This is the stated text also in Cycles A and B. The preacher may want to consult those expositions, along with this one.

 

This is a poem in the writings of Second Isaiah that scholars have long called a "Servant Song," one of the four that occur in this prophetic book. (The others are found in Isaiah 42:1-4; 49:1-6, and 52:13--53:12.) Although the question has been hotly debated for many years, many scholars have said, and I would agree, that the speaker in the Servant Songs is Israel, but it is Israel as she is meant to be, Israel as she is called to be, Israel as God will make her. In short, the one who speaks to us here in our lesson is an ideal Israel of the future. She is called to be the Lord's special servant, who will give her life for the sake of all nations, and who, through her…