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Isaiah 53 � Who is this servant?

Part I: What rabbi Tovia Singer failed to tell his audience.  

 

 

This chapter must be the most discussed section of any book of any religion in any time. There has been much speculation about this chapter as to who is this servant the prophet is talking about. Who IS this servant? Let�s consider the claims that rabbi Tovia Singer comes up with to prove that Isaiah 53 couldn�t be talking about Yeshua.

First I want to point to the fact that the rabbi always speaks of �fundamentalist Christians� or �fundamentalist Evangelicals� when he speaks of the people that take their faith in the Messiah of Israel seriously (1:50). All this because the word fundamentalist has a very negative charge. Think of what he would say if CNN would cover a story about devout Orthodox Jews calling them �fundamentalist Orthodox Jews� all the time. Let�s go to the arguments rabbi Singer raises in the first part of his lecture and see if there is any truth to them.

Charge no 1: Who is speaking? (7:40)

Rabbi Singer raises the question to the audience about who the think is the speaker. The people all come up with their options and the rabbi explains why their options wont work. But when someone says that Israel is the speaker, he denies that Israel is the speaker but fails to explain why Israel can�t be the speaker! Why doesn�t the rabbi explain this as he did in the other cases? Simply because he can�t. This is just subject to interpretation and therefore there is no argument he can come up with besides theological preference. Israel can�t be the speaker, because if it is then it can�t be the servant.

Charge no.2: Identity of the servant. (35:50)

Rabbi Tovia Singer wants to identify this servant and to know who this servant is, he comes with an analogy about a book he read and started somewhere on page 273, where the book spoke of a Danny and Sally. He didn�t know who they were so he started to back paddle as little as possible to show who they were. So he does too with this servant. There is only one problem with this analogy: that book spoke of specific names and there was only one Danny and one Sally, but in the book of Isaiah has not but one servant. Isaiah, Eliakim and David are also called Gods servant. Also curious is the fact that the rabbi says he wanted to back paddle as little as possible and starts reading towards Isaiah 53 (37:15, 40:00) and deliberately skips the one time the word �servant� is mentioned that is closest to the �4^th servant song�, namely Isaiah 50:10! And who is this servant?

4 The Lord GOD hath given me the tongue of them that are taught, that I should know how to sustain with words him that is weary; He wakeneth morning by morning, He wakeneth mine ear to hear as they that are taught. 5 The Lord GOD hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away backward. 6 I gave my back to the smiters, and my checks to them that plucked off the hair; I hid not my face from shame and spitting. 7 For the Lord GOD will help me; therefore have I not been confounded; therefore have I set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed. 8 He is near that justifieth me; who will contend with me? let us stand up together; who is mine adversary? let him come near to me. 9 Behold, the Lord GOD will help me; who is he that shall condemn me? Behold, they all shall wax old as a garment, the moth shall eat them up. 10 Who is among you that feareth the LORD, that obeyeth the voice of His servant? though he walketh in darkness, and hath no light, let him trust in the name of the LORD, and stay upon his God. 11 Behold, all ye that kindle a fire, that gird yourselves with firebrands, begone in the flame of your fire, and among the brands that ye have kindled. This shall ye have of My hand; ye shall lie down in sorrow. (Is 50:4-11)

This servant is not Israel. Notice the last sentence where this servant speaks of  �This shall ye have from my hand; ye shall lie down in sorrow.� The servant is the speaker! How can this be about Israel?

When it comes to the servant, rabbi Singer wants to disprove Yeshua and so he goes on to emphasize the differences rather than the similarities. However, when it comes to Israel being the servant he points us to the similarities but disregards the differences. But what do those similarities say? Nothing at all. We must keep in mind that the majority of the Tenach is about the history of the relationship between God and His people Israel and that therefore there is a lot written about Israel. So since there is so much written about Israel, there is a lot of material that can be taken as a parallel to the servant. To illustrate what I mean, here are some similarities between Cyrus and the Unnamed servant in the Servant Songs.

