From: Isaiah 49:3, 5-6
Second Song of the Servant of the Lord
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Commentary:
49:1-55:13. Chapter 49 marks the start of the second section of the second part
of Isaiah. The first section (40:1-48:22) dealt with the release of the Jews from
exile in Babylon on the orders of the Lord, the ruler of the world and of all nations.
This second section sings of the restoration of Zion and the renewal of the people.
Almost all the oracles here presuppose that Babylon has fallen and the exiles
have returned home (although neither event is explicitly referred to). Nor is there
mention of the universal scope of salvation: the focus is mainly on future hopes
and on Jerusalem.
Most of the oracles in this section were probably proclaimed, between the years
515 and 500 BC. If that was the case, then they were addressed to a disillusioned
people: the enthusiasm that came with the return from exile and the efforts made
to rebuild Jerusalem failed to produce the desired results: there are still class dif-
ferences, greed is plain to see, and huge sectors of society are experiencing po-
verty. The kind of Jerusalem that the exiles dreamed of had not come about: it
bore no relationship to what they were experiencing; nor did it fit the image of Je-
rusalem found in many texts of the Priestly tradition (cf. “Introduction to the Pen-
tateuch”, in “The Navarre Bible: Pentateuch” (p. 20). These oracles are designed
to dispel discouragement and to raise people’s hopes by telling them about the
liberator that God is going to send, the servant of the Lord, and by proclaiming
that the holy city (now given the sacred name of Zion) will very soon be restored.
In fact, the section can be divided into alternating poems on the servant and on
Zion: 49:1-13, the “servant” (second oracle); 49:14-50:3, “Zion”; 50:4-11, the “ser-
vant”, (third oracle and exhortation); 51:17-52:12, Zion; 52:13-53:12, the “servant”
(fourth oracle); 54:1-17, “Zion” (Jerusalem). Verses 1-13 of chapter 55 are an ex-
hortation to commit oneself to the new Covenant.
49:1-6. In the first Song of the Servant of the Lord (42:1-9) we meet the “servant”
for the first time and we are told of his mission to liberate the exiles. In this se-
cond song, the servant himself speaks. He addresses the “coastlands”, “peo-
ples from afar”, and he is conscious of having been chosen by God from his mo-
ther’s womb to carry out God’s plans of salvation even in those distant parts (cf.
vv. 1-3). Here we are told about two aspects of his mission, which we will hear
more about in the oracles that follow. First, he is to play a leading role in the re-
covery of the tribes and the repatriation of the exiles (v. 5); second, he will ex-
tend salvation to the ends of the earth (cf. v. 6).
This poem contains things that the servant has to say about himself (vv. 1-4),
and things that God says about the servant (vv. 5-6). The servant is well aware
that he was called by God, even from his mother’s womb, (like Jeremiah; cf. Jer
1:5) and has been charged with preaching to the pagan peoples (”the coast-
lands”) or at least to his compatriots in the diaspora (cf. v. 1; cf. Jer 1:1-10; 25:
13-38); he has been endowed with qualities that enable him to speak out, with
words that find their mark like arrows, even if that creates divisions (v. 2; cf. Jer
1:10); and also, despite the divine protection given him, he feels depressed and
disappointed, as happened to Jeremiah (vv. 3-4; cf. Jer 1:7; :8:18-20). Everything
that the servant does is grounded on what the Lord has told him: “You are my
servant, Israel” (v. 3). Some commentators are of the view that “Israel” here is
a later interpretation, put in to support the collectivist interpretation of the ser-
vant that soon became widespread; but there is little evidence to support that:
the word “Israel” is missing only in one manuscript, and not an important one
at that. The mention of Israel does not argue against the servant’s being an indi-
vidual rather than a collectivity, for in poetry a person can be addressed by his
own name or by his family name. In fact, both in biblical Israel and nowadays
we often find people using their place of birth as a surname.
In vv. 5-6 the Lord spells out the servant’s mission: it is to renew the people in
such a way that even non-Israelites can see the light and attain salvation. Al-
though the universal mission of the servant is not clearly defined here, for his
work is meant to be confined to the tribes of Jacob, still the achievement of this
objective (the re-assembling of Israel) will be a kind of light to help the pagan
nations see and acknowledge God. The expression “light to the nations”. (v. 6)
already occurred in the earlier poem (42:6); there it could be taken in a social
sense—to bring about the liberation of the exiles and captives; here, the religious
meaning is clear: salvation will spread to all the nations.
To sum up, the servant of the Lord (be he an individual or a collectivity, or more
likely both) has been chosen by God, who loves him most specially; he has all
the main qualities of a prophet; and he must influence his compatriots so as to
enlighten those from outside, and bring them salvation.
