Thanksgiving for a Liberated Prophet: An Interpretation of Isaiah Chapter 53

In this major study, it is argued that the 'Servant of Yahweh' in the 'Servant Songs' of Isaiah 40-55 is the prophet himself. Traditional assumptions about chapter 53 are questioned and a new interpretation proposed. The notion of the vicarious suffering of the Servant is dismissed as alien to Old Testament teaching. The death of the Servant is also denied. Supposed references to it are susceptible of other interpretations. Whybray argues that the chapter is a Thanksgiving Psalm expressing the joyful astonishment of the prophet's contemporaries at his rescue from danger and suffering.