Isaiah xlii. 1-7.
We now understand, whom to regard as the Servant of the Lord. The Service of God was a commission to witness and prophesy for God upon earth, made out at first in the name of the entire nation Israel. When their unfitness as a whole became apparent, it was delegated to a portion of them. But as there were added to its duties of prophecy, those of martyrdom and atonement for the sins of the people, our prophet, it would seem, saw it focussed in the person of an individual.
In history Jesus Christ has fulfilled this commission both in its national and in its personal aspects. He realised the ideal of the prophet-people. He sacrificed Himself and made atonement for the sins of men. But having illustrated the service of God in the world, Christ did not exhaust it. He returned it to His people, a more clamant conscience than ever, and He also gave them grace to fulfil its demands. Through Christ the original destination of these prophecies becomes, as Paul saw, their ultimate destination as well. That Israel refused this Service or failed in it only leaves it more clearly to us as duty; that Jesus fulfilled it not only confirms that duty, but adds hope and courage to discharge it.
Although the terms of this Service were published nearly two thousand five hundred years ago, in a petty dialect that is now dead, to a helpless tribe of captives in a world, whose civilisation has long sunk to ruin, yet these terms are so free of all that is provincial or antique, they are so adapted to the lasting needs of humanity, they are so universal in their scope, they are so instinct with that love which never faileth, though prophecies fail and tongues cease, that they come home to heart and conscience to-day with as much tenderness and authority as ever. The first programme of these terms is given in ch. xlii. 1-7. The authorised English version is one of unapproachable beauty, but its emphasis and rhythm are not the emphasis and rhythm of the original, and it has missed one at least of the striking points of the Hebrew. The following version, which makes no attempt at elegance, is almost literal, follows the same order as the original that it may reproduce the same emphasis, and, as far as English can, repeats the original rhythm. The point, which it rescues from the neglect of the Authorised Version, is this, that the verbs used of the Servant in ver. 4, He shall not fade nor break, are the same as are used of the wick and the reed in ver. 3.
Lo, My Servant! I hold by him;
My Chosen! Well-pleased is My soul!
I have set My Spirit upon him;
Law to the Nations he brings forth.
He cries not, nor lifts up,[177]
Nor lets his voice be heard in the street.
Reed that is broken he breaks not off,
Wick that is fading he does not quench:
Faithfully brings he forth Law.
He shall not fade neither break,
Till he have set in the Earth[178] Law;
And for his teaching the Isles are waiting.
Thus saith the God, Jehovah,
Creator of the heavens that stretched them forth,
Spreader of Earth and her produce,
Giver of breath to the people upon her,
And of spirit to them that walk therein:
I, Jehovah, have called thee in righteousness,
To grasp thee fast by thy hand, and to keep thee,
And to set thee for a covenant of the People,
For a light of the Nations:
To open blind eyes,
To bring forth from durance the captive,
From prison the dwellers in darkness.
I. The Conscience of Service.
As several of these lines indicate, this is a Service to Man, but what we must first fasten upon is that before being a Service to Man it is a Service for God. Behold, My Servant, says God's commission very emphatically. And throughout the prophecy the Servant is presented as chosen of God, inspired of God, equipped of God, God's creature, God's instrument; useful only because he is used, influential because he is influenced, victorious because he is obedient; learning the methods of his work by daily wakefulness to God's voice, a good speaker only because he is first a good listener; with no strength or courage but what God lends, and achieving all for God's glory. Notice how strongly it is said that God holds by him, grasps him by the hand. We shall see that his Service is as sympathetic and comprehensive a purpose for humanity as was ever dreamed in any thought or dared in any life. Whether we consider its tenderness for individuals, or the universalism of its hope for the world, or its gentle appreciation of all human effort and aspiration, or its conscience of mankind's chief evil, or the utterness of its self-sacrifice in order to redeem men,—we shall own it to be a programme of human duty, and a prophecy of human destiny, to which the growing experience of our race has been able to add nothing that is essential. But the Service becomes all that to man, because it first takes all that from God. Not only is the Servant's sense of duty to all humanity just the conscience of God's universal sovereignty,—for it is a remarkable and never-to-be-forgotten fact, that Israel recognised their God's right to the whole world, before they felt their own duty to mankind,—but the Servant's character and methods are the reflection of the Divine. Feature by feature the Servant corresponds to His Lord. His patience is but sympathy with Jehovah's righteousness,—I will uphold thee with the right hand of My righteousness. His gentleness with the unprofitable and the unlovely—He breaks not off the broken reed nor quenches the flickering wick—is but the temper of the everlasting God, who giveth power to the faint, and to them that have no might He increaseth strength. His labour and passion and agony, even they have been anticipated in the Divine nature, for the LORD stirreth up seal like a man of war; He saith, I will cry out like a travailing woman. In no detail is the Servant above his Master. His character is not original, but is the impress of his God's: I have put My spirit upon him.