Studies on the Second Part of the Book of Isaiah

270 Pages·1977·29.01 MB·English

by  Harry M. Orlinsky

STUDIES ON THE SECOND PART
OF THE BOOK OF ISAIAH
SUPPLE M ENT S
TO
VETUS TESTAMENTUM
EDITED BY
THE BOARD OF THE QUARTERLY
G. W. ANDERSON - P. A. H. DE BOER - G. R. CASTELLINO
HENRY CAZELLES - E. HAMMERSHAIMB - H. G. MAY
w. ZIMMERLI
VOLUME XIV
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LEIDEN
J.
E. BRILL
1967
STUDIES ON THE SECOND PART
OF THE BOOK OF ISAIAH
THE SO-CALLED "SERVANT OF THE LORD"
AND "SUFFERING SERVANT"
IN SECOND ISAIAH
BY
HARRY M. ORLINSKY
ISAIAH 40-66
A STUDY OF THE TEACHING OF THE
SECOND ISAIAH AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
BY
NORMAN H. SNAITH
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LEIDEN
J.
E. BRILL
1967
Copyright 1967 by E. ,. Brill, Leiden, Netherlands
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced
or translated in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm or
any other means without written permission from the publisher
PRINTED IN THE NETHERLANDS
THE SO-CALLED "SERVANT OF THE LORD"
AND "SUFFERING SERVANT" IN SECOND ISAIAH
BY
HARRY M. ORLINSKY
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introductory Statement . . . . . . . . . . 3
I. The Biblical Term "Servant" in relation to the Lord 7
II. The So-Called "Servant of the Lord" Sections in Second
Isaiah . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
III. The So-Called "Suffering Servant" and "Vicarious Sufferer"
in Isaiah 53. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
A Do Isa. 52.13-15 and 53.1-12 Really Constitute a Single
Unit, with but One Servant Involved? . . . . . . . 17
B Is the Subject of Isa. 53 an Individual Person or the
People Israel? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
C Vicarious Suffering in Isa. 53 - a Theological and
Scholarly Fiction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
D The "Suffering Servant" in Isa. 53-a Theological and
Scholarly Fiction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
E Some Alleged Ancient Near Eastern Parallels to Isa. 53 63
F The Christian Origin of "Suffering Servant" and
"Servant of the Lord" as Technical Terms. 66
IV. The Identity of the "Servant" in Second Isaiah 75
A 42.1 ff. 75
B 49.1-6. 79
C 50.4-9. 89
D 53.1-12 92
Appendix: "A Light of Nations" and "A Covenant of People" 97
Conclusions . 118
Bibliography. . . . . . . . . . . 119
Index of Biblical and other References . 125
Index of Authors and Subjects . . . . 128
INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT
"The Servant of the Lord" (;":1' i:!:s7) has long been a technical
term used universally by biblical scholars to designate the "Servant"
mentioned or implied in four major sections in Second Isaiah:
42.1 ff.; 49.1 ff.; 50.4 ff.; and 52.13-53.12.
There are a number of biblical concepts that are of prime im
portance to the modern student of the Bible but which, it would seem
to me, were actually non-existent, or were only of the slightest
significance, in biblical times, when the inhabitants of the land of
Israel were in the process of creating what later became Sacred
Scripture. Among these, apparently only alleged!J biblical concepts
are the existence of a "soul" (the traditional, but incorrect translation
of Hebrew nifesh), the "virginal" character of the (almdh in Isaiah 7.14,
the prophets' hostile attitude toward sacrifice in the worship of the
Lord, the international outlook of the biblical writers (including, or
especially, the prophets)-and the "Servant of the Lord" in Second
Isaiah, above all, the "Servant" in 52.13-53.12, as the "Suffering
Servant" par excellence, who, innocent of sin, suffered vicariously in
order that others, guilty of sin and hence deserving of punishment,
might thereby be atoned for and spared the punishment.
For history is full of the commentary, and supercommentary, of
eisegesis grafted upon the original exegesis which differed from it
altogether; but it is one of the primary tasks of the historian to remove
the layers and crust of subsequent explanation and distortion, to
reveal the authentic statement set forth by the original author.
