Abstract:
The study object is the first Servant Song of Isaiah in Isa 42:1-4 and the fourth, in Isa
52:13-53:12. The messianic interpretation of these texts by the writers of the New
Testament has been criticized and considered an adaptation for the specific purpose
of the disciples of Jesus Christ. However, the thesis indicates, based on the exegesis
of the texts and the survey of the ancient traditions about the Messianic figure of the
Old Testament, and among the neighboring peoples of Israel in the Ancient Middle
East, that these Songs contain ancient traditions about the Messiah, and at the same
time it proposes a peculiar combination of hopes, offering a renovation of the
traditions around the same figure. The Servant Songs of Yahweh analyzed here,
each one in its own way, resort to the traditions of the royalty and of prophecy,
broadly surmounting the two traditions. In Deutero Isaiah, the ancient theme of the
Messiah developed on the figure of the king, gains new features and presents the
Messiah in the figure of the servant. Literary, ethical and anthropological
characteristics of the mythical concept of the hero help to renovate and compose this
figure. Considering the research and the notion that the Servant Songs are textual
plots of high context, the demand of the critics for an explicit and definitive affirmation
to consider these texts as integrating the development of the tradition of the Messiah
is not justified. One of the ways of making the ancientness of the tradition more
dynamic is the use of mythical language and patterns, which are capable of making
the servant into the hero and the king, and consequently, the Messiah.
