Second of four articles by Ella Pomeroy on the Servant Songs of the Book of Isaiah.
The Second Servant Song (Isaiah 49:1-6)
— American Standard Version Bible
Listen, you peoples, from afar:
Yahweh has called me from the womb;
from the inside of my mother, he has mentioned my name.
2 He has made my mouth like a sharp sword.
He has hidden me in the shadow of his hand.
He has made me a polished shaft.
He has kept me close in his quiver.
3 He said to me, “You are my servant,
Israel, in whom I will be glorified.”
4 But I said, “I have labored in vain.
I have spent my strength in vain for nothing;
yet surely the justice due to me is with Yahweh,
and my reward with my God.”
5 Now Yahweh, he who formed me from the womb to be his servant,
says to bring Jacob again to him,
and to gather Israel to him,
for I am honorable in Yahweh’s eyes,
and my God has become my strength.
6 Indeed, he says, “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob,
and to restore the preserved of Israel.
I will also give you as a light to the nations,
that you may be my salvation to the end of the earth.”
— World English Bible
Commentary
And now saith Jehovah that formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob again to him and that Israel be gathered unto him (for I am honorable in the eyes of Jehovah, and my God is become my strength); yea, he saith, It is too light a thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth.
Isaiah 49:1 WHETHER THIS passage, the second of the Servant Poems (Isaiah 49:1-6), is read as coming from an individual seeking communion with God or as a statement of the higher self ever acknowledging its source, the entire group of verses is a dedication of the whole life to the service of Jehovah and expresses the conviction that in assigning a vast work Jehovah at the same time provides the “recompense” and “strength” required to carry it out. The opening sentences of this poem recall the use of the word “isles” in the first poem; and we are again reminded that our ordinary thinking is disintegrated, lacks purpose, and is marked by separativeness. But the servant of Jehovah knows well that he is already called and chosen; that “Jehovah hath called me from the womb” of time to do His perfect work; and that from the moment of physical conception the individual soul is provided with its own place, its own niche of usefulness and expression.
Isaiah 49:2 The metaphysical student knows too that the “sharp sword” of his mouth is not to be an instrument of torture and pain to others, but that through his own mouth must come the words that will release him from ideas and habits that have bound him. Freedom from embarrassing situations or compromising persons is not secured by wielding a sharp tongue, by lashing out against them with bitterness. But mental freedom and spiritual realization come through sharpening one’s own word, making it keen, direct, and incisive when turned toward one’s own errors—with the same motive with which one deliberately prunes a tree, that of improving the product of the tree—never in the spirit of condemnation or spite.
It is in the mood of willingness to be changed, to let go of the useless or defective, that we realize that “in the shadow of his hand hath he hid me,” and so we are able to rest our thinking upon Him, His glory, and His love. Association in our heart with the beauty and harmony of God makes of us that “polished shaft” to which our poet refers, and we observe with joy that every thought and act, every incident and circumstance, in the life becomes better rounded, more expressive of divine law, more adapted to its purpose, and more like the ideal “shaft” that always reached its mark.
Saint Gregory asked, “What is denoted by the ‘quiver’ of God but secret counsel?” It is surely true that our Father, from the creation throughout eternity “in his quiver hath . . . kept me close”; and of this the servant of Jehovah is sure. It is in our periods of meditation and silence that we appreciate the “secret counsel” of which Saint Gregory speaks; for we are learning that as we acknowledge ourselves to be the servant of Jehovah and as we recognize that the Great Servant is the Christ within us, so do we receive our instructions more directly from the Lord Himself and are able to achieve such a degree of readiness and receptivity that the voice will say, “Thou art my servant.”
Isaiah 49:3 “Thou art my servant,” says Jehovah, “in whom I will be glorified”: not merely glorified, but in whose life, daily conduct, rewards of activity, and plans for the future the Great Servant will so manifest Himself that all who meet the servant will recognize the hand and purpose of the Great Servant at work in his affairs. A successful servant is one who enters into the mind and plans of the master. He gives himself wholly over to the interests and activities of his superior and has no schemes or intentions of his own. During his hours of service an employee in a business concern must yield his personality to the requirements of the concern, and he finds that only as he does this can he win notice or promotion.
