CHAPTER 53 THE DEMISE AND RISING AGAIN OF THE SERVANT. The chapter that follows overflows with examples of all the extremes of suffering and condemnation that could be poured out on someone. Commentators regularly try to select one aspect or another as being the overriding factor, but by doing so f... [ Continue Reading ]
‘Who could have believed what we have heard? And who could have seen in this the arm of Yahweh?' The blank astonishment of Isaiah, Israel and the world is here clearly expressed. To attribute what will happen to this One, by the arm of Yahweh, seems beyond belief. It will go against all that men ha... [ Continue Reading ]
‘For he grew up before him as a tender plant, And as a root out of out of a dry ground, He has no form nor comeliness, And when we see him there is no beauty that we should desire him.' In His growing up this supreme Servant will not be the kind of king expected. He will not follow man's pattern... [ Continue Reading ]
‘He was despised and rejected by men, A man of sorrows, and humiliated by grief, And as one from whom men hide their face, He was despised and we esteemed him not.' He will not only be unattractive humanly speaking, but also despised and rejected. When He reveals Himself men will laugh and derid... [ Continue Reading ]
‘Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, Yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions He was bruised for our iniquities, The chastisement of our peace was on him, And with his stripes (‘open wounds') we are healed.' Ther... [ Continue Reading ]
‘All we like sheep have gone astray, We have turned every one to our own way, And Yahweh has laid on him, The iniquity of us all.' Here we have stress laid on each individual. It is not just the group that have failed, it is all the group including each individual. And they are described in tota... [ Continue Reading ]
‘He was oppressed, yet he humbled himself, And did not open his mouth, As a lamb who is led to the slaughter, And as a sheep which before her shearers is dumb, Yes, he did not open his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away, And as for his generation, Who among them considered th... [ Continue Reading ]
And they made his grave with the wicked ones, And with a rich man in his death (literally ‘deaths'). Although he had done no violence, Neither was any deceit in his mouth.' The wicked and the rich are often looked at synonymously (compare Psalms 52:7). The rich tended to behave wickedly, and espe... [ Continue Reading ]
‘Yet it pleased (‘it was the will of') Yahweh to bruise him. He put him to grief. When you make his soul an offering for sin He will see his seed, he will prolong his days, And the pleasure of Yahweh will prosper in his hand.' Now the situation is made quite plain. All that has happened to the S... [ Continue Reading ]
‘From the travail of his soul he shall see (light) and shall be satisfied. By his humiliation shall my righteous servant make many to be accounted righteous, And he will bear their iniquities.' This is summarising what has gone before in the last verse, and reminding us of the great travail throug... [ Continue Reading ]
‘Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great (or ‘the many'), And he will divide the spoil with the strong, Because he has poured out his soul to death, And was numbered with the transgressors. Yet he bore the sin of many, And made intercession for the transgressors.' And because of w... [ Continue Reading ]