This is not a task easily accomplished, and there is little reason to
believe that the immediate future will see real advance in this direction.
J.
Already three decades ago HENRY CADBURY delivered a courageous
ly forthright and pertinent Presidential Address to the Society of
Biblical Literature on "Motives of Biblical Scholarship" (journal of
Biblical Literature, 56 [1937], 1-16). In his searching analysis of modern
Bible study, CADBURY noted especially (pp. 10-12) three "besetting
sins of our present procedure: 1. One is an Athenian-like craving for
something new. .. 2. Another bias of our procedure is the over
ready attempt to modernize Bible times. This tendency ...a rises partly
from taking our own mentality as a norm and partly from a desire to
interpret the past for its present values ...T he modernizing is in many
4 H. M. ORLINSKY
cases ...d ue to an even less pardonable defect, the overzealous desire
to utilize our study for practical ends ... 3. A third defect ...a rises
not from a modernizing but from a conservative tendency. When new
conceptions force us from old positions we substitute for the old
positions imitations or subterfuges which are no better supported
than their predecessors but which we hope are less vulnerable ...T he
history of Biblical scholarship is marred by the too fond clinging to
the debris of exploded theories. We are afraid to follow the logic of
our own discoveries and insist that we are retaining the old values
under a new name ..."
In my chapter on "Old Testament Studies" (pp. 51-109) for the
volume on Religion in the series The Princeton Studies: Humanistic
Scholarship in America (Prentice-Hall, 1956), I wrote (in § 7, Biblical
Theology), " .. .It is one thing for a scholar to devote his talents to
the detailed study of the Old Testament in its historical development
during the second and first millennia B.C., or else to specialize in the
study of our own twentieth century society; it is something else
again, however, for the same scholar to attempt scientific conquest of
these two distinct areas of research. Such scholars, as put recently
by someone, 'tend often to mix together scholarship and apolo
getics' ...C learly, until the student of biblical theology learns to deal
with his data as critically as the student of ancient Greek, or Roman,
or Assyrian or Egyptian religion does, he can hardly expect his studies
to achieve, validity in scholarly circles ..." (pp. 77-79); cf. p. vii of
(General Editor) RICHARD SCHLATTER'S "Foreword".
Ever young in spirit, Prof. CADBURY has returned to this central
theme in a recent article on "Gospel Study and Our Image of Early
Christianity" Uournal of Biblical Literature, 83 [1964], 139-145), where
he deplores the fact "that much in our current image of early Chris
tians is reflected from our own traditions and interests, more than from
the early Christian documents themselves," and closes with the
exhortation "to challenge where challenge is needed the image of
early Christianity that is sometimes read into as well as out of [italics
ours] the gospels." Our present essay will have much to say about
"eisegesis" as distinct from "exegesis". In this connection, ERWIN
R. GOODENOUGH'S essay on "The Bible as Product of the Ancient
World" and MORTON S. ENSLIN'S essay on "Biblical Criticism and
its Effect on Modern Civilization"- respectively chapters I (pp. 1-19)
and IV (30-44) in Five Esscrys on the Bible (American Council of Learned
Societies, New York, 1960)-are pertinent reading.
INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT 5
The present study is part of a major work on some biblical concepts
in their historical development, tentatively titled The Hebrew Cove
nant. A much shorter and less technical version of this study, under the
title of The So-Called "Suffering Servant" in Isaiah 53 constituted the
Goldenson Lecture of 1964 (49 pp.), delivered April 22,1964, on the
Cincinnati campus of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of
Religion and published under the terms of the Samuel H. Goldenson
Lectureship established by Temple Emanu-EI of New York City.