular “servant.” He would be the one to sprinkle the nations, and kings would shut their mouths because of him. Chapter 53 is an unfortunate man-made break in the passage that continues without interruption in all manuscripts until hundreds of years after Christ (when chapters were added, sometimes in poorly chosen spots). He was despised and rejected by men, and a man of sorrows and grief (53:3). Then Isaiah says something really interesting beginning in verse four. He has borne, not just the sins of the nations, but our griefs, and was pierced for our transgressions. This is not just Israel offering sacrifices for the nations, but someone who becomes a sacrifice, including for Israel herself. “YHVH has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” Some various details are given which the New Testament writers do not fail to play off of, such as that he opened not his mouth before his oppressors, and his grave was made with the rich (7-9). But I think the clincher is in the final verse: Isaiah says that this individual now makes intercession for the transgressors.
For modern scholars to argue that this can’t be about the messiah because it does not use the term, one has to totally ignore how this passage fits in with the soteriology of the Hebrew Bible, with whom it frequently and almost explicitly associates the Davidic Messiah, including in the book of Isaiah itself.
Isaiah is one of the most quoted books of the New Testament and of Christianity because he says so much that is believed to reveal the Messiah. He is even called the Messianic prophet. But there are others. I think that Zechariah especially very artfully crafts similar themes, which are often overlooked in modern studies. And even by the scholars who should know better.
[1] E.g., 52:13 (John 3:14; John 8:28), 52:15 (Romans 15:21), 53:1 (Romans 10:16, John 12:38), 53:5,6 (1 Peter 2:24, 25), 53:7-8 (Acts 8:32-33), 53:9 (1 Peter 2:22), and 53:12 (Luke 22:37).
[2] E.g., 2 Samuel 7:12-15.
[3] I didn’t recant everything I said in my earlier book, I guess. See Bible Proofs God’s Way, ch. 9, pp. 231-232.
[4] 9:26
[5] E.g., See Bart Ehrman’s blog post “Does Isaiah 53 Predict Jesus’ Suffering and Death or Has Isaiah 53 Been Debunked?”
[6] See Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible, “Messiah”, (2000) p.889.