Saturday, August 5, 2023

Caleb Gundlach: The Death of the Servant in Isaiah 53:10 is a sacrifice

  

Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul and offering for sin (HEB: ‎אָשָׁם; LXX: περι αμαρτιας), he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. (Isa 53:10)


Now, however, a qualification must be made: while this may be the case for Isaiah 53, it is definitely not the case for the context of the fourth servant song. To the extent that the meaning of Isaiah 53 depends on its coming after Isaiah 52, it is simply not possible, taking into account the immediate frame of reference where issues of cultic purity are the central concern, to read of the servant’s being led to slaughter (53.7) and of his being an ‘offering’ for sin without reference to the priestly cult in Jerusalem. On account of the placement of the fourth servant song, issues of cultic purity are the primary context of the servant’s work resulting in a dramatic continuation of themes in the fourth servant song. Following the suggestion of Seitz and Leene, the placement of the fourth servant song after 52.11-12 can be understood to answer a specific question, namely, how Jerusalem and the returning exiles will be cleansed.

 

At the same time, this chapter earlier introduced the appendix-like character of the fourth servant song and the literary problems it raises. Bolstering one’s sense of this appendix-like quality is the editorial gloss, 49.7, a text which on several accounts is from the same hand that composed the fourth servant song. One notes for example that in both 49.7 and 53.3 the servant the servant is initially described as ‘one despised’ (בזה) before his vindication. On the relationship of 49.7 to the fourth servant song, Childs writes, ‘It follows the same pattern of the servant’s humiliation and abuse, his ultimate recognition by kings and rulers, and his final vindication by God. (Childs, Isaiah, p. 386)

 

Albertz concludes that the placement of 49.7 must have occurred after Isaiah 40-52 was already composed. (Albertz, Israel in Exile, p. 393 n. 765) In addition to its strong connection to the fourth servant song, one notes some literary features including a double introduction (‘thus says the LORD’) in v. 7 and v. 8 as well as a shift from third person speech (49.7) to first person speech (v. 8). Because the fourth servant song is so closely related to this editorial gloss (49.7) it adds to the likelihood that the fourth servant song was also composed as a supplementary appendix to the complete composition of 40.1-52.12. In the case of 49.7, the purpose of its placement is to reinterpret the work of the servant. Namely, it depicts the servant fulfilling his mission as light for the nations amid apparent humiliation and defeat. (Albertz, Israel in Exile, p. 426) This raises the possibility that a similar re-interpretive purpose guides the placement of the fourth servant song after the definite conclusion of 52.7-12.

 

As noted above, the pilgrimage paradigm helps one make sense of the placement of the fourth servant song. Since the context is not primarily new exodus but pilgrimage and the attendant issues of cultic purity, a new perspective becomes possible in which a thematic development occurs between Isaiah 52 and Isaiah 52, depicting the servant as the answer to the question of how Jerusalem and the returning exiles are to be cleansed. The pilgrimage paradigm allows once to see the context of the song in a new light and its thematic relationship to the context.

 

In addition, this new perspective on the context of the fourth servant song (a context in which the issue of cultic purity predominates) helps one reckon with aspects in the fourth servant song that are indicative of a re-interpretive adjustment and editorial supplement. In other words, shifting one’s perspective from a new exodus interpretation of 52.7-12 to a pilgrimage emphasis helps one to grasp the relationship of Isa. 52.7-12 52.13-53.12 in terms of editorial supplement as well as dramatic development.

 

The placement of 52.13-53.12 and its utilization of cultic imagery, however subtle, provides a re-interpretive adjustment to the anticipation of a restored cult at the end of Isa. 52.7-12. It can be read meaningfully as an editorial supplement that reinterprets that context, now adding a provocative use of a sacrificial term. The fourth servant song applies the language of the cult to the prophetic figure. Forgiveness and reconciliation no longer center on the cultus but on the suffering of this figure, whether he stands for an individual prophet or for the prophetic office as a whole. In other words, one encounters in the fourth servant song an affirmed use of sacrificial language that is provocatively applied to the suffering of the prophetic figure, creating some tension with the priestly conception in 52.11. (In taking this direction, I understand אָשָׁם in 53.10 as a cultic metaphor, depending here on the work of Berges. See Jesaja 49-54, pp. 268-69)

 

The question of whether or not the fourth servant song treats the servant’s death as a sacrifice should be answered in the affirmative given the literary context that anticipates the restoration of the cult through the pilgrimage paradigm. On the other hand, signs of a re-interpretive process raise the possibility that a provocative use of a cultic concept occurs here. While Israelite pilgrimage meant sacrifice, (Smith, Pilgrimage Pattern, p. 16) the text in its freedom adapts such a concept as the reader moves from Isaiah 52 to Isaiah 53. By taking the literary context seriously, one concludes that imagery of the cult continues in Isaiah 53. By recognizing the editorial dynamics at work, one also concludes that such imagery is reinterpreted metaphorically in the sense that cultic concepts are here applied to the non-cultic contexts of prophetic obedience and the suffering it entails. (Caleb Gundlach, The Way to Zion in Isaiah 40-55: Beyond New Exodus or Metaphor [Hebrew Bible Monographs 104; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2022], 191-93, italics in original, emphasis in bold added)

 

In a footnote to the above, we read that:


Other similar interpretations are found in Baltzer, Deutero-Isaiah, pp. 38, 421; Berges, ‘The Fourth Servant Song’, pp. 492-93; and ‘Isaiah and Jeremiah’, pp. 255-56. Especially in the case of Baltzer, the positive use of sacrificial language in this new context is for the purpose of rejecting the cult. Cf. Blenkinsopp (‘A Jewish Sect’, pp. 7-11) where the servants in T[rito]I[saiah] are understood as a group living in tension with the cult in the post-exilic period. Pushing the sort of polemic one finds in TI and the D[eutero]I[saiah] chapters depends on firmly dating DI well into the restoration of the temple in Jerusalem. Alternatively, the text may be seen non-polemically as creatively imagining a means of forgiveness and reconciliation before the full restoration of the priestly apparatus.

 

It is not clear to me how one should adjudicate between these reconstructions. What is clear is the element of surprise in the text. Clearly, something unexpected in fact happened that involved suffering and a change of heart among the ‘we’ group. The text underscores some particular occurrence, an event in time and space, that has surprised and bewildered the authors as this comes through in 53.1: ‘who has believed what we have heard?’ It is as though the authors are saying, ‘we were not expecting this’. (Ibid., 193 n. 116)

 

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