High and glorified

I'd like to briefly consider a neglected prooftext for the divine messiah:

Behold, my servant shall act wisely; he shall be high and lifted up, and shall be exalted (Isa 52:13).

That's from the famous Suffering Servant oracle. Considered in isolation, it might not strike the casual reader as a witness to messiah's deity, but "high/exalted/lifted up" is an Isaian motif. In the OT, that motif only occurs in Isaiah. It occurs four times in Isaiah. And in three of the four occurrences, it describes Yahweh:

In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. 3 And one called to another and said:

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;

the whole earth is full of his glory!”

(Isa 6:1-3).

“Now I will arise,” says the Lord, “now I will lift myself up; now I will be exalted (Isa 33:10).

For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy (Isa 57:15).

The first occurrence is from Isaiah's famous inaugural vision and commission, when he sees Yahweh in heaven. And the descriptors aren't incidental. In the hierarchy of existence, Yahweh is "high/exalted/lifted up" because he occupies the top spot in the pecking order. Yahweh is the Supreme Being. None are higher, all others–angels, men, animals, stars–are lower.

So Isaiah describes messiah in terms that properly evoke Yahweh. In language that on three other occasions is reserved for Yahweh. A Jewish reader steeped in the text of Isaiah would be expected to mentally compare the four descriptions, and recognize the parallels.

It's also instructive to read these verses in the LXX:

And it happened in the year that King Ozias died that I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and raised up, and the house was full of his glory (Isa 6:1, LXX).

"Now I will arise," says the Lord, "now I will be glorified; now I will be exalted" (Isa 33:10, LXX).

This is what the Lord says, the Most High (Isa 57:15).

(All quotes from NETS, Albert Pietersma and Benjamin G. Wright, eds.) 

So the LXX renders exaltation in terms of glorification. Compare these to John's description of Jesus:

16 His disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written about him and had been done to him...23 And Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified...32 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” 33 He said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die. 34 So the crowd answered him, “We have heard from the Law that the Christ remains forever. How can you say that the Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of Man?”…41 Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and spoke of him. (Jn 12:16,23,32-34,41).

John is picking up on the Isaian motif of the "high/lifted up/exalted/glorified" Yahwistic messiah. That prophetic motif comes full circle in Jesus. And that culminates in the resumption of his preexistent glory (17:5). The Suffering Servant is Yahweh in disguise.