I've been continuing my way through Frederik Hagglund's Isaiah 53 in the Light of Homecoming after Exile. See here for my last post on this book (which was way back in October).
In Isaiah 53, there are two characters. There is the Suffering Servant, and there are the speakers who reflect on the Servant's suffering, as they conclude that the Servant was right, whereas they were wrong. According to Hagglund, both the Suffering Servant and speakers in Isaiah 53 were the nation of Israel, albeit different factions of it. The Servant represented the Jews who went into exile, whereas the speakers were the Jews who stayed behind in the land of Israel.
On what does Hagglund base his thesis? At this point, I don't know entirely, but what I have gotten out of his book is that language that Isaiah 53 uses with reference to the Suffering Servant and the speakers appears elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible in reference to Israel. For example, Isaiah 53:7 says that the Servant was like a lamb led to the slaughter, and Psalm 44:11 compares the Jews scattered among the nations to sheep about to be slaughtered. Isaiah 53:2 likens the Servant to a tree, and, in the Book of Isaiah, the tree metaphor is "a source of hope for, or through, the people in exile" (p. 21; Hagglund cites Isaiah 6:13; 11:1-16; 27:6). The Servant in Isaiah 53 is portrayed as a dead person who comes back to life, which, for Hagglund, "is problematic, since it is questionable whether a belief in the resurrection existed at the time" (p. 26). While Hagglund acknowledges that the Psalms describe an individual sufferer whom God restores as one who dies and returns to life, he believes that the collective interpretation of the Servant in Isaiah 53---as the nation of Israel---is preferable, for Ezekiel 37 discusses the restoration of Israel from exile in terms of bodily resurrection.
Regarding the speakers in Isaiah 53---the "we"---Hagglund notes parallels between the speakers and Israel. The speakers say that the Servant has carried their diseases, and Isaiah 1:5 describes the nation of Israel as sick. Isaiah 53:6 says that "we" have gone astray like sheep, each turning to his own way. Psalm 44:11 refers to the Israelites as sheep, and Isaiah 56:11 laments that the shepherds of Israel have turned to their own way, pursuing their own gain.
And so, for Hagglund, both the Servant and the speakers are the nation of Israel. I don't rule this out, but my problem is that language describing the Servant can be tied with that referring to individuals, such as Jeremiah. Hagglund acknowledges this point, and he also affirms that there are similarities between the Servant in Isaiah 53 and the suffering individual in certain lament Psalms. So can Hagglund identify the Servant on the basis of parallels between the Servant and Israel, when there are parallels between the Servant and other figures?