Isaiah's Servant Songs

Notes

From Through the Bible Through the Year by John Stott, p. 139

“The second part of Isaiah contains four so-called Servant Songs, although there has been much debate about the servant’s identity. Some see him as an individual like Isaiah himself or Jeremiah, while others understand him as a collective portrait of Israel or of the godly remnant within Israel. But the New Testament sees the Servant Songs as fulfilled in Jesus. In his early sermons, recorded in the Acts, Peter four times spoke of Jesus as “the servant”; Paul wrote that he took “the very nature of a servant” (Phil. 2:7); and there are many quotations of, and allusions to, Isaiah 42 to 53 in the teaching of Jesus himself.”

In the first song (42:1-4) the servant is portrayed as a teacher, teaching in a spirit of gentleness, endued with the Spirit, and reaching out to the nations.

In the second song (49:1-6) the servant is portrayed as an evangelist.

In the third song (50:4-9) the servant is portrayed as a disciple.

In the fourth song (52:13-53:12) the servant is portrayed as a sufferer.

“It is truly extraordinary that eight specific verses of Isaiah 53 are quoted by New Testament writers, in some cases several times. No wonder that Philip, when the Ethiopian asked to whom Isaiah 53:7-8 referred, “began. with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus” (Acts 8:35).”