WHO IS THE SERVANT?

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bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater; so shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree: and it shall be to the Lord for a memorial, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.

§ 11. The passages in the Second Isaiah about the servant of the Lord have given rise to endless discussion. They have been of very great importance in the history of European religion, as you will later on learn for yourselves. But scholars are still almost as far as ever from an agreement as to their exact meaning and as to their relation to the other parts of the prophet's work. Some think that these servant passages were written by the same man who wrote all the other passages which surround them (that is, by the Second Isaiah), and at the same time. Some think that the same man wrote them, but before he wrote their surroundings, and that he, as it were, used his own former work and inserted the servant passages where they now are. Others think that they were written before his time, but used and inserted by him. Others, again, think they were written after his time, and inserted into their present places by a later editor. Some think he (the Second Isaiah) wrote the first three passages, but not the fourth and last. Then we get the same curious diversity of opinion as to the servant himself. Some think the servant is the people of Israel. Others think he is the ideal people, the people as it should be, but is not. Others think he represents the best and chosen spirits among the people in every age. All these, therefore, think that the servant, in one sense or another, is a personification; a single figure standing for many. But others think he is what he is represented to be, namely, an individual, and of these some think he was an historical person known to the writer and already dead, others think that the passages about him are a prediction of an individual who was to come but had not yet been born, while a third section think that they give an idealized picture of any faithful Israelite. Many scholars, moreover, believe that in any case the life of Jeremiah was often before the poet's mind when he compared these passages.

It is very hard to decide between all these conflicting theories. K k

The truth is that there are so many just because none quite fully and fairly fits the facts. For myself I incline to believe that the servant is a personification of the ideal Israel, but I should not like to express any opinion as to whether the servant passages themselves were written by the Second Isaiah, or before his time or after it. The whole question demands much more space than I can give to it here, and bristles with difficulties.

In the fourth servant passage, the 'we' who speak are either the people of Israel as a whole or the Gentile and heathen world, or both in one. The conception of Israel's office and work in the servant passages is higher and purer than the conception of them elsewhere, and the connexion between these passages is sometimes thin and artificial. That is one reason why some people think they could not have been written by the same man who wrote their surroundings. If the servant is the ideal Israel, it follows that he has a mission to his own people or community, as well as to the world. Just as the best Englishmen may be said to have a special duty to England, so the best Jews have a special duty to Judaism. This teaching may be applied in many ways. And we may give to the word best' a variety of significations of different degrees of excellence. They who are most richly endowed by nature, by circumstance, by environment, by fortune and by effort, have the deepest responsibility to their people and their community. The more you have and are, the more is demanded of you alike by God or man. From and out of men's work among their people and community must come their influence upon the world beyond. The servant's work begins at home, but it does not end at home. He teaches true religion first within the fold and then without it. For God's children are not limited to one race.

The great difficulty with all the old Jewish teachers of religion was to realize that the God whom they worshipped was not their Father in heaven more than he was the Father in heaven of the

Babylonian or the Edomite. When their eyes were turned towards their own people, they thought and taught pure and noble things about goodness and God; but when they looked beyond their own borders, and thought of God in his relation to other peoples, they saw less clearly. They were often too proud, exclusive, and uncharitable. It seems very odd to us, for we have been taught from childhood that God is no respecter of persons or of races, and that he does not care for the Englishman more than for the Dane, or for the Jew more than for the Christian. But obvious as this seems to us, it took many centuries to learn, and even now some English people (happily very few, if any, English Jews) still believe that God cares more for opinions than he does for

THE SERVANT'S METHOD AND REWARD

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goodness, and that he shows more favour to those who have been brought up in one creed than to those who have been brought up in another.

The writer of the servant passages declared that the servant's peculiar mission or office was to preach true religion to the outside world. The Spirit of God is in him, to bring forth,' as it says in the first passage, 'true religion to the nations.' The servant is a light to mankind. And what the servant is, that Israel as a whole should be.

