Isaiah 53. The Servant Who Bore Our Sin, Seven Hundred Years Before the Cross

Read the passage first

Read Isaiah 52:13 to 53:12 very slowly. Twice, if you can. This is one of the passages Christians love most in the whole Old Testament. Then read Isaiah 7:14 and 9:6, which are short.

Isaiah writes as poetry, and some lines may be hard going. You do not need to understand every phrase. Just ask yourself: who is being talked about here, and what happens to him?

What happens in this passage

Who Isaiah was. After David, Israel had many more kings, most of whom turned their backs on God. About two hundred years after David (which is seven hundred years before Jesus was born), God made a man named Isaiah a prophet, someone God appointed to speak on his behalf. Isaiah warned the people about sin and said that judgment was coming, but he also spoke of hope. And the clearest hope was about one person, whom God calls his servant.

The servant no one looked at (52:13 to 53:3). Isaiah begins by saying this servant will be lifted up high, but then tells how he will be so badly beaten that his form hardly looks human. No beauty, nothing attractive. People despise him and look away. He is a man familiar with pain and suffering. Not at all the picture of a hero anyone would expect from the king God promised.

He carried what was ours (53:4 to 6). This is the heart of the chapter. Isaiah switches to the words "we" and "our." He says this servant bore our sicknesses and our sorrows, was pierced for our transgressions, was crushed for our wrongdoing, and that by his wounds we are healed. Then verse 6 sums it all up: all of us, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us turning to our own way, and God laid the wrong of us all on him.

Stop here a moment. The key words are ours and on him. It is not that he did wrong and bore the consequence. We did wrong, and he bore the consequence. This is Abraham's ram, the Passover lamb, and the goat on the Day of Atonement. But this time it is not an animal. It is a person.

Silent like a lamb, and dying for others (53:7 to 9). He is oppressed and judged unjustly, but he does not argue or open his mouth to defend himself, like a lamb led to the slaughter. He is cut off from the land of the living, that is, he dies, though he has done no wrong and never told a lie, and he is buried in a rich man's tomb.

Then he will see light again (53:10 to 12). Here it becomes very strange. Isaiah says all of this was God's intention. God made his life an offering for sin. But after his suffering he will see the result of it: he will see descendants, he will live a long life, he will be satisfied with what he accomplished, and he will make many people righteous. How can a man who has died see the fruit of his own work, unless he comes back to life?

A child named God-with-us (7:14 and 9:6). Earlier in the same book, Isaiah speaks of a child who will be born to a woman who has never been with a man, and the child will be called Immanuel, which means "God with us" (7:14). And in another passage (9:6) this child who is to be born will be given names no human being should have, such as Mighty God and Everlasting Father, and will sit on David's throne forever. A child who is God, and a servant who suffers in our place. Isaiah is speaking of the same person.

How this points to Jesus

• Almost every line matches Jesus' final week. Despised, beaten beyond recognition, silent before his judges (Matthew 27:12–14), condemned unjustly, dying alongside criminals though he had done nothing wrong, buried in the tomb of a rich man named Joseph (Matthew 27:57–60), and afterwards seeing light again. We will read all of this in lessons 12 and 13. When you finish them, come back and read Isaiah 53 once more. It will be far clearer than before.
• The question of a man in a chariot. In Acts 8:26–35 an Ethiopian official is sitting in his chariot reading Isaiah 53, and he asks Philip, one of Jesus' disciples, who the prophet is talking about. Philip starts from that very verse and tells him about Jesus. That is what Christians have done with this chapter from the beginning.
• Peter's summary. Peter writes that Jesus bore our sins in his body on the cross, and that by his wounds we are healed (1 Peter 2:24). He is speaking of Isaiah 53:5 directly.
• Immanuel has been born. Matthew records the birth of Jesus and says it happened to fulfill what Isaiah said about Immanuel (Matthew 1:22–23). God with us: not merely an idea, but a breathing child.

Words to know

The word prophet (ผู้เผยพระวจนะ) literally means "one who reveals God's word," a person God chose to speak for him to the people. Most of what prophets said was about the present: warning people and calling them to turn back. But sometimes God let them see what was to come, as Isaiah saw this servant. A prophet is not a fortune teller. He did not predict for money or tell people their fate. He said what God gave him to say, even when people did not want to hear it.

The word Immanuel (อิมมานูเอล) is Hebrew and means "God with us." It is a name that sums up the whole Bible in a word: the God who was far off because of sin has come to be with us again.

The word servant (ผู้รับใช้) in this chapter means someone who does the work God sends him to do. It sounds lowly, but in the Bible it is a title of honor. Moses and David were both called servants of God, and Jesus said he came to serve, not to be served (Mark 10:45).

The word พระกาย, which you will meet in 1 Peter 2:24, is royal register for "body," used of Jesus.

Reflect

1. Isaiah 53:6 says all of us are like sheep that have gone astray, each turning to our own way. Do you feel that sentence is about you too?
2. The servant does not bear the consequence of his own wrong, but of other people's. Does that idea fit with, or clash with, the idea of karma you grew up with? How?
3. Isaiah wrote this seven hundred years before it happened. What does that tell you about God, and about the Bible?

Pray

"God, I am a sheep that has gone astray too. I have walked my own way all along. Thank you that you laid my wrong on your servant and not on me. Help me see Jesus more clearly in this chapter. Amen."