Biblion Bible Commentary
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So Marred Beyond Any Man
Isaiah 52:13-15
13 Behold, my servant will deal wisely. He will be exalted and lifted up, and will be very high. · WEB
The fourth Servant Song opens at the end of the story, with the servant raised high and kings unable to speak.
Behold, my servant will deal wisely. He will be exalted and lifted up, and will be very high Isaiah 52:13.
The fourth and last Servant Song begins here, three verses before the chapter break, and it opens with the outcome. Everything in the fifty-third chapter is enclosed by an exaltation announced before the suffering is described.
Three verbs pile up — exalted, lifted up, very high — and the middle pair is the phrase used of the throne in the vision of chapter six, where the Lord was high and lifted up Isaiah 6:1. John quotes from this song and from that vision in the same passage and says Isaiah saw his glory John 12:41.
And the first thing said of him is that he will deal wisely. The word carries both acting prudently and succeeding — competence and its result in one term.
Just as many were astonished at you— his appearance was marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men Isaiah 52:14.
The astonishment is horror. The word describes people stopping dead at a sight, and what stops them is a face that no longer looks like a face. The comparison is not that he suffered more than others but that he was disfigured past the point where the species is recognizable.
The verse is placed between two statements of exaltation, which is the song's method throughout: the glory and the ruin are never allowed to be in separate places.
So he will cleanse many nations Isaiah 52:15.
The verb is the one for sprinkling — what a priest does with blood or water to make something fit to approach God. The English translations divide over whether it means sprinkle or startle, and the Hebrew is genuinely difficult. What is not in doubt is the scope: many nations, which is the fourth time in these songs that the servant's work has reached past Israel.
Kings will shut their mouths at him; for they will see that which had not been told them, and they will understand that which they had not heard Isaiah 52:15.
The reaction of rulers is silence, and the reason is that this was not on any of the reports. Paul quotes the verse to explain why he preaches where Christ has not been named Romans 15:21.
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