The 'Warrior Messiah' in the servant song of Isaiah 52:13-53:12

Abstract

By criteria studied, the Servant in the “Servant Song” of Isaiah 52:13-53:12 was identified as the messianic future redeemer figure. The Song was illustrated to be also “warrior messianic.” The language of war such as “arm of the Lord,” “to divide” (ק ל ח), and “spoil” (ל לשׁ), puts the Servant to be in the role of a warrior, an the Song’s whole context as that of a war. The method of the Servant’s conducting a war surfaced; namely, that the war would be through his suffering, humiliation, and death. The essence is brought out that he achieves his triumphal purposes as messianic redeemer against the power of evil by being the sin-bearing sacrifice. This sublime nature of the Servant excludes any analogy of the text to the Baal myth and rather connects the jargon to Daniel 9.