Post by cgpb on May 5, 2014 5:09:08 GMT -8
Many Jews do not believe that Yeshua fulfilled the prophecies of Isaiah 53. I was intending on creating a post on the problems Jewish objections to Isaiah 53 pose, however that would inevitably create a long thread, so I have decided to create a separate thread for each individual objection. If you agree with any of these, I encourage you to share freely with your Jewish brothers and sisters.
1st Objection – The Servant of the Lord in Isaiah 53 refers to the nation of Israel.
Jews often claim that the servant of the Lord in Isaiah 53 refers to the nation of Israel. In an attempt to justify their argument they say that one needs to read from Isaiah chapters 41 through to 53-54 to see that the word “servant” (which occurs 19 times), is expressed through phrases like “But you, O Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen....You are my servant…” “For the sake of Jacob my servant”, etc…. Thus they “reason” that the suffering servant in chapter 53 is none other than the nation of Israel.
Throughout the Old Testament, “servant “ doesn’t always exclusively refer to Israel as a nation.
It occurs in the following instances.
i. When the Lord is speaking through His prophets about His servant – whether that servant be Israel as a nation or an individual “But now listen, Jacob, my servant, Israel, whom I have chosen. (Isaiah 44:1)
“Go and tell my servant David, ‘This is what the LORD says: Are you the one to build me a house to dwell in? (2 Sam 7:5)
Even the pagan King Nebuchadnezzar is called God’s servant in Jer. 25:9, though here it is not used in the context of a “worshipper” but an “agent of God’s judgment." “ I will summon all the peoples of the north and my servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon,” declares the LORD,….”
ii. When an individual is speaking to God . E.g “Now, our God, hear the prayers and petitions of your servant..” (Dan. 9:17)
iii. When the context is clearly understood to mean a household servant – “Leah’s servant Zilpah bore Jacob a son.” (Gen. 30:10)
Since the Lord is speaking through His prophet in Isaiah 53, we shall only examine the first instance.
Throughout all the Old Testament, when God is speaking and wishes to refer to the nation of Israel as His servant, He will always specify by attaching the word Israel or Jacob in the sentence. For example “But now listen, O Jacob, my servant, Israel. (Isaiah 44:1). Likewise when God is speaking and wishes to refer to an individual as His servant, again He will always specify by attaching the individuals name. For example “…and my servant David will be prince among them. I the LORD have spoken. (Ezekiel 34:24)
If no specified name is attached to the word servant, it is because (a) an individual is speaking rather than God speaking, “Now, our God, hear the prayers and petitions of your servant.” (Dan. 9:17) (b) the context is clearly understood to mean a household servant. For example “Then Samuel brought Saul and his servant into the hall…” (1 Sam. 9:22) and (c) God is using a metaphor for judgment or rebuke. For example “But now the LORD says: “Within three years, as a servant bound by contract would count them, Moab’s splendor and all her many people will be despised, and her survivors will be very few and feeble.”(Isaiah 16:14, 21:16, 24:2, 42:19)
One just has to look up the word servant in a concordance to see the truth of this.
Now the book of Isaiah is very interesting because it is the only book in all the Old Testament where in certain verses God is speaking about His servant, but unlike the rest of the Old Testament, doesn’t attach any name before or after the word servant - not Israel /Jacob or any individual’s name but only says “my servant”. This occurs only in the book of Isaiah, namely in chapters 42:1, 43:10, 49:6, 49:7, 52:13, 53:11.
These verses cannot be referring to Israel as a nation because they pose a few problems. Firstly, as we have already seen, God always specifies the name Israel /Jacob if He means to refer to Israel as a nation as His servant and secondly there are key phrases in these verses showing they cannot refer to Israel solely as a nation.
42:1 – “he will bring justice to the nations”. When has Israel as a nation brought justice to the nations?
43:10 –“You are my witnesses” – Why Witnesses in the plural if referring to one nation?
49:6 – "to restore the tribes of Jacob"- When has Israel as a nation restored the tribes of Jacob? Only Judah and Benjamin survived.
49:7 - “to him who was despised and abhorred by the nation (singular) –Is the nation of Israel despising itself as a nation?
52:13 - "my servant will act wisely , he will be lifted up" – If Israel as a nation had acted wisely they wouldn’t have come under God’s judgment throughout history according to the Covenant promises of Deuteronomy 28, therefore Israel was not lifted up – historically the reverse has happened.
53:11 – "he will justify many" – When has Israel as a nation justified many?
We therefore conclude that the “My Servant” passages in Isaiah are Messianic and are not referring to Israel as a nation but to an individual within the nation of Israel (who represents Israel) and who will bring about Israel’s deliverance and restoration.
In light of what has been revealed here, the question then becomes “who is this servant?” because as seen throughout the OT, God always specifies Israel / Jacob when addressing the nation as His servant and specifies an individual’s name when wishing to address an individual as His servant.
“My” is the possessive form of “I” meaning “of me” or “belonging to me”.
Could this be God’s mysterious way of saying or showing us that the “my” in “my servant” is “Me” – a God and not a nation or a person who will bring the above to fulfillment?
A further note: Further confirmation of the predictive nature of Isaiah 53 is that it was common for Jewish interpreters before the time of Jesus Christ to teach that here Isaiah spoke of the Jewish Messiah (see S.R. Driver, et al., trans., The Fifty –Third Chapter of Isaiah According to Jewish Interpreters 1876)
-read online at archive.org/details/fiftythirdchapte02neub
Only after early Christians began using the text apologetically with great force did it become in rabbinical teaching an expression of the suffering Jewish nation. This view is implausible in the context of Isaiah’s standard references to the Jewish people in the first-person plural (“our” or “we”) whereas in Isaiah 53 he always refers to the Messiah in the third – person singular (“he”, ‘his” and ‘him’). The idea that Judaism has always understood Isaiah 53 with reference to the nation of Israel is false. This view became fixed only about 1.000 years ago.
Another reason why Isaiah 53 cannot refer to the nation of Israel is because if the nation of Israel had been righteous as a nation, it wouldn’t have suffered the Covenant Curses of Deuteronomy 28 like exile and divine judgment . The Bible is very clear that Israel was guilty and suffered as a result of her own sins. But we see that the servant of the Lord in Isaiah 53 is not guilty and yet He is suffering terrible things at the hands of others.
In an attempt to refute this argument, Jews point to Psalm 44:17-22, falsely interpreting the Psalm to mean that Israel was righteous and yet suffered these things. The problem with this argument is that it contradicts Old Testament Jewish history subject to the 
blessings and curses of Deut. 28.
Psalm 44 is clearly referring to the prayer of the righteous remnant on behalf of the nation.
Isaiah 53 also cannot refer to the righteous remnant within the nation of Israel because then it would have to mean that “by the sufferings of the righteous remnant of Israel we are healed. “(Isaiah 53:5). The problem is that this has never happened. Assyria and Babylon were never healed because of the sufferings of the righteous remnant, in fact these nations don’t even exist anymore. Spain wasn’t healed after the Inquisition because of the righteous remnant sufferings' and neither was Germany after the holocaust.
It is the sufferings of Messiah that bring healing to those who recognize what He has done and trust in God.
