Chapter 53
Song continues:
2 For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. [Isa 53:2 ESV]
Jesus was not a "standout" personality. Not tall and handsome like Solomon. He was as common as dirt in appearance. He was from the poor, not from the rich. He was not a Pharisee - a member of the elite. It goes on with this verse:
3 He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. [Isa 53:3 ESV]
The life of Christ. So despised, so low, so shamed by man that people won't even look at him. Made me think of all those beggars on the side of the road. We avoid eye contact with them. We won't even look at them. No one wanted to make His acquaintance as he was marched to Golgotha. Most looked away. All this written 750 years before it happened. Islam falls on these verses. They say they believe in the OT, and yet here are these verses foretelling the life and death of Jesus, a life despised by those in power, too lowly even for them to take notice of, along with a death suitable only to the worst criminals, and they deny all of these facts!
2023 - Reminds me yet again of just how similar Judaism and Islam are in their evaluations of the life of Jesus. They both, still, prefer to rely on their own merit for a place in eternity than to rely on Jesus. In this they are the same. The spirit of the Pharisees is alive and well in the 21st century!
Then two of the fundamental verses establishing the cross as a substitutionary death for all of us, undeniable unless you refuse, obstinately, to acknowledge them:
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned--every one--to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. [Isa 53:5-6 ESV]
2024 - The BLB app has a very good entry here showing this word in both Qal and Hiphil stems. Particularly, it shows the "causative" action of the Hiphil as opposed to the simple - and most common - type of simple action. It is under Strong's H6293. As it turns out, this whole phrase - "has caused to fall" - is necessary to translate the Hiphil in this case. In other verbs, this "causative" aspect of the verb - that something external "caused" something to happen - is clearly expressed in the way the verb is translated into English. It could say "our iniquity is on him", but there is no causative in that. As I understand it, this would be Qal. I don't know if the "causer" always shows up in the translation. As this verse reads, it is obvious that the subject of the sentence is the causer of the action. What if it just said "God laid on him"? What stem is that? Why is it important to do that the Hiphil be translated...wait...In the ESV, it does just say the Lord "has laid on him" instead of the NASB95 version where "the Lord has caused". Hmm...NASB really splits of the translation into two parts and inserts "the iniquity of us all" - the noun - in the middle.
Here is a translation I rarely notice, but just look at how different it is from traditional - and I would say orthodox - translations:
6 All of us had wandered off like sheep; each of us had strayed off on his own path, but the LORD caused the sin of all of us to attack him. [Isa 53:6 NET]. I guess it is still causative - at least the literal words say that - but where did attack come from?
Both "have gone astray" and "we have turned" are Qal perfect. It is what happened, in the Qal, but it was not something "caused". It does not read that "God caused us to stray like sheep", and "caused us to turn selfishly to our own way". No, It is simple, the noun "we" directly DID the actions of straying and turning. So that is the difference in Qal an Hiphil. In Qal, the subject does the action, in Hiphil to the subject CAUSES the action to happen.
2024 - In the very next verse the first two verbs "was oppressed" and "was afflicted" are in the Niphal. Look at the phrasing. "He was oppressed". So we see that no one caused others to oppress him, so not Hiphil, he is not the one oppressing, so not Qal. This action was directed AT him by others - and "others" is implied. The subject is the recipient of the actions of others. It is a nice contrast with Qal and Hiphil to have the Niphal come right after them. Really helps with understanding the verbs and how they are used in Hebrew.
On through 9, we see prophecy after prophecy that was literally fulfilled by Jesus in the manner of his trial and death. This could not be coincidence, could not be staged, could not be orchestrated by man. Too many factors, too many players, too much complexity. Only God could do this, and only a very stubborn person could deny it. That is why rejection of Christ has such a severe penalty.
2021 - Charlie is always talking about how current day Jews ignore this whole chapter. They have to, because it is so undeniable in its subject. This is about the suffering servant, and even the Jews in Jesus' day would not read it as such. Or if they did, surely they made it about "some other man". Islam has the same problem. They call Jesus a prophet and nothing more, and yet his role in the salvation of the whole world is spelled out in this chapter. These prophecies are just beyond the possibility of chance.
2022 - The only way that a chapter like this can exist is if it was inspired by God, who had causative foreknowledge of what was to come, and which He has challenged idol worshipers to disprove or match in accuracy many times in this book, OR, this chapter had to be inserted into the middle of Isaiah after the lifetime of Jesus. Those are the only possible ways that this chapter can even be here. Keep in mind that inserting a whole chapter in the middle of a scroll is a lot different than inserting an additional page in a book at its next reprinting. You have to be deliberately dense to not see this.