Isaiah 49:4 So it is not surprising to find the servant of our poem crying out, from the depths of personal mortification, “I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nought and vanity”; for this must be the cry of any man who has tried to manage his business, his life, or his body according to the wisdom of the world. It is also the experience of one who acts out of a sense of personal independence, which leads to unwelcome emphasis on personality, or to personal likes, dislikes, and prejudices in the daily living.
Some of the definitions given under the head of “vanity” in Young’s concordance are “empty, ruin, vacancy, unprofitable, useless,” any one of which would perfectly describe the feeling of uselessness with which we gaze at much of our past effort. Why did common sense fail us in that emergency? Why did we not foresee consequences under those particular circumstances? Why did not understanding play a larger part in our conduct and words? These questions always follow action that springs from the personal standpoint; but the servant knows that “surely the justice due me is with Jehovah, and my recompense with my God.” It was Elihu that asked, “Shall his recompense be as thou wilt?” Only the wholehearted servant of God knows the answer: “My recompense is with my God.” Many Unity students are learning to give their affairs more trustingly into the hands of God; many of us still have rather a difficult time undoing the clutch that the daily incidents have on us. But here we have the Great Servant, the Christ in each of us, showing us the attitude that He Himself takes with regard to His work—as Jesus said, “I do nothing of myself, but as the Father taught me.”
Isaiah 49:5 This complete self-donation is further expressed in the lines “Jehovah that formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob again to him . . . that Israel be gathered unto him.” The work is accepted without question; and it is not a work of self-redemption. It is a work for others upon which the servant launches himself with a free and a high heart, for his sense of the presence of Jehovah in all his activities is so keen that he feels no need of thinking of himself. Indeed he goes on to say, “I am honorable in the eyes of Jehovah, and my God is become my strength,” for he recognizes the need for entire self-abandonment in order that the perfect word and plan of Jehovah may be made manifest in him.
The words “self-donation” and “self-abandonment” do not imply either a desire or a tendency to sink into utter nothingness, into the mire of life. On the contrary both words remind us of the words Jesus spoke, “Let him deny himself,” which we know are intended to convey the idea of setting aside the personality so that “the King of glory” may come in. As the perfect servant is the one who most completely enters into the mind of the master, so the perfect life is the one that most wholeheartedly grasps and carries out the designs of our Father. The Great Servant, Jesus Christ, gave Himself without reservation to the will of God; and at that moment He knew, “God is become my strength.”
Isaiah 49:6 Then comes the moment of triumph in which Jehovah says to each one of us who can eradicate the personality and let Spirit shine through, “It is too light a thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel.” The task that is presented to us is much greater than that. Why should we stop at cleansing our thought processes and establishing righteous thinking? Why should we be satisfied with achieving order in our own world, and perhaps our body and our family? If truly we have raised up “the tribes of Jacob” and have so changed our mind that lower and unsatisfactory orders of experience are supplanted by the Jacob of higher and clearer thinking, if we have restored “the tribes of Israel” so that our life is full of righteousness, purity, and prosperity, is there not still work to be done? Are there not many persons to whom the word of release may be spoken? Thousands who are searching for Truth and are at a loss as to where to look for it?
Our work must necessarily include becoming “a light to the Gentiles” so that every area of our living may be purified and rendered a joyous and harmonious expression of the Christ. Any idea, thought, or circumstance that is less than perfect is “Gentile”; that is, it is foreign to the Christ mind, the principle of righteousness. And if we are going to carry out the command of Jesus to go “into all the world,” we must attend carefully to every “Gentile” notion that finds entrance into our heart.
The servant in our poem is to “be my salvation unto the end of the earth”; and in him we recognize ourselves and a charge to ourselves to be attentive to the words of Truth that come to us, whether from the world about us or from the Christ within us. We are, humanly speaking, more disposed to ignore than to attend to such messages; but the Great Servant within us is always ready to help us become the servant of Jehovah on our own plane of expression; and to Him we turn, in Him we trust, to His hands we confide our affairs, knowing that He is “Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace,” and divinely eager to make His saving grace manifest in every department of our living—the whole earth.
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