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What will the spiritual environment of the U.S. look like in the coming year? How will the world be different now that there is a new, African-American President sitting in the oval office? A man who has claimed that our country will see change: financially, diplomatically and even spiritually. Aside from your political allegiances (or lack thereof), you may be wondering the same thing. Let’s talk about the book—the Bible—the President-elect will place his hand on when he is sworn in, and what the voices of the ancient prophets, recorded in that book, tell us about this historic day.
Even though prophecy rarely (if ever) foretold today’s events (it was usually about the events in the prophet’s era), it can help us understand our world because God, our needs, and human nature in general, are the same. Through reading prophecy, we learn to speak with our own prophetic voice, and speak true spiritual change into our generation. Change just at the economic or diplomatic level will never be enough. This is the prophetic message: We must all change who we are to be more like God. 10 Yet Yahweh was pleased to crush him; he afflicted [him] (with sickness). When she makes his life a guilt offering, he will see offspring, he will prolong days and the will of Yahweh will succeed in his hand. 11 From the trouble of his life he will see. He will be satisfied by his knowledge. My righteous servant shall make many righteous and he will bear their iniquities.Please drop a comment if you are interested in discussing this passage in light of Isaiah 40–56—my plan is to start blogging on Isaiah 40–56 almost daily—the more people who tell me they are interested, the more likely I am to post everyday. Furthermore, if you have any insights on the passage, please feel free to dialogue with others, as well as me, right here. Let your voice be heard. Your words have the power to change. |
Comments
The servant songs of Isaiah are like water in the desert, bread to the starving, soothing salve to wounded flesh. Preach it, brother. It is sweet and nourishing, yet there is a challenging, disturbing bitter after taste, especially the suffering servant pictures. I want to be among those buying wine and milk without money and without price, to stop spending my money for that which is not bread and my labor for that which does not satisfy. Let us incline our ears and hear, that our souls may live.
My heart weeps at the sight of my Redeemer, pictured as crushed, made a guilt offering for my sin. Paradoxically, the act of dying (being made a guilt offering) seems to be linked to the future "seeing his offspring" and "prolonging his days". It would seem that this prophecy is fulfilled in Christ's atoning death making possible many individuals becoming children of God (thus also his children-offspring), also linked to his transcendant eternity "prolong his days." It is interesting that becoming the guilt offering, and later "pouring out his soul to death" seem to be causally linked to having his days prolonged, having a share of the portion of the great and dividing the spoil of the strong. This gets a little deep theologically if we interpret this as messianic (which we do). Is Christ's greatness, and even his eternal nature, a result of being willing (and following through with the action) to endure suffering and death?
I have heard that Judaism interprets the subject of this passage to be the nation of Israel, so it might be that their captivity in Babylon was being made a guilt offering for their sin of turning to other gods (as well as the associated moral depravity, oppression of the poor, murder, child sacrifice, etc.) and returning to Canaan and being re-established as a nation and growing prosperous and numerous once more might fulfill the ideas of seeing offspring and prolonging the days of the nation. I'm not sure how they would deal with verse 11 and 12, seeming to pretty explicitly describe atonement. It would seem to me that there is a difficulty also with the idea of being your own guilt offering--not a concept I see anywhere else (although I'm certainly not an Old Testament scholar). As a matter of fact, it seems that there is a verse in Psalms saying that it is impossible to ransom your own life.
I am eager to know what your thinking is about how this prophecy related to the prophet's own time. It seems to speak to Jesus' time centuries later and to my heart two and a half millenia later.
I do have a couple technical questions:1. your choice of the Masoretic text, now that there are others to choose from, since the discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls, 2. the gender of the pronoun "when she makes his life an offering"
Hi Doc,
Thanks for your insightful comments. I will present my view in forthcoming posts, starting with Isaiah 40, working forward. But for now, let me answer your two technical questions:
(1) I begin with the Masoretic Text because it is the traditional text most translations base their work on, most textual critics (people who compare different manuscript traditions of the Bible) begin with, plus the primary text used in the church and synagogue today. In a future post, I will argue for a Dead Sea Scrolls variant in Isa 53:11, as well as discuss all the other textual variants from the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament), and the Dead Sea Scrolls. In other words, in spite of my reasoning above, I will treat all three textual traditions equally.
(2) The pronoun "she" is actually part of the verb in Hebrew. (Hebrew includes the gender of the one taking action in the verb). This particular verbal form in Hebrew can be read as a second masculine singular ("when you make his life an offering") or a third feminine singular ("when she makes his life an offering"). Usually, we can tell whether or not a verb that uses this particular form should be read as a second masculine singular or a third feminine singular, but in this instance it is ambiguous. However, I think I have discovered something in earlier chapters that suggests it should be read as a third feminine singular, plus understanding the verb as a second masculine singular presents quite the interpretative conundrum. I will explain this in a later post.
--John
Thanks for your clarification. We used Arabic while working in Yemen and they have gender specific verb forms as well, with the feminine form sometimes indicating a plural masculine. (Is this characteristic of Semitic languages in general?).
I know you have promised to explain this in a future post, but do you think this feminine (implied) subject is wisdom?
doc
Hi Doc,
The reduplication of particular verbal forms is quite common in Semitic languages. There are also some consistencies about which ones reduplicate. For example, in both Hebrew, Aramaic and Syriac the third feminine singular and second masculine singular are identical forms.
No, I do not think the feminine is wisdom -- I think it is Zion, who is always characterized by the third feminine in Isaiah 40-56.
--John
My apologies to all of my regular readers for not blogging regularly on this topic like I said I would (especially Doc) -- I hope to do so shortly. I am afraid life has been a little more busy recently than I expected it to be. Thanks for your understanding.
--John
I am going to return to writing on this subject at a later date.
For now, we will continue on our original subject of discussing the infinite in everything.
--John
Update: I ended up starting a separate blog about prophecy in Isaiah instead. Check it out here: http://www.resurrectedservant.com
--John