The big debate
“Isn't that about Israel?”
Many Jewish readers, following the medieval rabbi Rashi, say the servant is the nation of Israel. It's a serious answer, since Isaiah does call Israel God's servant. But this servant is innocent (“he had done no violence”), and he suffers for his people, not with them:
For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was punished.
An Ethiopian official reading this passage asked, “Who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?” Philip “began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.”
Acts 8:26–35