Here are my observations, comments, etc. for the text this week:
52:12 The Hebrew word for "in haste" (בחפזון) is the same word used in Deut 16:3 to describe the manner in which Israel exited Egypt. (The word is also used in Ex 12:1 to describe the manner in which the Passover meal should be eaten.) Is 52:12, then, some kind of a reversal of the flight described in Exodus? Because YHWH goes before "you" and forms the rearguard, there will be no need for haste?
52:13 The glorification of the servant on account of his (I believe a female servant would have a different ending) success in this verse is interesting and perhaps magnifies the suffering that follows.
52:14 (1) The meaning of the text translated "inhumanly deformed" (משחת מאיש) is difficult, I gather, for lexicographers (and translators) to deal with. A translation perhaps closer to the sensibilities of Hebrew would be "transformed from human," but you Hebraeophiles feel free to correct me! (2) "And his disfigured appearance" (ותארו) might be better understood as "his beautiful form." (3) The two previous observations, of course, suggest that the inhumanness of the servant's appearance might not refer to his appearance after being beaten (as Jesus' preumably was) but rather his inhuman (dare I say even immortal or god-like?) form. This observation probably won't stand throughout my reading, but I want to mention it anyway.
52:15 "So he will sprinkle" (יזה) "many nations" is translated by the NRSV as "so he shall startle many nations." Clearly, Isaiah originally had baptism in view, but this made the NRSV committee uncomfortable. ;)
53:1 The Hebrew phrase לשמעתנו (NRSV: "what we have heard") has a few possible translations: 1) "what we have to reveal" (i.e., "revelation"); in the passive, "what has been revealed to us"; 2) "proclamation"; 3) "our news" (I get these possibilities from Koehler-Baumgartner, which prefers the last translation).
53:2 This verse already seems to be moving toward the marred, unsightly appearance of the servant that I noted above might be a beautiful, immortal appearance. I'm not sure why this is linked to the simile of a root out of dry ground. ?
53:3 The phrase that the NRSV translates "and as one from whom others hide their faces" (וכמסתר פנים ממנו) is a bit grammatically puzzling to me. The first word seems to me to be a piel participle ("one who hides"), but the piel of this verb supposedly only occurs in Isa 16:3 (K-B). Of course, the word is not pointed exactly like a piel participle should be pointed. I guess I would offer this tentative translation: "and as one who hides faces from us."
53:4 Why is it that verbs of lifting or carrying our used with reference to pain and sickness? Does this mean that the servant suffered the same sickness and pain that the "we" regularly experiences? Or does it mean that the pain or sickness was somehow removed? Are pain and sickness being used metaphorically for some other type of experience?
53:5 (1) How has the servant been wounded by "our" wrongdoing? (I put the "our" in quotation marks because I'm not sure who the "our" refers to.) Is this servant some psychological extension of God's personality? (2) The phrase that the NRSV translates "we were healed" (נרפא-לנו) reads in Hebrew as "he has been healed for us." Waltke and O'Connor cites only this as an example that "rarely, ל governs the subject of a passive verb" (210). Since this is the only example they cite, the syntactical category is obviously suspect.
53:6 The last half of this verse is a bit confusing. Koehler-Baumgartner suggests that the verb הפגיע (a hifil) means the following: "with acc. of thing and ב of person, to let something hurt someone Is 53:6 (iniquity hurting the servant)." This makes no sense with the direct object marker את governing עון. The NRSV has a better syntactical understanding of the second half of this verse (ויהוה הפגיע בו את עון כלנו), it seems to me, although the meaning they attribute to the verb may be slightly off: "and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all." I guess I would consider translating the last half of this verse as follows: "And YHWH looks after all of us [who are] with sin."Of course, the verse does not presume that everyone is with sin.
53:7 Why will the servant not open his mouth? This verse tempts me to find a historical referrent, although I usually try to avoid doing this too much!
