Isaiah 49 · a question people ask
"You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified" (49:3). Who is the servant of 49:1-6?
First, what the chapter says. A voice says me: "the LORD has called me from the womb" (49:1). He tells what the LORD said to him: "You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified" (49:3) (tap servant). He says that the LORD, "he who formed me from the womb to be his servant, says to bring Jacob again to him, and to gather Israel to him" (49:5), and that the LORD says, "It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel. I will also give you as a light to the nations, that you may be my salvation to the end of the earth" (49:6). So the servant is named Israel (49:3), and is sent to bring Jacob back and to the nations (49:5-6). Before chapter 41 the LORD says my servant of Isaiah (20:3), Eliakim (22:20) and David (37:35). From chapter 41 he speaks again and again to Israel as his servant (41:8), and other passages speak of a servant the verse doesn't name (42:1). The New Testament gives words close to 49:6 more than once. Paul and Barnabas say, "For so has the Lord commanded us, saying, ‘I have set you as a light for the Gentiles, that you should bring salvation to the uttermost parts of the earth.’" (Acts 13:47). Simeon, holding the child Jesus (Luke 2:27-28), says, "a light for revelation to the nations, and the glory of your people Israel" (Luke 2:32). And Paul says he speaks "nothing but what the prophets and Moses said would happen" (Acts 26:22), "how the Christ must suffer, and how, by the resurrection of the dead, he would be first to proclaim light both to these people and to the Gentiles" (Acts 26:23). None of these names Isaiah, and the WEB words each differently from 49:6. Christians read the servant of these chapters in two main ways, each resting on its verses, and these notes don't choose between them. Both agree that the New Testament applies 42:1-4 and 52:13-53:12 to Jesus (Matthew 12:17-21; Acts 8:32-35), and that the servant of 49:5-6 is sent to Israel and to the nations.
How Christians read it
Where Christians differ, Favor sets out the main views side by side and doesn't pick one.
One person, named Israel
Those who read it this way take the servant as one person, who says, "the LORD has called me from the womb; from the inside of my mother, he has mentioned my name" (49:1). He is named "Israel" (49:3), yet the LORD sends him "to bring Jacob again to him, and to gather Israel to him" (49:5), and "to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel" (49:6), and gives him "as a light to the nations" (49:6). On this reading he is one servant sent to the people, and they read him as the one the New Testament finds in Jesus. Matthew gives the words of 42:1-4 of Jesus, "that it might be fulfilled which was spoken through Isaiah the prophet" (Matthew 12:17), and from the words of 53:7-8 Philip "preached to him about Jesus" (Acts 8:35). They hear the servant's light in Simeon's words over the child Jesus (Luke 2:32) and in Paul's words of the Christ (Acts 26:23). On this reading, 49:3 gives the name Israel to that one servant.
Isaiah 49:1 · Isaiah 49:3 · Isaiah 49:5-6 · Matthew 12:17-21 · Acts 8:32-35 · Luke 2:32 · Acts 26:23
Israel the people, the calling kept in Jesus
Those who read it this way note that in the chapters before, the servant is named Israel and Jacob again and again: "But you, Israel, my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen" (41:8), "Yet listen now, Jacob my servant, and Israel, whom I have chosen" (44:1), "for you are my servant" (44:21), "For Jacob my servant’s sake, and Israel my chosen" (45:4), and "The LORD has redeemed his servant Jacob!" (48:20). And 49:3 names him the same way: "You are my servant, Israel" (49:3). They read the servant as Israel the people, called to be a light to the nations: "as a light for the nations" (42:6), and "I will also give you as a light to the nations" (49:6). On this reading, that calling is one the New Testament finds kept in Jesus, "a light for revelation to the nations, and the glory of your people Israel" (Luke 2:32), who "would be first to proclaim light both to these people and to the Gentiles" (Acts 26:23), and shared by his followers: Paul and Barnabas give words close to 49:6 as the Lord's command to them, "For so has the Lord commanded us" (Acts 13:47).
Isaiah 41:8 · Isaiah 44:1 · Isaiah 44:21 · Isaiah 45:4 · Isaiah 48:20 · Isaiah 49:3 · Isaiah 42:6 · Isaiah 49:6 · Luke 2:32 · Acts 26:23 · Acts 13:46-47
The verses
“The LORD said, “As my servant Isaiah has walked naked and barefoot three years for a sign and a wonder concerning Egypt and concerning Ethiopia,”
“It will happen in that day that I will call my servant Eliakim the son of Hilkiah,”
“‘For I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake, and for my servant David’s sake.’””
““But you, Israel, my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the offspring of Abraham my friend,”