Isaiah 53King James Version
The most famous chapter of the Hebrew Bible. 'He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.' 'He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.' 'He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter.' Christians read this as a direct prophecy of Christ.
The fourth Servant Song: the servant grows up like a tender plant in dry ground, without form or beauty. He is despised and rejected, a man of sorrows. He bears our griefs and carries our sorrows. He is wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities. Like a sheep to slaughter, he opens not his mouth. The LORD will see the travail of his soul and be satisfied.
The servant who suffers does so not for his own sin but for the sin of others. His silence before his accusers and his death among criminals are not accidents but the mechanism of healing.
verse: "But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed", every word is load-bearing: wounded for, bruised for, chastisement of our peace, stripes, healed.
No physical setting. The chapter is entirely interior: a confession, a portrait, a theological accounting. The speakers are a community retrospectively understanding what they witnessed and misread. The lamb going to slaughter and the grave with the rich are narrative details embedded in theological argument.
The servant, described in third person by a community of speakers who confess their own prior misreading. The LORD, who lays on the servant the iniquity of all and who will reward him after his death. The community of we who confess they esteemed him stricken of God and hid their faces.
Isaiah 53 is the most-quoted Old Testament chapter in the New Testament. The early church used it as the primary interpretive framework for the death of Jesus. The passage is read by Philip to the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8. Every verse has been parsed for centuries; its dense compression of substitutionary suffering, silent obedience, and post-death vindication has no parallel in ancient literature.
For when you feel that your suffering has no meaning or that you are paying for something you did not do. The servant's experience is named here with painful honesty, and the community's confession of having misread it is also honest about how suffering looks from the outside.
1Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed?
2For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.
3He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
4Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
5But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
6All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.
7He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.
8He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken.
9And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.
10Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: 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.
11He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.
12Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.