The Servant of Jehovah: His Wondrous Career
E. Johnson Isaiah 52:13-53:3 Behold, my servant shall deal prudently, he shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high.… Behold! A new and remarkable object calls for attention. It is the "Servant of Jehovah." He has been humiliated and rejected, but he is on his way to exaltation and honour. I. HIS FELICITOUS WISDOM. There enters into the idea of the word here used prosperity and good success, as in Joshua 1:8; Jeremiah 10:21. For wisdom, the devout wisdom, the wisdom of duty in obedience to the Divine commands, alone can bring that good success. Compare what is said of the Righteous Branch in Jeremiah 23:5; and see also for the word, 2 Kings 18:7; Proverbs 17:8. Some render the words "shall be intelligent; ' others, "shall be prosperous." The description applies to any who are endued with the Divine Spirit for practical ends. II. HIS EXALTATION. There is a heaping up of verbs denoting exaltation - he shall be high, and lifted up, and lofty exceedingly. The highest pitch of honour, the loftiest possible rank, shall be his, and that in view of the universe. The right hand of God - the subjection of angels and authorities and powers, and every name that is named - are similar images (Mark 16:19; Ephesians 1:20-22; Philippians 2:9; 1 Peter 3:22). If the Servant be not the Messiah, at least very similar language is used of him (Psalm 89:27). The exaltation bears a direct relation to the previous humiliation. The last would become first; the most despised would yet become the most honoured. Having volunteered for the lowest place on behalf of man's good, he would be exalted by the Divine hand to the highest possible. Once men were stupefied as they looked on his disfigured form, hardly bearing the semblance of a man. So did Job's friends stand aghast as they beheld him from a distance in his misery. But there shall be a magnificent contrast. Kings shall yet be dumb for admiration in his presence - owning his superior dignity (Job 29:9; Job 40:4). They will be eye-witnesses of things which had been previously inconceivable (cf. also Micah 8:16; Psalm 147:42; Job 5:16). III. REVELATION IN THIS CONTRAST. The popular heart has everywhere delighted in such contrasts, between princely greatness and lowly guise or disguise. So the Greek Odysseus, on his return, is seen sitting lowly amidst the ashes of his hearth. And the Indians (Lyall, 'Asiatic Studies') relish in the highest degree such representations. We not only love surprise, but we feel that it is a Divine method to work by surprise. "Power keeps quite another road than the turnpikes of choice and will, namely, the subterranean and invisible tunnels and channels of life. Life is a series of surprises. God delights to hide from us the past and the future. 'You will not remember,' he seems to say, 'and you will not expect.' Every man is an impossibility until he is born, everything impossible until we see a success. The ardours of piety agree at last with the coldest scepticism, that nothing is of ourselves or our works - that all is of God. There is nothing at last in success or failure, but more or less of vital force supplied from the Eternal. The results of life are uncalculated and incalculable" (Emerson). IV. HUMAN INCREDULITY ABASHED. HOW few believed the prophecies concerning the Servant! How few had eyes to see "such supramundane sights, when nothing on earth seemed to suggest them"! to discern the arm of Jehovah, that mysterious Divine Power, in its secret working! They were blinded by the evidence of the senses. He was as a slight and insignificant plant - but a shoot or sucker from the root brought up out of Egypt. Without that winning grace or imposing majesty that might have been expected, he failed to captivate men's hearts. He seemed isolated, sad sick, and men fled from his presence as it he had been a leper. But the result shows how little Providence reeks of our poor logic of appearances, our connections of cause and effect. Life is not so plain a business as it appears. "Presently comes a day, with its angel-whisperings, which discomfits the conclusions of nations and of years!" We boast of our common sense and experience; yet there is a Divine element ever at work to defeat our calculations and to astound us with its operations. The lesson is to be ever waiting and expecting - ever looking up for manifestations of that Divine wisdom which hides to reveal itself, that Divine power which is energizing unspent when all our resources are at an end, that Divine beauty which lurks beneath the dimmest forms and the meanest disguises. - J. Parallel Verses KJV: Behold, my servant shall deal prudently, he shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high. WEB: Behold, my servant shall deal wisely, he shall be exalted and lifted up, and shall be very high.