“Then the LORD said to Moses, ‘Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh; for under compulsion he will let them go, and under compulsion he will drive them out of his land.’ God spoke further to Moses and said to him, ‘I am the LORD; and I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as God Almighty, but by My name, LORD, I DID NOT MAKE MYSELF KNOWN TO THEM. I also established My covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they sojourned. Furthermore I have heard the groaning of the sons of Israel, because the Egyptians are holding them in bondage, and I have remembered My covenant. Say, therefore, to the sons of Israel, “I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from their bondage. I will also redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments. Then I will take you for My people, and I will be your God; and YOU SHALL KNOW THAT I AM THE LORD YOUR GOD, who brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. I will bring you to the land which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and I will give it to you for a possession; I am the LORD.”‘ So Moses spoke thus to the sons of Israel, but they did not listen to Moses on account of their despondency and cruel bondage” (Exod 6:1-9). There are two theological problems God must overcome in the story of Israel’s national hostage crises (Pharaoh had taken the entire nation of Israel hostage!). The first theological problem appears in Exodus 5: Pharaoh refuses to listen to Moses because he does not know the LORD (Exod 5:2). The second theological problem appears in Exodus 6: Israel refuses to listen to Moses because they do not know the LORD (Exod 6:9). As surprising as it sounds, Israel is just as clueless about the LORD’s identity as their Satanic oppressors. They had heard ABOUT the LORD (Exod 6:3-4), but they had never heard the LORD (Exod 6:3-4). Just like Pharaoh in Exodus 5, they also refuse to listen to the voice of Moses their redeemer. God, therefore, uses Israel’s national distress to make himself known, so that we will listen the voice of the one whom God has sent, our Savior and our Redeemer. When the wars against the Jewish people are finally over, and we are still standing upon our feet, the whole world will finally know the LORD is the God of Israel, and we, the people of Israel, shall finally listen to the voice of our Redeemer. “The LORD has bared His holy arm in the sight of all the nations, that all the ends of the earth may see the salvation of our God…. But you will not go out in haste, nor will you go as fugitives; for the LORD will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rear guard. Behold, My servant will prosper, He will be high and lifted up and greatly exalted” (Isa 52:10, 12-13).
The Servant of the LORD as the Arm of the LORD
What’s the connection between “the arm of the LORD” and “the servant of the LORD”? In the story of the exodus, they represent respectively God’s divine power and His human vessel. The arm of the LORD symbolizes the LORD’s strength and might in His bringing His people from slavery to freedom, while Moses as the LORD’s instrument was called His servant.
The difference between the two is clear. The first is divine, and the second is human. Against this backdrop, it is surprising to discover that in Isaiah chapters 40 to 53, the motifs of the arm of the LORD and the servant of the LORD are used in a way that both demonstrates their distinctiveness but also brings them to a point of correlation which is as significant as it is unexpected.
In those chapters the use of both the motif of arm of the LORD and servant of the LORD is noteworthy. Each of them is charged with its own individual import, and they represent, as in the story of the exodus, the power of the LORD on the one hand and his human instrument on the other. We will look briefly at each, starting with the servant of the LORD.
