Isaiah 53 in the Light of Homecoming after Exile (Forschungen Zum Alten Testament 2.Reihe) 9783161497735, 9783161511295, 3161497732

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Forschungen zum Alten Testament 2. Reihe Edited by Bernd Janowski (Tübingen) · Mark S. Smith (New York) Hermann Spieckermann (Göttingen)

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Fredrik Hägglund

Isaiah 53 in the Light of Homecoming after Exile

Mohr Siebeck

Fredrik Hägglund, born 1967; 1995 ordained in the church of Sweden; 2003–2007 doctoral student at the University of Lund; currently priest in the church of Sweden in Borås Caroli.

e-ISBN PDF 978-3-16-151129-5 ISBN 978-3-16-149773-5 ISSN 1611-4914 (Forschungen zum Alten Testament, 2. Reihe) The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliographie; detailed bibliographic data is available in the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de. © 2008 by Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, Germany. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, in any form (beyond that permitted by copyright law) without the publisher’s written permission. This applies particularly to reproductions, translations, microfilms and storage and processing in electronic systems. The book was printed by Laupp & Göbel in Nehren on non-aging paper and bound by Buchbinderei Nädele in Nehren. Printed in Germany.

Preface Finally to leave this manuscript for printing is filled with both joy and anguish. Now it is no longer possible to make any more adjustments to the text. The book is finished and it is now up to any reader to embrace it or exclude it. However, the struggle to understand Isa 53 will never be finished. Every Eastertide and particularly on Good Friday, a new endeavour begins to understand the poem in the light of the suffering of Jesus. That is however another issue. This thesis is an attempt to understand the historical aim of Isa 53. It is only an attempt, and the questions will probably be even more numerous at the end of the work than they were at the beginning. I am grateful that I have received the financial support to enable me to undertake this adventure and to have had the opportunity to struggle with Isa 53. I am not only grateful for the financial support, but also for all the support from the people around me, which has been equally important. First, I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor Professor Fredrik Lindström, and to my assistant supervisor Professor Kirsten Nielsen. With their knowledge and interest in my project, they have been excellent advisors and interlocutors. My sincere thanks goes also to the members of Old and New Testament seminars at Lund, as well as to the members of OTSEM (A Nordic-German network for Old Testament studies; Epistemologies and Methods). Friends there have given much inspiration and response on parts of my thesis. I am especially grateful to Dr. Göran Eidevall for reading the whole manuscript and for giving me many valuable suggestions, which have improved the outcome of this study. When the analytical part had been completed, the toughest part began: to produce a readable book. I am obliged to all those who have helped me to improve my manuscript, especially to Kristofer Wollein Waldetoft, Elisabeth Jönsson, and Gerd Swensson. I am also grateful to the editors of the series Forschungen zum Alten Testament, Prof. Dr. Mark S. Smith, Prof. Dr. Bernd Janowski and Prof. Dr. Hermann Spieckermann, for accepting this work for publication. Needless to say, I am responsible for any remaining errors or oddities. My final and deepest gratitude goes to my family, to my wife and to our two children. Borås 2008 Fredrik Hägglund

Contents Preface ......................................................................................................... V Contents .................................................................................................... VII

Part One Introduction Chapter 1. What is the Aim of This Study? ...................................................3 1. The Structure of This Study..................................................................4  

Chapter 2. Methods and Definitions .............................................................7  

Chapter 3. Terminology .............................................................................. 11 1. Vicarious Suffering or Stellvertretung? .............................................. 11 2. Exclusion and Embrace ......................................................................15 Exclusion ..............................................................................................16 Embrace ...............................................................................................18 3. Reconciliation, Atonement and Vicarious Suffering ...........................19 4. Conclusion .........................................................................................20 Chapter 4. The Identities.............................................................................22 1. The Identity of the Servant .................................................................22 2. The Identity of the “We” ....................................................................28 3. Conclusion .........................................................................................32    

Part Two Exclusion and Embrace  

Chapter 5. Isaiah 53, Text and Translation ..................................................35  

 

Chapter 6. Isaiah 53, The Structure and Form.............................................46 1. The Structure ......................................................................................46

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Contents The First Part .........................................................................................46 The Second Part .....................................................................................47 The Third Part .......................................................................................48

Conclusion and Figure .............................................................................49 2. The Form ............................................................................................50  

Chapter 7. Isaiah 53, Exclusion and Embrace .............................................52 1. Isaiah 53:4–6 ......................................................................................52 Isaiah 53:4a “Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases” .............53 Isaiah 53:4b “yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted” .....55 Isaiah 53:5a “But he was wounded because of our transgressions, crushed because of our iniquities” ................................................................56 Isaiah 53:5b “the discipline for our wholeness was upon him, and by his bruises there was healing for us” ...................................................56 Isaiah 53:6a “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way” .....................................................................................61 Isaiah 53:6b “yet YHWH has laid on him the iniquity of us all” .............................66 Conclusion ............................................................................................67