The messianic interpretation of the servant figure, based on this second song,
was widespread among the Jews of Alexandria who made the Septuagint Greek
translation; it was also held by members of the Qumran community and by some
authors of the period between the Old and New Testaments (the author of the
“Book of Enoch”, for example). All these interpreted the servant as standing for
the entire people of Israel. Christians, from the beginning, applied the songs of
the servant to Jesus, and saw them as finding fulfillment in his life. Thus, although
the image of the “sharp sword” (v. 2) refers to the effectiveness of the word of God,
in Hebrews 4:12-13 we find it used with reference to Revelation as a whole which
is fully and perfectly manifested in Jesus Christ (cf. also Rev 1:16 and 2:12). We
find the expression, “light to the nations” or “light to the peoples” being applied
by Simeon to Jesus (Lk 2:32). Indeed, in the Acts of the Apostles it is applied to
those who, in line with Jesus’ teaching and as cooperators in his work of salvation,
are setting out to preach to the Gentiles, as the words Paul and Barnabas speak
in the synagogue of Psidian Antioch testify: “It was necessary that the word of
God should be spoken first to you. Since you thrust it from you, and judge your-
selves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we turn to the Gentiles. For so the Lord
has commanded us, saying, ‘I have set you to be a light for the Gentiles, that
you may bring salvation to the uttermost parts of the earth” (Acts 13:46-47).
Hence the Church sees her mission as spreading the truth about Jesus, the light
that enlightens everyone: “The light, of God’s face shines in all its beauty on the
countenance of Jesus Christ, ‘the image of the invisible God’ (Col 1:15), the ‘re-
flection of God’s glory’ (Heb 1:3), ‘full of grace and truth’ (Jn 1:14). Christ is ‘the
way, and the truth, and the life’ (Jn 14:6). [...] Jesus Christ, the ‘light of the na-
tions’, shines: upon the face of his Church, which he sends forth to the whole
world to proclaim the Gospel to every creature (cf. Mk 16:15). Hence the Church,
as the people of God among the nations, while attentive to the new challenges of
history and to mankind’s efforts to discover the meaning of life, offers to everyone
the answer which comes from the truth about Jesus Christ and his Gospel” (John
Paul II, “Veritatis Splendor”, 2).
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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.
Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.
From: John 1:29-34
The Witness of John (Continuation)
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Commentary:
29. For the first time in the Gospel Christ is called the “Lamb of God”. Isaiah had
compared the sufferings of the Servant of Yahweh, the Messiah, with the sacrifice
of a lamb (cf. Isaiah 53:7); and the blood of the paschal lamb smeared on the door
of houses had served to protect the firstborn of the Israelites in Egypt (cf. Exodus
12:6-7): all this was a promise and prefiguring of the true Lamb, Christ, the victim
in the sacrifice of Calvary on behalf of all mankind. This is why St. Paul will say
that “Christ, our Paschal Lamb, has been sacrificed” (1 Corinthians 5:7). The ex-
pression “Lamb of God” also suggests the spotless innocence of the Redeemer
(cf. 1 Peter 1:18-20; 1 John 3:5).
The sacred text says “the sin of the world”, in the singular, to make it absolutely
clear that every kind of sin is taken away: Christ came to free us from Original
Sin, which in Adam affected all men, and from all personal sins.
The Book of Revelation reveals to us that Jesus is victorious and glorious in Hea-
ven as the slain lamb (cf. Revelation 5:6-14), surrounded by saints, martyrs and
virgins (Revelation 7:9, 14; 14:1-5), who render Him the praise and glory due Him
as God (Revelation 7:10).
Since Holy Communion is a sharing in the sacrifice of Christ, priests say these
words of the Baptist before administering it, to encourage the faithful to be grate-
ful to our Lord for giving Himself up to death to save us and for giving Himself to
us as nourishment for our souls.
30-31. John the Baptist here asserts Jesus’ superiority by saying that He existed
before him, even though He was born after him. Thereby he shows us the divinity
of Christ, who was generated by the Father from all eternity and born of the Virgin
Mary in time. It is as if the Baptist were saying: “Although I was born before Him,
He is not limited by the ties of His birth; for although He is born of His mother in
time, He was generated by His Father outside of time” (St. Gregory the Great,
“In Evangelia Homiliae”, VII).
By saying what he says in verse 31, the Precursor does not mean to deny his
personal knowledge of Jesus (cf. Luke 1:36 and Matthew 3:14), but to make it
plain that God revealed to him the moment when he should publicly proclaim Je-
sus as Messiah and Son of God, and that he also understood that his own mis-
sion as precursor had no other purpose than to bear witness to Jesus Christ.
32-34. To emphasize the divinity of Jesus Christ, the Evangelist includes here the
Precursor’s testimony regarding Jesus’ Baptism (cf. the other Gospels, which de-
scribe in more detail what happened on this occasion: Matthew 3:13-17 and para-
graph). It is one of the key points in our Lord’s life, in which the mystery of the
Blessed Trinity is revealed (cf. note on Matthew 3:16).
The dove is a symbol of the Holy Spirit, of whom it is said in Genesis 1:2 that He
was moving over the face of the waters. Through this sign of the dove, the Isaiah
prophecies (11:2-5: 42:1-2) are fulfilled which say that the Messiah will be full of
the power of the Holy Spirit. The Baptist points to the great difference between
the baptism he confers and Christ’s Baptism; in John 3, Jesus will speak about
this new Baptism in water and in the Spirit (cf. Acts 1:5; Titus 3:5).
“The Son of God”: it should be pointed out that in the original text this expression
carries the definite article, which means that John the Baptist confesses before
his listeners the supernatural and transcendent character of Christ’s messiahship
— very far removed from the politico-religious notion which Jewish leaders had
forged.
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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.
Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.