The Hyperlinked Bible
Intertextuality Pair
Allusion
Later text
Acts 4:27-30BSB
In fact, this is the very city where Herod and Pontius Pilate conspired with the Gentiles and the people of Israel against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed. They carried out what Your hand and will had decided beforehand would happen. And now, Lord, consider their threats, and enable Your servants to speak Your word with complete boldness, as You stretch out Your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of Your holy servant Jesus.”
Earlier text
Isaiah 52:13BSB
Behold, My Servant will prosper; He will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted.
The Jerusalem church's prayer twice names Jesus "Your holy servant" (ton hagion paida sou, 4:27, 30), the same Servant title Peter applied to Jesus at the temple portico (Acts 3:13), and it draws on the Septuagint of the fourth Servant Song, which opens "Behold, my Servant (ho pais mou)" (Isa 52:13). The title is not generic: in Acts it identifies Jesus specifically as the suffering-then-exalted Servant of Isaiah 52:13-53:12, the figure "raised and lifted up and highly exalted" precisely through being "delivered up" (53:12). The prayer presses this Servant theology in two directions — toward the cross (Herod, Pilate, Gentiles, and Israel gathered "against Your holy servant," 4:27, fulfilling the Servant's rejection) and toward the church's mission (signs and wonders done "through the name of Your holy servant Jesus," 4:30, extending the exalted Servant's saving reach). The telos is bold worship under threat: the persecuted believers do not pray for escape but for boldness, because the Servant whose name they bear was himself opposed and then exalted, so that Christ the holy Servant is treasured as the One whose vindicated suffering both authorizes and emboldens their witness.