2. Isaiah 53 and Sin Offering..................................................................67 Conclusion ............................................................................................73 3. Isaiah 53 and Righteousness...............................................................73 Conclusion ............................................................................................77 4. Isaiah 53 and Intercession ..................................................................77 Conclusion ............................................................................................80 Chapter 8. The Phrase /wu acn in the Old Testament ................................82 1. Leviticus 10:17...................................................................................86 2. Leviticus 16:22...................................................................................87 3. Ezekiel 4:4–8......................................................................................89 4. Ezekiel 18...........................................................................................91   5. Exodus 28:38; Numbers 14:34; 18:1, 23 ............................................93 6. Conclusion .........................................................................................94 Chapter 9. Isaiah 53, The Terms of Embrace That Are Not Used ...............95 1. The term rpk .....................................................................................95 Phinehas ...............................................................................................96 Moses ..................................................................................................97 2. Sacrificial Language...........................................................................98 About Slaughter .....................................................................................98

Contents

IX

3. Terms for Intercession ........................................................................99 4. Conclusion .......................................................................................102 Chapter 10. Reconciliation in Isaiah 40–55 ..............................................103 1. Isaiah 40:2 ........................................................................................104 2. Isaiah 43:3b–4 ..................................................................................108 3. Isaiah 43:22–28 ................................................................................ 110 4. Isaiah 44:21–22 ................................................................................ 113 5. Isaiah 48:8–11 .................................................................................. 114 6. Conclusion ....................................................................................... 116

Part Three The Constexts  

Chapter 11. Isaiah 53 in the Book of Isaiah ..............................................121 1. Isaiah 53 in Isaiah 40–55 ..................................................................124 2. Isaiah 53 and Isaiah 1–39 .................................................................131 3. Isaiah 53 and Isaiah 56–66 ...............................................................137 4. Conclusion .......................................................................................139 Chapter 12. The Geographical Domicile of Isaiah 40–55 .........................141 1. The Traditional View .......................................................................141 2. A Contemporary View ......................................................................144 3. Stages of Exile..................................................................................144 4. The Complaint in Isaiah 40:27 .........................................................149 5. The Ruins .........................................................................................151 6. Isaiah 40–55 and the Idols ................................................................152 7. Conclusion .......................................................................................154 Chapter 13. The Conflict...........................................................................156 1. The Impossible Homecoming ...........................................................157 The Myth of Return in Recent Refugee Studies ...........................................159 The Problematic Homecoming ................................................................162 To Be at Home .....................................................................................163 Conclusion ..........................................................................................164 The Conflict in the Old Testament ............................................................164 Conclusion ..........................................................................................169 The Conflict in Isaiah 40–55 ...................................................................169 The Conflict in Isaiah 56–66 ...................................................................171

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Contents Conclusion ..........................................................................................172

Part Four Conclusion Chapter 14. Conclusion.............................................................................175

Bibliography .............................................................................................179 Index of references ...................................................................................190 Author Index.............................................................................................198

Part One

Introduction

Chapter 1

What is the Aim of This Study? When I first started my undergraduate study of the Old Testament, I was provoked by the fact that there are so many unsolved puzzles in one of the Old Testament texts, which is most important for the understanding of the New Testament, Isa 53. 1 In order better to understand the problems in the text, I wrote my first minor paper on the subject of a collective or an individual interpretation of Isa 53. While doing so, I encountered the work of Whybray, in which he questions the central issue of the vicarious suffering of the servant. 2 First I thought Whybray was entirely wrong. However, when I reread his study I realised that whether or not the suffering of the servant has the quality of atonement or not, it can actually be questioned. Whybray’s work can at least not be as easily dismissed as is sometimes the case. 3 While working on my first paper on Isa 53, I also discovered that the scholarly discussion of the text is, to quite a significant extent, dominated by the more technical issues: Who is the servant?, How can we translate the difficult language in the text?, and so forth. This focus is natural. The text is complex and translation is the first complicated task of every study thereof. Furthermore, the anonymity of the servant makes us wonder who it is that the text describes. In addition, there are many other issues. Since Duhm, for example, we must also discuss the relationship between the servant songs and the rest of Isa 40–55. 4 Such questions are evoked by the 1

I will use Isa 53 to signify the whole section Isa 52:13–53:12. Roger Norman Whybray, Thanksgiving for a Liberated Prophet: An Interpretation of Isaiah Chapter 53 (JSOTsup vol. 4; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1978). 3 See for example the work of John Day, Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan (JSOTSup vol. 265; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000), 125. He dismisses Whybray’s attempt to question a vicarious suffering in Isa 53 by stating that Whybray has no explanation of the use of the word