Hi Adam
How do you know Jesus was the Messiah?
Isaiah 53’s “suffering servant” refers to Israel because if you read the context before it then it refers to Israel’s struggle, so it would not make sense to suddenly write about something completely abstract in the successive verse while the whole book of Isaiah is about the wars between Israel’s tribes. (The tribe of Yahudah and Bejamin that remained in Jerusalem, and the other 10 that scattered. )
Enchanted by Judaism, Cape Town
Israel or Judah?
Around 930 BC, the ten northern tribes of Israel split away from Judah and Benjamin, forming the Kingdom of Israel. Judah and Benjamin maintained Jerusalem as their capital and formed the Kingdom of Judah. When the Assyrians invaded Israel (Northern Kingdom), in 721BC, the ten northern tribes were either taken into exile or assimilated into other people groups, and so were lost. However, Judah and Benjamin were not lost. The Southern Kingdom of Judah was only conquered later. They were exiled by the Babylonians, who allowed them to return to their homeland in 586 BC.
In Isaiah 52, the chapter before the one called the ‘suffering servant’, the prophet speaks clearly about Jerusalem, which was the capital city of Judah, not Israel. So, although the context of the prophecy in Isaiah 53 may be the trouble that the Kingdom of Israel faced when separated from the Kingdom of Judah, the language is clearly also aimed at Jerusalem, the capital of Judah, the city of David, from whom Jesus came (as shown by the genealogies in the gospels).
Judah was originally also ‘Israel’, as Israel was the name God gave Jacob, who was the father of all twelve men after whom the tribes are named. So it is perfectly legitimate to associate prophecy given to Israel with any or all of the twelve tribes, depending on the context.
By the time of Jesus, the Jews that remained in Judea were only those who had come from Judah. So any Messiah, would have to have come from the Kingdom of Judah, as the tribes not based in Judah, with its capital, Jerusalem, had been lost during the exile.
[Sidebar: the Samaritans were an ethnic group comprised of Northern Kingdom Jews who had assimilated with other local peoples, and this is why they were despised by “pure” Jews (those of Judah and Benjamin). Jesus played on this disdain for Samaritans in his parable of the “Good Samaritan”, subverting the societal prejudice by casting the expected villain as the hero.]
Was Jesus the suffering Servant?
To borrow a modern expression, Jesus self-identified as the suffering servant. In Luke’s gospel, Jesus himself quotes Isaiah 53 in reference to himself. “For I tell you that this Scripture must be fulfilled in me: ‘And he was numbered with the transgressors.’ For what is written about me has its fulfilment” (Luke 22:37 ESV).
So it is no surprise that when Philip meets a high official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, reading Isaiah 53 in his chariot, “Philip proceeded to tell him the good news about Jesus, beginning with that Scripture” (Acts 8:26-35 CSB).
In Matthew, Jesus has been healing the sick, and curing many who were demon-possessed. Matthew says, “This was to fulfil what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah: “He took up our infirmities and bore our diseases”” (Matthew 8:17 NIV).
The apostle John writes, “Even after Jesus had performed so many signs in their presence, they still would not believe in him. This was to fulfil the word of Isaiah the prophet: “Lord, who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”” (John 12:37-38 NIV).
The apostle Peter uses Jesus as an example of someone who suffered unjustly, by quoting from Isaiah 53. “Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. He did not commit sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth; when he was insulted, he did not insult in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten but entrusted himself to the one who judges justly” (1 Peter 2:21-23 CSB). He also reminds us of the healing found in Jesus, “By his wounds you have been healed.” (1 Peter 2:24 CSB). And talks about how we all stray, “For you were like sheep going astray, but you have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls” (1 Peter 2:25 CSB). Each of these passages quotes Isaiah 53.
The apostle Paul, writing to the Romans, quotes Isaiah 52 and 53 in talking about the gospel of Jesus Christ (Romans 10:15-17).
The early Christians certainly believed Jesus was the Suffering Servant. And Jesus believed he was too.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Adam is an Englishman living abroad, who knows this earth is not his home. Married with two children and a leader in his local church, Adam is a musician, artist, writer and teacher.
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I Mean No Disrespect 