53:8 (1) K-B suggests two possibilities for עצר: "distress, oppression"; or "captivity, imprisonment." The first of these meanings is difficult to reconcile with the next phrase (וממשפט לקח) because in some sense משפט (justice) seems to be the oppostive of oppression. So I guess I prefer slightly the second meaning, although the first might work as well. To be in captivity was justice, in a sense. (2) I'm not exactly sure what נגע refers to. Is it merely (as K-B suggests it usually means in a general sense) the onset of an illness?
53:9 (1) For Hebraeophiles: what is the ב doing on במתיו? It does not seem to be parallel to the first part of the clause. (2) Was it customary to give one's death to/with the rich (the Babylonians?) if one did violence or practiced fraud?
53:10 Why would YHWH delight in crushing him? Was this because this was the fulfillment of justice?
53:11 "And he shall carry their sins" (ועונתם הוא יסבל): why is there now a change in the personal pronoun suffix? Up until now, if I am not mistaken, the focus has been on "we" and "you."
53:12 (1) תחת אשר: "Instead of being" or "in return for"? (See K-B under 4) b. of the first word of this phrase [blogger is preventing me from inputting the Hebrew here for some reason].) (2) ואת-פשעים נמנה: "and he was counted among the disloyal." K-B's suggestion of "disloyal" sounds rather different from the more traditional "transgressors" (see NRSV). (3) Here, יפגיע has the sense "look after" (compare with my translation of 53:6 above). (4) Will the servant look after the disloyal because they are one of his kind (that is, he was counted among the disloyal).
Just one last (perhaps wrongheaded) question: might the servant in this passage be referring to the generation of Israel that has now died/been crushed?
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Interesting observations Justin! I don't have my Hebrew with me where I am now so I'll try to get back on sometime this weekend because I wanted to try to speak to some of the issues in the Hebrew you brought up. If I don't get the chance I'm sure we'll discuss them Wednesday. I have some of the same questions as you, especially with the phrase you noted in 53:3. I do think that the preposition min that was in the phrase you discussed in 52:14 is best translated as a comparative min.
ReplyDeleteI mainly wanted to say that your last question does not seem wrongheaded at all to me! I think it's a very valid question and something that would be fun to throw around during class. I tend to lean toward viewing the SS as Israel (if I was forced to pick).
Justin,
ReplyDeleteI always learn a lot from reading your posts. Thanks!
I am intrigued by your proposed reading of the servant as a past/crushed generation of Israel. Of course, I said in my post that I'm leaning toward a single person (who, I have no idea), but I'll ponder this suggestion.
Katie
Test to see if it works this time
ReplyDeleteIt worked!!! Now I'll respond to your blog.
ReplyDeleteYour posts set me thinking from different perspectives which I really appreciate. I particularly found interesting your suggestion that this passage may be interpreted collectively of Israel. This is of considerable historical and current debate as you know. Class should be interesting this week.
As to v. 15: "sprinkle". You may have been joking, but I think parallel phrase and LXX support "startle" (lit., "leap")more than sprinkle (in cultic sacrificial system sense). I believe BDB and KB agree on this one.
53:3 "hiding face" is listed as noun (prb originally some sort of part.): lit., "and like a hiding of face from him", which lexicons smooth out to: "as one from whom (men, people, one) hide (their, his) face."
I also note in our text and throughout 2Isa passages we have looked at that pronouns/subjects are often changed in puzzling ways. Why?
53:6: The reference, I believe, is a "double accusative" wherein two objects in succession receive the action of one verb: "He caused to place" (verb) "the iniquity of all of us" (1st acc. marked so as not to be confusing)"upon him". Not sure if you were referring to the syntax that made no sense or the meaning derived therefrom. If the latter,sorry for the syntax babble.
53:7: Why servant is mute is very interesting question to me. Similies suggest, if taken at face value, that servant was ignorant of what was going on (as a lamb led to slaughter). If this is meant to be a positive attribute (as stoicly suffering undeserved punishment), surely ignorance is not the intended point of the simily, but what is?
See ya Wed.