If Isaiah intended to convey only information, he would lay out all the details regarding the Messiah at once. But in order to teach, persuade, and give his audience an encounter with the Servant of the Lord, he develops a rich fabric of recurring themes in symphonic fashion. He unfolds God’s message in steps so that each aspect can be grasped in relation to the rest of the picture. Isaiah is an artist whose canvas is the soul of his listener.
 Read Isaiah 50:4-10. Summarize what these verses are saying. How do you see Jesus in this passage?
 We found in Isaiah 49:7 that God’s servant is despised, abhorred, and “the slave of rulers” (NRSV) but that “Kings shall see and stand up, princes, and they shall prostrate themselves” (NRSV). Here in Isaiah 50, we learn that the valley is deeper for the gentle teacher whose words sustain the weary (Isa. 50:4). The path to vindication leads through physical abuse (Isa. 50:6).
 This abuse sounds bad to those of us in modern Western cultures. But in an ancient Near Eastern culture, honor was a life and death matter for a person and his/her group. If you insulted and mistreated someone like this, you’d better be well protected; if they got half a chance, the victim and/or his clan would surely retaliate.
 King David attacked and conquered the country of Ammon (2 Samuel 10:1-12) because its king had merely “seized David’s envoys, shaved off half the beard of each, cut off their garments in the middle at their hips, and sent them away” (2 Sam. 10:4, NRSV). But in Isaiah 50 people strike the servant, painfully pluck out hairs from his beard, and spit at him. What makes these actions an international, intercosmic incident is that the victim is the envoy of the divine King of kings. In fact, by comparing Isaiah 9:6, 7 and Isaiah 11:1-16 with other “servant” passages, we found that the servant is the King, the mighty Deliverer! But with all this power and honor, for some unthinkable reason, He does not save Himself! This is so strange that people didn’t believe it. At Jesus’ cross, leaders mocked him:
 “He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!”(Luke 23:35, NRSV);
 “Let him come down from the cross now, and we will believe in him” (Matt. 27:42, NRSV).