Question: Is there more than one end-time servant of God according to Isaiah? Some say there are two or more separate servants.
Answer: Regarding which “servant” or “servants” Isaiah is referring in his end-time scenario—especially in view of which category we might fall under—here is a synopsis: First is God’s collective servant, who are his covenant people. These often appear under the paired names “Jacob” and “Israel”—a spiritual category of God’s people whom he calls to repentance:
“O you deaf, listen; O you blind, look and see! Who is blind but my own servant, or so deaf as the messenger I have sent? Who is blind like those I have commissioned, as uncomprehending as the servant of Jehovah—seeing much but not giving heed, with open ears hearing nothing?” (Isaiah 42:18–20). This passage’s context is the people’s idolatry, which spiritually blinds them.
Yet, Jehovah asks them to give up their idolatry and exit Babylon as Abraham did so he may bless them: “You, O Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, offspring of Abraham my beloved friend, you whom I have taken from the ends of the earth, called from its farthest limits—to you I say, You are my servant; I have accepted you and not rejected you” (Isaiah 41:8–9).
Second is God’s end-time servant who restores the house of Israel from its dispersed condition to lands of inheritance in preparation for Jehovah’s coming to reign on the earth. Initially, Jehovah calls him to minister to the Gentiles: “My servant whom I sustain, my chosen one in whom I delight, him I have endowed with my Spirit; he will dispense justice to the Gentiles” (Isaiah 42:1).
Keywords such as “appoint” form word links that identify one person: “I will appoint him as a herald of good tidings” (Isaiah 41:27); “I have created you and appointed you to be a covenant for the people, a light to the Gentiles” (Isaiah 42:6); “I have appointed him as a witness to the nations, a prince and lawgiver of the peoples” (Isaiah 55:4); “a son appointed” (Isaiah 9:6).
As a “light” to the Gentiles, he heralds Jehovah’s coming as “Salvation”: “I won honor in the eyes of Jehovah when my God became my strength—he said: It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore those preserved of Israel. I will also appoint you to be a light to the Gentiles that my salvation may be to the end of the earth” (Isaiah 49:5–6).
“My servant, being astute, shall be highly exalted; he shall become exceedingly eminent: just as he appalled many—his appearance was marred beyond human likeness, his semblance unlike that of men—So shall he yet astound many Gentiles, kings shutting their mouths at him—what was not told them, they shall see; what they had not heard, they shall consider” (Isaiah 52:13–15).
Third are those servants who assist God’s individual servant to restore God’s people of the house of Israel. God protects them and those whom they deliver from calamities to lands of inheritance: “Whatever weapon is devised against you, it shall not succeed; every tongue that rises to accuse you, you shall refute. This is the heritage of the servants of Jehovah” (Isaiah 54:17).
God saves those to whom they minister for their sake: “As when there is juice in a cluster of grapes and someone says, Don’t destroy it, it is still good, so I will do for the sake of my servants by not destroying everything: I will extract offspring out of Jacob, and out of Judah heirs of my mountains; my chosen ones shall inherit them, my servants shall dwell there (Isaiah 65:8–9).
