Servant and suffering in Isaiah and Jeremiah: who borrowed from whom?

Abstract

In this paper I propose a reading of the fourth Servant Song that goes beyond the alternative of the “suffering servant” as either an individual or a collective body. The search for a combination of these two main approaches is indeed not a new venture.3 I hope to shed some new light, however, on the question by identifying the group of authors as formerly exiled temple-singers who presented themselves to post-exilic Israel as the suffering, atoning servant – using some elements of the literary portrait of Jeremiah.