Isaiah 53: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

This chapter is a poem about the LORD's servant, described by a group of speakers who say "we." They tell of a man with nothing attractive about him, despised and rejected, who suffered and was killed, and they say he was carrying their wrongdoing, though at the time they considered him struck down by God. The closing verses say this crushing was the LORD's will, and that afterward the servant will see offspring, prolong his days, be satisfied, and be given a portion with the great, because he poured out his life and bore the sin of many.

Claim by Claim

1. 53:1
   • Someone asks who has believed the message they report.
   • Someone asks to whom the arm of the LORD has been revealed.
2. 53:2
   • He grew up before him like a tender shoot.
   • He grew up like a root out of dry ground.
   • He had no stately form.
   • He had no majesty.
   • When they saw him, there was no appearance in him that they should desire him.
3. 53:3
   • He was despised.
   • He was forsaken by men.
   • He was a man of pains.
   • He was acquainted with sickness.
   • He was like one from whom people hide their faces.
   • He was despised.
   • They did not esteem him.
4. 53:4
   • He bore our sicknesses.
   • He carried our pains.
   • We considered him stricken.
   • We considered him smitten by God.
   • We considered him afflicted.
5. 53:5
   • He was pierced because of our transgressions.
   • He was crushed because of our iniquities.
   • The chastisement that brought us peace was upon him.
   • By his wounds we are healed.
6. 53:6
   • All of us have gone astray like sheep.
   • Each one of us has turned to his own way.
   • The LORD laid on him the iniquity of us all.
7. 53:7
   • He was oppressed.
   • He was afflicted.
   • He did not open his mouth.
   • He was led like a lamb to the slaughter.
   • A ewe before her shearers is silent.
   • He did not open his mouth.
8. 53:8
   • He was taken away by, or out of, oppression and judgment; the text does not settle which.
   • Someone asks who will declare his generation.
   • He was cut off from the land of the living.
   • The blow fell on him for the transgression of the speaker's people.
9. 53:9
   • His grave was assigned with the wicked.
   • His grave was assigned with a rich man in his death.
   • He had done no violence.
   • There was no deceit in his mouth.
10. 53:10
    • It pleased the LORD to crush him.
    • The LORD made him sick.
    • If his soul is made a guilt offering, he will see offspring.
    • If his soul is made a guilt offering, he will prolong his days.
    • The pleasure of the LORD will prosper in his hand.
11. 53:11
    • Out of the travail of his soul he will see and be satisfied.
    • By knowledge, his own or knowledge of him; the text does not settle which, the LORD's righteous servant will justify many.
    • He will bear their iniquities.
12. 53:12
    • The LORD will divide him a portion with the many.
    • He will divide spoil with the strong.
    • He poured out his soul to death.
    • He was numbered with transgressors.
    • He bore the sin of many.
    • He made intercession for transgressors.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

53:1

The speakers are an unidentified "we" who look back and admit they had misread the figure this chapter describes. That figure is never named here; he is introduced just before the chapter opens (52:13) as "my servant," and who he stands for (the nation of Israel, a prophet, or a single individual) has been read in different ways since ancient times. God's "arm" is a standard Hebrew image for his power in action, especially rescuing power, as in the "outstretched arm" that brought Israel out of Egypt.

53:2

A shoot coming up out of dry ground has nothing feeding it and no reason to thrive: the image is of something small, unpromising and easy to overlook. "Before him" means in the LORD's sight. "Comeliness" in 1611 English meant attractive or handsome appearance.

53:3

The Hebrew words behind "sorrows" and "grief" cover physical pain and sickness as much as emotional distress; the same pair returns in the next verse. "We esteemed him not" means we reckoned him of no value, which is stronger than simply disliking him.

53:4

"Griefs" and "sorrows" are the same two Hebrew words as in verse 3, pains and sicknesses. "Stricken" translates a verb often used in the Hebrew Bible for being struck with disease, which is why onlookers read his condition as a punishment sent directly by God against him.

53:5

"Stripes" in 1611 English meant the welts or lash marks left by a whipping. "Bruised" translates a stronger word than it sounds today: crushed. "The chastisement of our peace" means the punishment that produced our peace, and the Hebrew word for peace, shalom, means wholeness and wellbeing generally, not merely the absence of conflict.

53:6

The Hebrew word translated "iniquity" can mean the wrong act itself, the guilt incurred by it, or the punishment that follows from it; the line works in all three senses at once. Laying it on someone is the ordinary language of shifting a burden or a liability onto another party.

53:7

"Dumb" in 1611 English meant silent or unable to speak, with no suggestion of stupidity. Sheep are not killed in order to be sheared: the point of the second comparison is only the animal's passivity while it is handled.

53:8

The Hebrew of this verse is among the hardest in the book, and translations differ widely. "From prison and from judgment" more likely means "by restraint and by legal sentence": he was carried off through an oppressive judicial process, not rescued out of one. "Who shall declare his generation?" is genuinely ambiguous: it can ask who will speak about his descendants, or about the people of his own time and what they did, or about his fate. "Cut off out of the land of the living" is a standard idiom for being killed. The final clause reads literally "the stroke was to them," an odd form that translators resolve in different ways.

53:9

Burial among the wicked meant a dishonourable burial, away from one's own family tomb, a serious disgrace in Israel. The parallel phrase "with the rich" is unexpected, since Hebrew poetry normally pairs a negative term with another negative term; the oldest surviving manuscripts read the same way, and the sense has been debated for centuries. "No deceit in his mouth" means he had never told a lie.

53:10

"It pleased the LORD" means it was the LORD's will or purpose, not that he enjoyed it; "the pleasure of the LORD" later in the verse likewise means what he wills or determines. "An offering for sin" translates asham, the specific guilt or reparation offering in Israel's sacrificial law, a sacrifice that both dealt with an offense and made compensation for the damage it caused. "His seed" means his offspring, and "prolong his days" is the ordinary Hebrew idiom for living a long life.

53:11

"Travail" in 1611 English meant hard labor or anguish, including the pains of childbirth. "Justify" is a courtroom word: to declare someone in the right, to acquit. The Hebrew text the King James translators used reads only "he shall see"; the Dead Sea Scrolls and the ancient Greek translation read "he shall see light," which is why many modern versions supply a word at this point.

53:12

Dividing a portion and sharing out spoil is the language of a victorious army distributing plunder after a battle, the imagery of a conqueror's reward. "Poured out his soul unto death" uses the Hebrew nephesh, which means a person's life or whole self rather than an immaterial part of them. "Made intercession" means pleaded or stepped in on another's behalf, as someone might speak up for the accused.