Charged with the Glory of God (Studies in Scripture and Biblical Theology)

Isaiah's servant songs reveal a true and better Adam In Charged with the Glory of God Caroline Batchelder provides a synchronic theological and canonical reading of the four Servant Songs in Isaiah (42:1-9; 49:1-13; 50:3-11; 52:13-53:12) showing how they relate to one another and the message of the prophetic book. Reading Isaiah as a compositional unity in conversation with other texts such as Genesis results in a coherent presentation of the mysterious servant. The polemic against idolatry reveals rebellious Israel to be false imagers of God. In contrast Isaiah's servant is an ideal embodiment of Yahweh's image and likeness. Thus the servant is a paradigm for those who wish to recapture and realize God's good creation purposes for all humanity. The servant poems are not only a call to reorient oneself as a servant toward God and his creation but also a map and means for doing so. In this study Batchelder offers fresh insights from Isaiah for understanding God's true image and its idolatrous counterfeits.