Sárospataki Füzetek 16. (2012)

2012 / 3-4. szám - TANULMÁNYOK - P. H. R. van Houwelingen: Jeruzsálem, az anyagyülekezet. Az apostoli egyház fejlődése Jeruzsálem szemszögéből

Jaap Deklker

himself as a disciple. In the New Revised Standard Version the Servant says: ‘The Lord GOD has given me the tongue of a teacher, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word. Morning by morning he wakens— wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught.’\ do not know why this translation has chosen the word teacher’, for in Hebrew the word ‘disciple’ is used twice, even in the plural form:

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T T I - T V T — - T

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'b TU

iDniés vhvb

In his speaking as well as in his hearing the Servant has had the attitude characteristic of disciples. But until now the Servant was the only one with such an attitude, for no one was willing to listen to the voice of the Servant (Isa 50:10). By now using exactly the same word to designate the promised children of Zion, the book of Isaiah acknowledges them as the promised offspring of the Servant himself. In the last phrases of the same chapter this offspring of Zion is explicitly referred to as the ‘Servants of the Lord’ (Isa 54:17). It is the concluding sentence of this current chapter and not the beginning of the following chapter, as sometimes is supposed. The Servants are promised a heritage, namely the heritage that is described in the promises to Zion and her children. It is a heritage of living in great peace without any need to fear oppression or terror. It is the peace as it is described earlier in the book already, in the summarizing prophecy of the Servant himself, that concludes the chapters 40-48. There the Lord God said that He would have given them peace like a river if they had only paid attention to his commandments and that their righteousness then would be like the waves of the sea. Their offspring would be like the sand and their descendants like its grains. But at that moment in the book of Isaiah it is concluded with disappointment that Servant Israel has failed. And by way of warning that part of the book concludes with the saying that there is no peace for the wicked (Isa 48:20). After that saying the book of Isaiah tells us about the new Servant of the Lord, the prophetic one. And immediately after the chapter about this Servant’s suffering and death, peace and righteousness is guaranteed to Zion and her children and designated as the heritage of the Servants of the Lord. This means that the suffering and death of the prophetic Servant of the Lord has cleared the way for this peace and righteousness to be given to the offspring of Zion.

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