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Charged with the Glory of God: Yahweh, the Servant, and the Earth in Isaiah 40-55
Isaiah's servant songs reveal a true and better Adam
In Charged with the Glory of God , Caroline Batchelder provides a synchronic, theological, and canonical reading of the four Servant Songs in Isaiah (42:1–9; 49:1–13; 50:3–11; 52:13–53:12), showing how they relate to one another and the message of the prophetic book.
Reading Isaiah as a compositional unity in conversation with other texts such as Genesis results in a coherent presentation of the mysterious servant. The polemic against idolatry reveals rebellious Israel to be false imagers of God. In contrast, Isaiah's servant is an ideal embodiment of Yahweh's image and likeness. Thus, the servant is a paradigm for those who wish to recapture and realize God's good creation purposes for all humanity. The servant poems are not only a call to reorient oneself as a servant towards God and his creation, but also a map and means for doing so.
In this study, Batchelder offers fresh insights from Isaiah for understanding God's true image and its idolatrous counterfeits.
In Charged with the Glory of God , Caroline Batchelder provides a synchronic, theological, and canonical reading of the four Servant Songs in Isaiah (42:1–9; 49:1–13; 50:3–11; 52:13–53:12), showing how they relate to one another and the message of the prophetic book.
Reading Isaiah as a compositional unity in conversation with other texts such as Genesis results in a coherent presentation of the mysterious servant. The polemic against idolatry reveals rebellious Israel to be false imagers of God. In contrast, Isaiah's servant is an ideal embodiment of Yahweh's image and likeness. Thus, the servant is a paradigm for those who wish to recapture and realize God's good creation purposes for all humanity. The servant poems are not only a call to reorient oneself as a servant towards God and his creation, but also a map and means for doing so.
In this study, Batchelder offers fresh insights from Isaiah for understanding God's true image and its idolatrous counterfeits.
440 pages, Paperback
Published July 26, 2023
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January 2, 2024
Batchelder helps us read the Servant Songs within the context of Isaiah and within the canon of the Hebrew Bible. I was particularly struck by the way which she continually takes us back to Genesis 1-3, to show that the Servant Songs are God's way of restoring humanity and bringing about new creation. Idols are nothingness. They are images of an evil and empty sort. Yet, God intends humanity to be his likeness in the world and to carry the weight of his glory. The Servant Songs are God's template for how to do that.
A few other notes:
-I read this as a I preached through the servant songs during Advent 2023. The crescendo of preaching about the Suffering Servant on Christmas Eve Sunday was aided by her chapter on Isa 53. I found it's themes overlapped well with Athanasius's "On the Incarnation," which helped me tie incarnation and atonement together with regard to the Image of of God.
-This books is a dissertation, which means parts of it are dry. I didn't have time to read every speck of methodology, although I did read some. I mainly focused on her introduction, final four chapters, and conclusion.
-There are hints in her "directions for future research" about developing this into a more fully orbed Christian study. It's a work of Old Testament studies, submitted to the academic guild for defense, and so the references to the New Testament are very few, and references to Christ slim if at all. This is the main shortcoming of the work for use by Christians, as it will be a stretch for anyone but specialists to wade through the material. Drawing this into the umbrella of biblical theology would be very fruitful, and is likely left up to the task of preaching.
I'm thankful to Batchelder for her labor of love. The introductory notes by her doctoral supervisor are touching and make reading this heightened. I find it inspiring that Batchelder took up academic study of the Bible later in life and was writing her dissertation as a mother of older children and (if I recall correctly) grandchildren.
A few other notes:
-I read this as a I preached through the servant songs during Advent 2023. The crescendo of preaching about the Suffering Servant on Christmas Eve Sunday was aided by her chapter on Isa 53. I found it's themes overlapped well with Athanasius's "On the Incarnation," which helped me tie incarnation and atonement together with regard to the Image of of God.
-This books is a dissertation, which means parts of it are dry. I didn't have time to read every speck of methodology, although I did read some. I mainly focused on her introduction, final four chapters, and conclusion.
-There are hints in her "directions for future research" about developing this into a more fully orbed Christian study. It's a work of Old Testament studies, submitted to the academic guild for defense, and so the references to the New Testament are very few, and references to Christ slim if at all. This is the main shortcoming of the work for use by Christians, as it will be a stretch for anyone but specialists to wade through the material. Drawing this into the umbrella of biblical theology would be very fruitful, and is likely left up to the task of preaching.
I'm thankful to Batchelder for her labor of love. The introductory notes by her doctoral supervisor are touching and make reading this heightened. I find it inspiring that Batchelder took up academic study of the Bible later in life and was writing her dissertation as a mother of older children and (if I recall correctly) grandchildren.
Displaying 1 of 1 review