2023 - This is not the only chapter that would have to be rewritten. There are also many passages within chapters. And then you have to explain the repeated challenges to idols to do the same. You can call it conspiracy, but then you have to tell me how it was done. And tell me why the complete scroll of Isaiah, found in Qumran, looks just like the one in my Bible, even though that specific scroll, the oldest complete copy we have of Isaiah, is dated anywhere from 350 BC down to 100 BC. This puts the lie to any possibility of insertion at a later time. At the VERY LEAST, the version of Isaiah that we have today pre-dated the birth of Christ by 100 years. So how can it be so accurate? I guess the fallback position for disbelievers would be to say the NT writers must have collaborated to "insert" things that didn't really happen in order to make Jesus seem like the one of whom the prophecies are written. Perhaps they inserted the part about casting lots at the foot of the cross. Maybe they're all lying about the spear in his side, and so on. You would have to start in Isaiah, find the corresponding fulfilment story in the NT, and make each and every one of them a fabricated insertion. Then you'd have to make sure ALL the copies matched. Now tell me, what advantage would there be, what motivation would be sufficient, to lead to all that effort, when all they had to do really was be good Jews, and continue in the Jewish tradition. Note that the Quran was put together post-Mohammad in just this way. All the copies from before the current version were gathered and burned. What motivated them to do that with the Quran? And remember, we KNOW they did it, we know they revised it, compiled it, arranged it, published it, and made having any other version punishable by death. There isn't even a rumor of such a thing happening with the NT books.
2024 - Look at how the NASB95 emphasizes this:
10 ...If He would render Himself [as] a guilt offering, He will see [His] offspring, He will prolong [His] days, And the good pleasure of the LORD will prosper in His hand. [Isa 53:10 NASB95]. In this one, Jesus makes himself a guilt offering. Compare to KJV:
10 ...when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see [his] seed, he shall prolong [his] days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand. [Isa 53:10 KJV]. I read this very differently than the NASB version. In the first he renders himself, in the NASB95, it is someone else - God - making/designation/accepting Jesus soul AS an offering. It is a Qal stem...or that's what BLB says, so I would go with the KJV where it is Jesus offering himself. What does ESV do with it?
10 ...when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand. [Isa 53:10 ESV]. Different still...a third possibility. Here it is "his soul" that "makes" an offering. So we see that the variations are about which noun is the subject. And the subject is implied by the verb being in third person. It just says "he".
Perhaps that next phrase - he shall see his offspring - is what gives us the proper subject noun. Jesus is the Son. It must be that God will see Jesus...and this is the same subject implied as in the previous phrase. So this would mitigate for the KJV version as correct. I can see reasons for all these translations...so the real question is:
Does it not concern us that there are so many ways to translate this? What doctrines are affected by where you come down on this?
2024 - I have to move on. I keep getting bogged down in these translation questions as I try to understand better how Hebrew works, and I end up taking hours to really not learn anything.
2024 - One more thing...I see no reason whatever that it would not be possible to refer both to God and the Son in third person in this verse and the verses around it. In the NASB95, it looks like that is exactly what they did in vs 11. And from the note below, it also looks like I had problems unraveling the pronouns from early on.
I have never "seen" vs 11 before:
11 Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. [Isa 53:11 ESV]
So many things here...
1) Jesus' passion satisfied God's requirements for sin - death. Horrible, suffering, death.
2) By his knowledge - Jesus knows, because God lets him know, who is to be saved.
3) My servant - refers back to the beginning of this section in Chapter 49. We know who the servant is.
4) Doesn't say Jesus makes us righteous - we are not and can never be. It says we are accounted righteous, because of what Christ has done.
5) Jesus bears our iniquities. He carries them. They are taken off of us and put squarely on his back. And because of his perfect life, God accepts the death of Christ as payment for all those iniquities that he carries.
This has to go on FB!
Later, 2023 - Tried putting it on FB. Too many pronouns. Hard to understand when "he" is the Lord, and when "he" is Jesus. I couldn't unravel it, so not going to post it at this time.
vs 12b is an excellent proof text for limited atonement:
12 Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors. [Isa 53:12 ESV]
Many, but not all. Only those who were to be saved.