And what is the servant's method? It is expressed in the famous words: 'He shall not clamour nor cry, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. A bruised reed shall he not break, and a dimly burning wick shall he not quench. He shall bring forth true religion faithfully.'

The Israelites were by nature a nation of the sword. Their early notion of God is a great and powerful warrior, just but stern. It took them very long to purify these notions, and to remember that in God love and justice go hand in hand. Shreds and patches of the old ideas clung for ages to their language and thought. Hence the Second Isaiah himself talks much more frequently and contentedly of God's anger or even of God's fury than we should think either seemly or true. It is all the more striking that the picture of the servant is so tender and quiet. He succeeds by gentleness, not by force. To those whose faith is feeble and whose troubles are sore, he brings strength and healing and encouragement. And yet his labour meets for long with no outward and visible reward. Sometimes (see the second passage) the servant himself is despondent. Has he spent his strength for nought and vanity?' But no! His heavenly Father gives and will give him his reward. And what is his reward? The success of his work: not his own pride or riches or power, but the success of his work. As his sorrow and suffering are for the sake of others, so his true reward is their well-being.

In the third servant passage we read: 'I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting.' He rose above and superior to the common code of tit for tat. He did not ask God that as his enemies had done to him, so might it be done to them. He endured in silence because patient endurance helped forward his work. He was right. The patient and unrevengeful endurance of personal injury will often make its own impression for good upon those who witness it. It is more likely to convert the sinner than violence or hatred. This is an added reason to the reason for patient endurance given to us in the Lamentations: 'Let him give his cheek

to him that smiteth him; let him sit alone and keep silence, because God hath laid it upon him.'

Might we not wish that the third servant passage ended somewhat differently? He is justified in expressing his confidence that his cause is right; but would it not have been better if he had uttered a wish that his adversaries should be forgiven because of their ignorance, or converted to the truth, rather than that he should assert, 'they all shall wax old as a garment; the moth shall eat them up'? Here a touch of the lower humanity seems momentarily to drive aside the working of the Spirit of God.

Now we come to the last passage, which tells of the voluntary degradation and death of the servant and of his subsequent resurrection and glory. What a beautiful and fascinating story it is! How very unfortunate that at a critical point the text should have become so uncertain and corrupt.

Once more we have the full idea of patient endurance. He was oppressed, yet he humbled himself, and opened not his mouth; as a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and as a sheep that before her shearers is dumb; yea, he opened not his mouth.' But it is now clearly explained what God's object in inflicting, and the servant's object in accepting, this degradation and suffering really were. The object was the success of the work. When it has succeeded and as it succeeds, when true religion is universal and as it becomes so, then the meaning of the servant's sufferings is realized. His persecutions were endured for the sake of his persecutors. Gradually men's eyes become opened: by his stripes they find their healing. He bears the load and burden of their iniquities: the punishment which, on the old tit-for-tat theory, should come to them falls, as it were, upon him, not as punishment, but in order that they may see it and, through the sight and understanding of it, be healed of their sin. Upon him it falls not as punishment, but as suffering and sorrow, and while he suffers, he makes intercession'; he prays for the enlightenment and forgiveness of those who cause him sorrow, and not for their injury or chastisement. This, again, is true religion and true morality. At last he triumphs his cause triumphs because he voluntarily sacrificed himself. He died for others. For this is the highest that man can achieve, a 'conscious voluntary sacrifice.'

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Sometimes people have not unwisely thought that the fierce and cruel persecutions which the Jews have undergone, and in some countries still undergo, are a real fulfilment of this great servant passage. They suffer for the sake of their religion, and at last the world will understand their teaching and recognize its truth, and their cause will triumph and they will triumph in their cause.

'A CONSCIOUS VOLUNTARY SACRIFICE'

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But, however this may be, we all of us in a small way can try to be servants of the Lord. We can try to bear each other's burdens, and we can each strive by our own sacrifice to help others. Every one of us will have some opportunity for suffering in the place and in the stead of another. Every one of us will have some opportunity for patient endurance, and for painful fidelity to truth, to goodness, and to love-in other words, for being a servant of God.