Isaiah 44 · a question people ask
Who is "my servant" in this chapter?
The chapter names him. "Yet listen now, Jacob my servant, and Israel, whom I have chosen" (44:1). "Don’t be afraid, Jacob my servant" (44:2). "Remember these things, Jacob and Israel, for you are my servant. I have formed you. You are my servant" (44:21). In this chapter, then, the servant is Jacob and Israel, called Jeshurun too (44:2) (tap Jeshurun). Near the end the LORD "confirms the word of his servant, and performs the counsel of his messengers" (44:26), and that verse doesn't say who the servant is. Later chapters of Isaiah speak of the LORD's servant again, and the chapter on Isaiah 49 sets out how Christians read those passages. These notes read 44:1-2 and 44:21 in their own chapter and don't set them beside those passages.
The verses
“Yet listen now, Jacob my servant, and Israel, whom I have chosen. This is what the LORD who made you, and formed you from the womb, who will help you says: “Don’t be afraid, Jacob my servant; and you, Jeshurun, whom I have chosen.”
“Remember these things, Jacob and Israel, for you are my servant. I have formed you. You are my servant. Israel, you will not be forgotten by me.”
“who confirms the word of his servant, and performs the counsel of his messengers; who says of Jerusalem, ‘She will be inhabited;’ and of the cities of Judah, ‘They will be built,’ and ‘I will raise up its waste places;’”