Suffering Servant

The Suffering Servant in Isaiah suffered, died and rose again in the same way Jesus did some 700 years later. Jesus' suffering for our sins was foreseen in the book of Isaiah through the Suffering Servant.

The Suffering Servant is a figure who appears in Isaiah 40-55.

The passages which refer to the Suffering Servant are better known as
the Servant Songs. These servant songs were written in a more poetic format
and were believed to have had different author all together. In 1892,
B. Duhm isolated these poems and defined them as the following passages:
Is 42: 1-4, 49:1-6, 50:4-9, and 52:12-53:13.

In verse 42: 1-4, Yahweh speaks to the servant telling servant his mission
is to bring forth judgment and righteousness into the world.

In verse 49:1-6, The servant describes how difficult his mission is to
gather the people of Israel and be a light and savior to the Earth

In verse 50:4-9, The servant tells of his mission as a teacher, he
describes his opposition to this mission, and he assures that he will
succeed in his mission.

In verses 52:12-53:13, The servant suffers and dies most likely by
execution. His death is strange because the servant is innocent. The
mystery of his death is then revealed through his resurrection.

Image from: biblia.com

The amazing mystery of these servant songs is that they were basically a summary of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection, written more than 700 years before Jesus was even born. If Jesus' life were a movie, then the servant songs of Isaiah would be the perfect trailer, even though it gives away the ending. Contrary to Jewish belief, Christian scholars say that there is no way that the suffering servant refers to the nation of Israel, because Israel is never described as sinless whereas Jesus always is. Also these writings about the Suffering Servant were extremely accurate. For an example, Isaiah 53:10-11 says this:

This passage clearly describes Jesus' suffering for our sins, his death, and his resurrection. One of the main focuses of the gospel of Mark was the fulfillment of scriptures. It is safe to say that the songs about Isaiah's Suffering Servant were part of the scripture that was fulfilled.

Judaism has a different perspective on what the Suffering Servant is. Jewish scholars describe the Suffering Servant as a personified version of the nation of Israel. According to the Servant songs in Isaiah, the Jewish people were fated to survive many historical sufferings. Till finally one day they would once again attain peace, hope, and happiness. In Isaiah 53:8, when the Suffering Servant was "cut off out of the land of the living," this describes the exile that the Jews faced during the Babylonian Exile. The "land of the living" simply means the land of Israel in this context. Scholars believe that the suffering that Israel faces was inflicted upon them by God and was a result of the people's sins. One of those major sins that was practiced around the time of Isaiah was idolatry. Contrary to the previously mentioned Christian belief, some Jewish scholars will say that Jesus sinned, and because of this he could not be the Suffering Servant.