Isaiah’s Servant in Paul: The Hermeneutics and Ethics of Paul’s Use of Isaiah 49-54

Several early Christians identify Isaiah’s Servant of the Lord as Jesus; yet Paul appears to connect the Servant with himself. In this study, Daniel Cole examines the hermeneutical warrants and ethical implications of Paul’s use of texts within Isa. 49-54, arguing that this section constitutes a coherent prophetic narrative in which God saves a new people from sin by the Servant’s death and subsequent work in his followers, the servants. While several Second Temple works interpret elements of this prophecy with differing conceptions of history, Paul sees Isaiah’s Servant fulfilled in Jesus’ death and subsequent spiritual union with the apostle. The author thus demonstrates that the coherent salvation history of the Servant prophecy provides both the interpretive framework for Paul’s reading of Isaiah and the relational definitions for the imperatives that Paul places on himself and others.