- Taken by the hand (45:1 � 42:6)
- Called by his name (45:4 � 49:1)
- he will make God known all over the worlld (45:6 � 49:6)
- he will cast down nations (45:1 � 52:15))

And this is from just 6 verses written about Cyrus in Isaiah 45 and I still could find up to 4 similarities, whereas there is much more written about Israel. Which means you can find anything you want about Israel to apply on any situation at any time in history. Theologically, though, you have a problem. Rabbi Tovia Singer�s examples of resemblance say absolutely nothing.

What IS interesting though is that there are major differences between the unnamed servant and Israel. Namely:

-Israel is called blind and imprisoned (422:19) � the servant will open the eyes of the blind and release prisoners (42:7)
-Israel is called deaf and is rebellious ((42:19,20,25) � the servant has opened ears and isn�t rebellious (50:5)
-Israel walks in darkness and looks for liight (59:9) � the servant brings people from out of the darkness and will be a light (42:7, 49:6)
-Israel is punished for their disobediencee (42:24-25) � the servant is rewarded for his obedience (49:4-6)
-Israel speaks lies (59:3) � the servant hhas not spoken deceitfully (53:9)
-Israel has lost its way (59:7-8) � the seervant leads Israel back on track (49:5-6)
-Israel suffers for their own sins (42:25)) � the servant suffers for the sins of others (53:3-9)
-Israel suffers to their own shame (50:1-33) � the servant suffers and knows he will not be ashamed (50:7)
-Israel is in need of salvation (59) � thee servant will bring salvation. (49:6)
-Israel needs an intercessor (59:16) � thee servant IS an intercessor (53:12)
 

Charge no.3: Israel suffers because of the sins of the gentiles? (29:25)

So rabbi Tovia Singer argues. This cannot be! Allow me to illustrate and please pay close attention to the following:

When you say that hitting someone goes too far and will not be tolerated and on the other hand say that hitting someone is acceptable behaviour, then these two are contradictory statements for obvious reasons, right?

When you tell your child that you will discipline him when he steals and on the other hand you say that he can steal and you will not discipline him, then these two are contradictory statements for obvious reasons, right?

When you say that Isaiah 53 is about events such as the Holocaust, etc [events where the gentiles have gone too far] and that God isn�t pleased about these events or caused them to come upon Israel and these events were entirely due to the wickedness of the gentiles and, on the other hand, the prophet says that God was indeed pleased with whatever happens in Isaiah 53 and God did indeed cause it to come upon the servant, then these two are contradictory statements for the same obvious reasons!

What do I mean by all this? Well, rabbi Tovia Singer boldly says:

�the reason why the Jews have endured the suffering and persecution and pain and unwanted death is not because of their iniquity of their rejecting Jesus, of killing God, but it�s gonna be because of as a result of the sins of the world. When the gentile kings sinned what did they do? They punished, they persecuted the Jews. Am I right? That was their sin? Who suffered as a result of that sin? The Jewish people! And that is going to be their recognition at the end of days!�

Listening to his words a little later he quotes Zechariah 1:15 (1:18:12) saying:

��I am very angry with the nations�� why? ��because they�re at ease. And I was wroth a little but they helped to do harm.� They did far more than Israel ever deserved.�

In other words, rabbi Tovia Singer says that God is angry with all the persecution and the harsh and cruel treatment Israel got from the nations, and the nation�s wickedness was the cause of the suffering of Israel and it was not God�s intention to cause Israel to suffer as much as they have by the hands of the nations. Every time the nations went too far and overstepped their boundaries against the Jewish people to bring them great suffering, even to the point of annihilation, it was because of their own iniquities rather than by Gods cause and God had nothing to do with it. But this view is contradictory to what the prophet Isaiah is saying! This is what the prophet says:

 

 

6 All we like sheep did go astray, we turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath made to light on him the iniquity of us all�

10 Yet it pleased the LORD to crush him by disease...

 

