Later text
Isaiah 57:14BSB
And it will be said, "Build it up, build it up, prepare the way, take every obstacle out of the way of My people."
Intertextuality Pair
Isaiah 57:14 → Isaiah 53:10
Echo
Earlier text
Isaiah 53:10BSB
Yet it was the LORD's will to crush Him and to cause Him to suffer; and when His soul is made a guilt offering, He will see His offspring, He will prolong His days, and the good pleasure of the LORD will prosper in His hand.
Significance
The link is a Hebrew root, and it is exact. Isaiah 53:10 says it pleased the LORD לְדַכְּאוֹ (le-dakke'o, "to crush Him") — the verb דָּכָא (daka) already used of the Servant at 53:5, "He was crushed for our iniquities." Isaiah 57:15 uses that verb together with its cognate adjective דַּכָּא (dakka), and uses them of the opposite party: the LORD dwells "with the oppressed (דַּכָּא) and humble in spirit... to revive the heart of the contrite (נִדְכָּאִים)." Across Isaiah the root falls only at 3:15, 19:10, 53:5, 53:10 and 57:15, and 57:15 is the single place the adjective stands at all. The crushed Servant and the crushed people are named by one word.
- Found via
- Keil and Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament (1866)
- Reference Type
- Echo
- Connection Method(s)
- Longitudinal Theme — the root דכא ("crush") threads the Servant's suffering to the people's condition across Isaiah, and the divine self-description that follows in 57:15 repeats the Servant's own exaltation formula from 52:13. Typology is declined: Isaiah 57 presents no institution, person or event standing in correspondence to the Servant, but the LORD's dwelling with those whom the Servant's crushing has made contrite.
A second thread runs alongside it. Isaiah 57:15 introduces the speaker as רָם וְנִשָּׂא (ram ve-nissa, "high and lifted up"), the two roots רוּם and נָשָׂא that describe the Lord upon His throne at Isaiah 6:1 — and describe the Servant at 52:13: "My Servant will be raised (יָרוּם) and lifted up (וְנִשָּׂא) and highly exalted." The oracle that promises God's presence to the crushed borrows its description of God from its description of the crushed Servant.
Held together, Isaiah 57:14-15 states the consequence of 53:10 rather than a parallel to it. The command of v. 14 — "Build it up, build it up, prepare the way, take every obstacle out of the way of My people," the highway language of 40:3 and 62:10 — leaves open what obstacle is removed and at whose cost. Verse 15 answers by naming who will travel that road, and 53:10 has already said what the clearing cost. The Servant was crushed so that the High and Lifted Up One could keep house with the crushed.
This is where the text ends in Christ, and it ends in Him as desirable rather than merely predicted. The One who is high and lifted up is the One who did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but descended to death on a cross and was therefore exalted (Philippians 2:6-11). The same descent is announced as good news to the poor and the brokenhearted (Isaiah 61:1; Luke 4:18) and pronounced blessed upon the poor in spirit and those who mourn (Matthew 5:3-4). The contrite are not merely tolerated by the Most High; they are His chosen address — "we will come to him and make Our home with him" (John 14:23). The crushing of the Servant did not only clear a legal obstacle from the road. It purchased the nearness of God to people who have nothing left, which is the sweetest thing such people could possibly be offered.
Related Anchor-Text Networks
Linked Mentions 1