Songs of the Servant: Isaiah's good news

"He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief." As part of the last of four great poems known as the "Servant Songs," these familiar words were first uttered by a lonely prophet to Jewish exiles in mighty Babylon: to folk who were convinced that their tiny, storm-tossed nation had been forgotten by its God. To them Isaiah brings a message of hope, telling of a mysterious "Servant of the Lord" who suffers beyond human endurance for sins which he did not co...