There is clearly a contradiction here. Did God cause the Gentiles to overstep their boundaries against Israel? Was God pleased with the extreme cruel treatment of the Gentiles against His people? Of course not! If what rabbi Tovia Singer says, and therefore the entire anti-missionary position, is true, then the prophet is wrong! But that is not an option since we are trying to figure out what the prophet is trying to say. So if the prophet says that, whatever he is describing in Isaiah 53, God has caused it to come upon the servant (v.6) and was pleased with it (v.10), then how can the rabbinic Jewish position say the exact opposite and claim that it is saying exactly the same as the prophet? LET THE TRUTH BE KNOWN: It is the exact opposite of what Isaiah is saying! Obviously this can�t be about Israel suffering from the exceedingly cruel behaviour at the hands of their persecutors, because if it was about that, then God would not be pleased with it and so the rabbi and Isaiah are in disagreement with each other, to say it politely. Cause where rabbi Singer claims that God is angry with the nations for such behaviour and God didn�t have anything to do with it, the prophet Isaiah says God was pleased and that God caused it to come upon the servant. So who do we believe: Y�shayahu ben-Amots hanavi or rabbi Tovia Singer? So from the Traditional Jewish (anti-missionary, Talmud, etc) position, if what they are saying is true and this is about Israel, then God would be pleased with events such as the Holocaust! Therefore, this simply can�t be about Israel as the rabbi, in trying to prove Israel as the servant, contradicts what the prophet says.

 

Let me be more specific: If the rabbinic Jewish position is flawed about Israel being the servant, then who IS the prophet really talking about? And seeing that they are clearly wrong, and have merely been echoing the voice of the Sages and rabbis of the past, then this does serious damage to the infallibility accredited to these Sages and rabbis of the past as far as their interpretation of other texts goes.

 

 

Additional comments:

 

To elaborate on the analysis of verse 6 and 10 above, some anti-missionaries take Deuteronomy 28:63 as a parallel to those verses claiming that God seems to be saying that He is pleased to destroy Israel to cause them to repent, even to the point of annihilation. Obviously Deuteronomy 28:63 isn�t about events such as the Holocaust, but for the sake of argument we will accept that claim, then we still have a major problem at our hands. Israel did not repent after the Holocaust! In fact, more Jews have lost their faith in HaShem BECAUSE of the Holocaust to the point that Israel is a secular state, from the day it declared it�s independence up till now. So if the Holocaust was God�s plan for teshuvah (repentance) then that whole plan backfired! In addition, this grasping at Deuteronomy 28:63 blows another hole in the anti-missionary position that rabbi Tovia Singer uses in this lecture, namely, the Gentile king�s recognition in the end of days that God had nothing to do with the severe persecution and that it was solely the wickedness of the Gentiles that caused Israel to suffer as much as they did. Either way you put it, Israel as the servant will not work!

 

 

In his zeal to prove that Israel is the servant (51:44) rabbi Singer quotes from a couple of Nazi source about their opinion on the appearance of the Jew in comparison of to the appearance of the ape where man supposedly has come from. Rabbi Singer then actually sees this as proof and a parallel to Isaiah 52:14 by quoting it. Now this is actually the best he could do, as he says so himself! The only major problem is, that this is supposed to be the opinion of the gentiles, according to rabbi Tovia Singer, but Isaiah 52:14 isn�t the gentiles speaking, but it is God speaking about his servant! According to rabbinic Judaism�s views, the gentiles don�t start speaking until two verses later in Isaiah 53:1! So unless one wants to argue that God shares the opinion of the Nazi�s about the appearance of His people, we can safely conclude that rabbi Tovia Singer totally made this up! This verse has nothing to do with Nazi opinion. This verse is about God speaking about His servant�s marred appearance from the humiliating suffering, not about his ugliness, as the Nazi paper reports.

 

 

In order to prove that the Christians will come up to Jews in the end of days, rabbi Tovia Singer quotes Jeremiah 16:19, proving that Christianity is a false religion.

 

(19) O YHWH, my strength, and my stronghold, and my refuge, in the day of affliction, unto Thee shall the nations come from the ends of the earth, and shall say: 'Our fathers have inherited nought but lies, vanity and things wherein there is no profit.'

 

However, let�s consider where Christianity started: In Israel with a handful of Jews. This isn�t a gentile faith, this is from the Hebrew Bible and thoroughly recognizes the Tenach as the sole word of God. If anything this verse speaks of those gentiles of the religions apart from the Hebrew Bible and the gentiles that are atheists and have adapted the views that there is no such thing as a God and that man is the highest level or all organisms �so make sure you live your life to the fullest, cause you only live once�. So this verse doesn�t prove anything against Messianic Jewish beliefs.

 

Nakdimon

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