A Servant for the Nations and a City Not Forgotten

In 42:1-4 the servant was described by the LORD; here, for the first time, he speaks for himself, and to the far coastlands. “Made mention of my name” from the womb is named before birth, as the LORD tells Jeremiah: “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee” (Jeremiah 1:5).

“Polished shaft” is chets barur, an arrow cleaned and selected, the best one kept back in the quiver. “In the shadow of his hand” returns in 51:16, “I have covered thee in the shadow of mine hand”, said there to Zion. The servant is armed and kept out of sight at the same time.

The word “Israel” is present in the great Isaiah scroll from Qumran and in almost every manuscript; only a single medieval Hebrew copy leaves it out. Whatever the servant’s identity, the text as transmitted calls him by the nation’s name. “Glorified” is the verb of 44:23, the LORD adorning himself.

Three words for emptiness are stacked: riq, emptiness, tohu, nothingness, and hevel, vapour, the word Ecclesiastes uses for “vanity”. The servant’s complaint reverses Jacob’s in 40:27, “my judgment is passed over from my God”: this servant says instead, “my judgment is with the LORD.”

The Hebrew text as written says Israel is “not” gathered, which the King James follows; the reading tradition, differing by one letter, says the servant was formed so that Israel “might be gathered to him”. “Glorious” is nikhbad, made heavy, from the root of glory, a word that matters for the next verse.

“A light thing” is naqel, too slight, too lightweight, the opposite of the heaviness of glory in verse 5. The servant felt his work weightless; the LORD says restoring the tribes alone would be too little to weigh enough. “The tribes of Jacob” had been scattered since Assyria took the north in 722 BC.

“Him whom man despiseth” is bezoh nefesh, despised of soul, and it anticipates 53:3, “He is despised and rejected of men.” “A servant of rulers” means a slave of tyrants. “Kings shall see and arise” looks ahead to 52:15, “the kings shall shut their mouths at him.”

“An acceptable time” is et ratson, a time of favour, the phrase that returns in 61:2, “the acceptable year of the LORD”. Paul quotes this verse in 2 Corinthians 6:2 and adds, “behold, now is the accepted time.” “Cause to inherit the desolate heritages” is a reallotment of land, as Joshua once shared it out.

“Shew yourselves” is higgalu, be uncovered, from galah, a root that also means to go into exile, whence golah, the exile community. The exiles are told to come out into the open. The prisoners become a flock grazing along the roadside, feeding as they travel.

“Guide” is nahel, to lead gently to water, the verb of Psalm 23:2, “he leadeth me beside the still waters”, and of 40:11, “shall gently lead those that are with young.” The shepherd paces the journey from spring to spring.

The mountains are called “my mountains”: the obstacles on the road belong to the LORD and are turned into road. In 40:4 mountains were to be made low; here they themselves become the way. “Exalted” means raised up on an embankment, the built highway lifted above the ground.

Instead of “Sinim”, the Qumran scroll reads “Syenites”, people of Syene, modern Aswan, on Egypt’s southern border. A Jewish military colony lived on the island of Elephantine there in the fifth century BC, and its papyri survive. The travellers come from every edge of the known world.

The line repeats 44:23 almost word for word, “Sing, O ye heavens... break forth into singing, ye mountains.” “Hath comforted” is nicham, the verb of 40:1, “Comfort ye.” What was ordered there is reported here as done. “Afflicted” is aniyyim, the poor, the bowed down.

The pairing of forsaken and forgotten is the closing complaint of Lamentations: “Wherefore dost thou forget us for ever, and forsake us so long time?” (Lamentations 5:20). Zion uses both names, the LORD and “my Lord”, Adonai, as though appealing to a master who has walked away from a servant.

“Have compassion” is merachem, from rechem, womb: the Hebrew word for tender mercy is built on the word for the womb. The comparison is to the most physically bound love there is, a mother with a child still at the breast, and then the LORD goes further than even that.

In 44:5 the worshipper would “subscribe with his hand unto the LORD”, writing the LORD’s name on his own hand. Here the LORD engraves Zion on his palms. “Graven” is chaqaq, to cut in, the verb for inscribing a decree. The walls he sees are the broken ones.

The consonants of “thy children”, banayikh, can also be read bonayikh, “thy builders”, which is how the Qumran scroll and several ancient versions read it. Either way they are set against “thy destroyers”. Builders come in, and wreckers go out.

“As I live” is the oath formula of Numbers 14:21, the LORD swearing by his own life. Jeremiah 2:32 asked, “Can a maid forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire? yet my people have forgotten me.” Here the LORD dresses Zion in her returning children as a bride puts on her sash.

“They that swallowed thee up” echoes Jeremiah 51:34: “Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon hath devoured me... he hath swallowed me up like a dragon.” The land called destruction becomes too cramped for its people, and the one who swallowed it is far away.

“The children which thou shalt have, after thou hast lost the other” is literally “the children of your bereavement”, born after the loss. “The place is too strait for me” is what the sons of the prophets said to Elisha when they needed a bigger building (2 Kings 6:1). “Give place” means move over.

“Removing to and fro” is golah vesurah, exiled and set aside, golah being the name for the exile community. “I was left alone” is the complaint of Elijah at Horeb, “I, even I only, am left” (1 Kings 19:10). Zion, like Elijah, was not as alone as she thought.

The “standard” is nes, a banner on a pole raised to summon troops. In 5:26 the LORD lifted an ensign to call Assyria’s armies against Judah; in 11:12 he set up an ensign to gather Israel’s outcasts. Here the nations carry the children on their shoulders, as the idols were carried on shoulders in 46:7.

“Nursing fathers” are omenim, foster fathers or guardians; Mordecai was Esther’s omen (Esther 2:7), and Moses complained that he was not Israel’s nursing father (Numbers 11:12). The Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III shows Jehu king of Israel face down before an Assyrian king. The posture is now reversed.

“Lawful captive” is shevi tsaddiq, a righteous man’s captive, which sits oddly; the Qumran scroll and the ancient versions read “a tyrant’s captive”, matching the “terrible” of verse 25. The question is the common sense of every age: nobody takes plunder back from a strong man.

“Contend” is riv, to bring a lawsuit, the courtroom verb of these chapters. Psalm 35:1 asks the same, “Plead my cause, O LORD, with them that strive with me.” The LORD takes up Zion’s case as her advocate, and the captives are taken back at law and by force together.

“Sweet wine” is asis, new wine fresh from the press, which goes to the head fast (Joel 1:5). “The mighty One of Jacob” is avir ya’aqov, the name Jacob himself gives God in his blessing of Joseph (Genesis 49:24), used in Isaiah only here and in 1:24 and 60:16.