I have observed this structure in Isaiah 52:13 - 53:12 (1QIsa(a) column 44) that to my knowledge has not been seen before or published. I would never have seen this structure were I not turned on to the possibility by the work of Jim Monson and Steve Lancaster here. But the structure I see differs considerably from the structure Jim and Steve see, particularly around what is see as the pivot point, Isaiah 53:6.
These attached images illustrate the structure. I see well over a dozen solid points of chiasm and antimetabole. There have been other attempts to see chiasm on small scale in the Suffering Servant passage. Nothing of the encompassing scale I see. In a later post, I will narrate how each of these structural elements works. Some of them will be obvious in English; others will be obvious in Hebrew; others take some explanation. You may see more still, or you may want to put the second line of the introduction with A, or make other adjustments. What I am quite confident of is the center point, Isaiah 53:6. Everything else anchors around that nicely, and of itself this verse is solidly chiastic, as others have written.
If you are wondering what the header image in my publication represents, it is my own forms of the orthography of Isaiah 53:6(a) from the Great Isaiah Scroll. After staring at column 44 for many hours and practicing that scribe’s letters, I was able to finally learn to read his writing.
The colorful shapes surrounding words and phrases show you how there is an association between one side of the song and the other. They are not perfectly mirrored. They rarely are and need not be for the structure to be clear. At the very center of the structure is Isaiah 53:6, “All of us like sheep have gone astray. Each has turned his own way. And the LORD put on him, the sin of all of us.”
For this initial post on this last Isaiah servant song, I will highlight just two of the examples of chiasm in this passage. This pivotal verse begins and ends with “all of us” (kulanu) depicted in orange outlined shapes. The repetition of kulanu emphasizes that none of us is exempted from the curse of sin or from the behaviors and attitudes that are listed as belonging to the servant’s detractors.
At the center of the verse, the first word of the bi-colon’s 2nd half is the tetragrammaton, the holy name of the Lord. In both the Masoretic text and the scroll of 1QIsa(a), there are almost exactly 100 words that come before the holy name and 100 words that come after. That seems well balanced to me. When combined with the beginning and ending “all of us” words, Isaiah 53:6 makes a strong anchor from which the first and second halves of the song pivot clearly.
The next post will elaborate on some of the other structural elements present in this passage.
Thanks for reading,
Tom Jull