Francesco Scaglione

The prologue presupposes the issue of 'the servants' and gives the concept a programmatic place (v. 6). […] On the one hand they are depicted here, much more concretely than in DI, as people who honor the sabbath and hold on to the covenant, and who ill therefore be gathered by God on his holy mountain and his house of prayer; on the other hand this category undergoes an expansion, because it appears that foreigners can join themselves to YHWH in order to serve him. Here the concept of 'the servants' acquires some connotations which were not suspected at the end of DI. Therefore the subsequent passages of TI will have to clarify the enlarged content of the notion.

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The absence of the term in the two principal parts which follow the prologue (56.9-59.21; 60.1-63.6) is rather a phenomenon of aposiopesis. In these chapters 'the servants' are slowly but surely constituted without mention of their name.

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The first section: two progenies opposed (56.9-59.21)

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The second section: the righteous progeny in Zion (60.1-63.6)

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The conclusion of this cursory voyage through 56.9-63.6 is that the question of the 'servants of YHWH' keeps our attention in this section, even though the term is not used. The absence of the term itself is functional and therefore we can speak of an aposiopesis. Gradually the servants emerge from nowhere as a party through the development of the concepts 'righteousness' and 'offspring, seed', which changes into 'people' at the end. The chapters mentioned contain one drama, in which the servants rise up from oppression and sin[,] in order to become the righteous offspring of the Servant. At the end, after the anticipated entry into the sanctuary of Zion (62.10-12), they are constituted as such.

After the servants, without being mentioned as such, have, in the vision of chs. 60-62, taken the place which is attributed to them in the new Zion, they present themselves for the first time as such in the lengthy penitential prayer which joins that vision (63.7-64.11). In this prayer there is no question of that salvation to come, but of the present misery of oppression, sin and obscuring of God, as it is said: 'Return for the sake of thy servants, the tribes of thy heritage. Since a little while they have dislodged thy holy people, our adversaries have trampled the sanctuary' (63.17-18). Specific aspects of the wording locate this prayer in TI's primary point of focus. The imperative 'return' (shûb), addressed to God and without a prepositional adjunct, occurs, to be sure, only in the language of prayers (Pss. 6.5; 90.13; with a similar adjunct in Exod. 32.12; Num. 10.36; Pss. 7.8; 80.15), ¹⁾ but it also belongs to the themes which connect TI with DI. The only other place in Isa. 40-66 where there is question of God's returning (shûb), is the provisional end of DI: 'For eye to eye they see YHWH returning to Zion' (52.8). It is true that there the verb is followed by 'to Zion', but it is very noticeable that this is missing in the plea of 63.17. If this verse had said: 'Return to thy servants', nothing more than the traditional appeal to Israel's election would have been at stake, as we know this from the collective lament (cf. Pss. 79.2, 10; 89.51; 90.13, 16). In the expression which we now find, 'for the sake of thy servants', dominates a certain perspective. God must return not because those who prey consider themselves as his faithful servants, but in order that they really do serve him. There servitude is more a goal in view than an existing reason.²⁾

This chapter is central in TI as far as the theme of the servants is concerned.

From th preceding it is sufficiently apparent that the drama of 'the servants of YHWH' ends with ch. 65. Therefore the question arises why TI returns to this topic in the last chapter: 'It shall be known that the hand of YHWH is with his servants, and his indignation is against his enemies' (66.14). Does this brief notice bring something new? It is true, the vindication of the servants is over, but 66.1-14 sheds a closer light on some aspects of it.
Thus 66.1-6 has perhaps been added because it seems that some things were missing in ch. 65.

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In this connection, the wording of v. 14 deserves our attention in a more specific way: 'The hand of YHWH shall be known to his servants'. Basing oneself on the unique occurrence of the preposition 'êt in combination with this verb, one has often proposed the following translation: 'It shall be known that the hand of YHWH is with his servants' (RSV). That explanation is not far-fetched, because YHWH himself has said: 'I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with ('êt) him who is of a contrite and humble spirit' (57.15; cfr. the use of the same preposition in 57.8; 59.12; 62.11; 63.3, 11; 64.4; 65.23; 66.10). His servants, Zion's children, will acknowledge this, when his consolation is given to their mother. TI's preaching, and elaboration of DI's message of comfort, is accomplished here.

We may briefly summarize our reading of Isa. 56.1-66.14. It appears that the theme of 'the servants of YHWH' is introduced in the last chapters of DI (53.10; 54.17) on the one hand and programmatically announced in the prologue of TI (56.6) on the other hand. In the following chapters it is carefully elaborated. There is no passage, except 63.1-6, in which the theme does not play a central part, whether or not the expression 'the servants of YHWH' itself occurs. It is indeed missing in the larger section of 56.9-62.12, but here we are confronted with a deliberate aposiopesis. Some terms in this text complex that are closely connected with 'the servants', i.e. 'seed' and 'righteousness', prepare for the mention of 'the servants' (63.17). The actual decision about their destiny, their vindication by YHWH, is given in ch. 65.