The Servant of Yahweh Revealed (Isaiah 52:13-15).
In Isaiah 50:9 we left the Servant preparing for His court battle where He expected, after his period of humiliation and ill-treatment, to meet up with His adversaries and be vindicated by Yahweh. Here we find the conclusion of the case. The Servant is humiliated, tried and finally vindicated and lifted up to the throne of Yahweh. For ‘high' and ‘lifted up' compare Isaiah 6:1. This can only have in mind the One Who was the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6) for He alone was worthy to be raised to the throne of Yahweh.
So following as it does the command to Zion to go out to the nations with God's word we are justified in seeing in these verses the content of that word, the exaltation of the coming Davidic king Who would be born into a background of poverty and need (Isaiah 7:14-16), but His exaltation would only come after facing deep humiliation for the sins of many.
The continuation of the song in chapter 53 makes it quite clear that the Servant here is primarily not Isaiah and Israel, for in chapter 53 Isaiah speaks of ‘we' in contra-position to the Servant and ‘we' regularly denotes, in Isaiah, the prophet as conjoining himself with Israel.
“Behold, my servant will deal wisely,
He will be exalted and lifted up and be very high.
In the same way as many were astonished at you,
(His appearance was so marred more than any man,
And his form more than the sons of men),
So will he sprinkle many nations.
Kings will shut their mouths at him,
For that which has not been told them will they see,
And that which they have not heard they will understand.”
‘Behold, my servant.' Compare Isaiah 42:1. In Isaiah 42:1 He was upheld. Here He is uplifted. But here also He first ‘deals wisely', which summarises Isaiah 42:1 and Isaiah 49:2-3. He will be upheld in His service and will carry out His appointed task of bringing righteousness to the world with wisdom and forethought, and bring it to a satisfactory end, and then He will be uplifted.
We may also see the ‘behold' as following the ‘listen -- attend -- listen -- awake -- awake -- awake' of Isaiah 51:1; Isaiah 51:4; Isaiah 51:7; Isaiah 51:9; Isaiah 51:17; Isaiah 52:1). Thus the message to His people is, ‘Listen, awake, behold.'
‘He will be exalted and lifted up and be very high.' The first two verbs both indicate being lifted up. There is probably intended to be a progression. We could translate ‘raised and lifted up and made very high'. He will be raised from among men, then He will be lifted up further, then He will be set ‘very high'. Elsewhere in Isaiah it is Yahweh Who is ‘raised and lifted up' (Isaiah 6:1; Isaiah 57:15 - same verbs - compare Isaiah 33:10). Earlier we have seen the Davidic king described as the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father (Isaiah 9:6), which again were God-like titles, indicating also His lifting up. The two are surely therefore to be seen as parallels. This exactly describes a similar idea to that in the New Testament where we read that Jesus, having been raised from the dead, was set at the right hand of God (Acts 7:55; Romans 8:34; Colossians 3:1; Hebrews 1:3; Hebrews 10:12). Nothing could be higher than that.
But this exaltation is to follow a period of humiliation (compare Isaiah 49:7; Isaiah 50:6), when men will be astonished at Him because His face and appearance will be so marred, and His body will be so wasted, that men could not have believed it if they had not seen it. The thought here is of bearing the consequences of sin as in Isaiah 1:5-6 (compare Jeremiah 5:3), so that He is like a sick and wasted man (compare Isaiah 1:5), so dreadful to the sight that men cannot look at Him, and they say of Him, is this really a human being? (His form more than the sons of men'). The intention is to bring out the extreme depths of His suffering (compare Isaiah 50:3-8). That this would be the appearance of Jesus on the cross is unquestionable. The sight of the crucifixion of a bloodstained maltreated victim was excruciating. Under the justice of those days the transition from a healthy man to a crumpled, broken, wasted wreck did not take long. And Jesus was not only bearing that but was also engaged in a battle with the forces of darkness that tore at His inner soul.
‘Many were astonished (appalled) at you.' That is, because of the awfulness of what He suffered. The use of ‘many' in this way is restricted to this section from Isaiah 52:13 to Isaiah 53:12 in Isaiah. It is in contrast with ‘the One' being referred to. In the end ‘the many' refers to the faithful among the rebellious people of God, those who respond to Him having recognised that they have gone astray (Isaiah 53:6). It is those who are justified through what the Servant accomplishes and whose sins He bears (Isaiah 53:11-12), thus bringing out His uniqueness as separate from them and acting on their behalf.
‘So will He sprinkle many nations.' The verb would normally signify ‘sprinkle' (cause to spurt) although, on the basis of the Arabic, ‘startle' (cause to leap') has been suggested as an alternative, but even in the Arabic it is not really used in this sense. The meaning ‘sprinkle' is thus paramount in the Old Testament. The connection must then be - ‘as many were astonished at Him -- so will He sprinkle many nations, kings will shut their mouths at Him.' They were astonished at His appearance, they were even more astonished when He sprinkled many nations. The movement from sacrificed offering to atoning priest, from Lamb of God to great High Priest took all by surprise.
In the sprinkling of many nations we see the priestly work of the Servant hinted at, as in Isaiah 52:1; Isaiah 52:11-12. Here it is ‘the priest' Himself (the High Priest) Who is at work. His followers will then take what He has done, in making atonement and establishing the new covenant, out to the world in ‘the vessels of Yahweh'. Sprinkling was the means of application of the sacrificial blood to the people in establishing the covenant (Exodus 24:6-8), and of the water of purification with which God would sprinkle His people to thoroughly cleanse them from all their iniquity and give them a new heart and a new spirit (Ezekiel 36:25; Numbers 8:7). There too ‘the vessels of Yahweh' (compare Exodus 24:6; Numbers 19:17) were used to apply the sacrificial blood and the purifying ‘water of purification' that contained the ashes of a heifer (which Ezekiel uses as a symbol of the Holy Spirit - Ezekiel 36:25). So the Servant is both king and priest, bringing the nations into the covenant through the offering of blood and purifying and revivifying them.
‘Kings will shut their mouths at him, for that which has not been told them will they see, and that which they have not heard they will understand.' That kings will shut their mouths at Him stresses His own royalty. It is fellow-kings about whom kings receive reports. And they will be astounded because they will see something outside what has been reported to them, and understand what has not been told to them. They will see through the reports to the remarkable account of His deep humiliation followed by His rise to supreme glory and royalty, and learn what this Servant of Yahweh has done, not only for His own people but also for the world.