Matthew S. Harmon. <i>The Servant of the Lord and His Servant People: Tracing a Biblical Theme through the Canon</i>

The Servant of the Lord and His Servant People is the fifty-fourth volume in the New Studies in Biblical Theology series. Published by Apollos/IVP Academic and currently edited by D. A. Carson, this series has proven formidable with its commitment to being generally accessible and canonically sensitive as well as exhibiting a broadly defined confessional evangelical posture. Harmon’s volume is a useful engagement of one of the more pervasive themes across Scripture. He is extensive in his detail and shines a light on the many permutations of the theme. Yet perhaps most importantly, Harmon argues how each example contributes to something larger, saying, “God uses key individual servants to advance his purposes for both creation and redemption” (p. 223). Thus, Harmon argues for private and corporate implications associated with the status of being the Lord’s “servant.”Eight of the ten chapters constitute the bulk of this study by exegetically examining a catalog of “servants.” Chapters 1 and 10 are the introduction and conclusion, respectively, and chapters 2 through 9 follow a general chronological and canonical sequence in highlighting individuals or groups that are identified as servants of the Lord. Beginning with Adam, Harmon proceeds to discuss Moses, Joshua, David, Isaiah, Jesus, the apostles, and finally the church. In each case, the concept of servitude is exegetically analyzed in a way that considers historical, cultural, and linguistic variables. This is methodologically prudent. Yet even more prudent is Harmon’s emphasis upon the concept of servitude, and not just any lexeme or lexemes. Consequently, Harmon emphasizes, “This is not a word study” (p. 6).Even though each chapter focuses upon people in their historical and cultural context, there is also a christological commitment that appears throughout these chapters. In other words, Harmon seeks to understand how each individual impacts redemptive history and Christ’s role in it. In fact, his ability to do this—to connect different articulations of this concept in the context of the governing trajectory of God’s cosmic plan of redemption—best exemplifies his ability to read closely and navigate through the canon’s complexities. Nevertheless, there are places where this study remained underdeveloped.Consider David as the servant of the Lord. Harmon is certainly correct to admit that understanding David as a “servant” of the Lord is a complex endeavor. A large portion of the Old Testament deals with the implications of this man’s servant-legacy vis-à-vis monarchal and national sin. Harmon is even more correct to expand his purview to concepts not traditionally associated with the David-as-the- Lord’s-servant concept. For example, passages like 2 Kgs 8:18–19 and passages throughout Jeremiah have something to say about how David’s perceived servitude that extended beyond him to impact his descendants and the nation in the latter portions of the Iron Age and beyond. However, the gambit of historical variables is not fully fleshed out. For example, the implications of Hag 2:20–23 remain underdeveloped, which is evidenced by the fact that Harmon only makes two brief references to this passage. The fact is that Haggai’s address to Zerubbabel is an important declaration that not only bears upon the expectations surrounding the Davidic covenant as the community moved deeper into the Persian period but also opens a window to the theological, social, and political forces affecting the servant concept specifically, not to mention other concepts more generally. By referencing Zerubbabel, the Davidic descendant, as “my servant,” one can detect how the Lord used imperial mechanisms to perpetuate a privileged status in the context of cosmic redemption.1 By implication, one may say that Harmon could have considered more deeply the broad historical, cultural, and political forces that bear upon the development of theological concepts.Another possibility for further development resides with other outliers associated with the concept of being a servant of the Lord. Most famously, Nebuchadnezzar is explicitly called the Lord’s servant (Jer 27:6, 43:10; cf. Ezek 29:18–20), and Cyrus the Great could also fit the mold of the profile developed by this study (Isa 44:28, 45:1). This is not to say that Harmon ignores them, but the full implications of how these characters make strange bedfellows with David, Moses, Joshua, and others were not realized. At the very least, servants like Nebuchadnezzar could provide a foil to other servants and therefore further clarify definitional qualities.Finally, one could not help but notice how overwhelmingly descriptive this study is. Indeed, a section in the concluding chapter moves on from descriptions to consider practical implications. However, the brief discussions about identity, corporate life, mission, and leadership across only four pages establish the need for constructive theology (pp. 224–27). In short, the way forward for Harmon, or others, is to consider in more detail the contemporary implications of his conclusions. Yet in spite of these suggestions, this study is a worthwhile read. In particular, Harmon’s extension of a dominant Old Testament theme into the New Testament demonstrates how the apostles and then the church are the beneficiaries of a divine modus operandi that involves using people to be facilitators of the Lord’s cosmic plan of redemption. Such a connection establishes a tight historical and theological relationship between testaments, which is required in an era where biblical illiteracy and the relegation of one testament under the other are increasingly on the rise.