I have prepared study questions to go with these superb notes. They were designed to help people to glean more out of this remarkable passage. Use both pages together to do the exercise. I recommend printing both pages and doing them on a sheet of paper.
| 52:13 Behold, my servant shall deal prudently, he shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high. | "Behold" focuses prophetic spotlight on the Servant....there is a progressive ascendancy of thought....Since the Servant's exaltation began only after His atoning death, His resurrection must be reflected…" |
| 52:14 As many were astonied at thee; his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men: | The humiliation was as deep as the exaltation was high. [See also Philippians 2:5-11]. 14b. This part of the verse is a parenthetical statement explaining why many were astonished at the Servant. |
| 52:15 So shall he sprinkle many nations; the kings shall shut their mouths at him: for that which had not been told them shall they see; and that which they had not heard shall they consider. | Kings (even the great of the millennial earth; Psalm 72:8-11) shall shut their mouths at him (Isa. 49:7, 23). They will be silenced in awe and veneration (Job 29:9-10; Mic. 7:16), so overwhelming will be the impression of the Servant lifted so high from such a low depth of ignominy. |
| 53:1 Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed? | The speaker in verses 1 to 10 in fullest prophetic scope is the remnant of Israel, who will turn in faith to the Messiah at His second advent (Zech. 12:10-13:1; Rom. 11:26), after having been preserved through the fires of the Great Tribulation (Jer. 30:5-7; Rev. 12:13-17). Arm of the LORD = God's decisive action and power intervening in human history in deliverance and salvation) The explanation follows in verses 2 and 3. The people of Israel not only disbelieved what they heard of the Messiah (v. 1), they despised His person itself (vv. 2-3). |
| 53:2 For 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. | Speaks of a quiet and unobtrusive entrance; a poor and obscure family; a lack of worldly pomp and appeal. Root out of parched ground = the adverse circumstances under which the Messiah was born--the degraded political status of the Jewish nation under the Roman yoke and its corrupt spiritual condition, and the low moral state of the age in general. Perhaps, too, the lowly circumstances in which Christ was born are included, and the poverty and obscurity of the Davidic line at the time. |
| 53:3 He 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. | The word "despised" occurs twice in this verse to accentuate the utter contempt in which He was viewed by the Jews of His time. He was rejected (NASB "forsaken") in the sense of being "avoided" or "shunned." He is seen as a man of sorrows (pains) and acquainted (familiar) with grief by constant contact with it and finally when at the cross, the Father turned away from Him and forsook Him (Psalm 22:1). |
| 53:4 Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. | Converted Israel will confess that the Messiah vicariously bore their griefs and sorrows. The quotation and meaning of 53:4a in Matthew 8:16-17 show that this verse was fulfilled not on the cross but before the cross, although inseparably connected with the cross. Verse 4 and its fulfillment in Matthew 8:16-17 show that physical healing is not in the atonement, but rather that spiritual healing guarantees a future glorified body. Physical healing is a sovereign act of God, flowing from the cross of Christ, but it is not an integral part of the atonement. Christ died for our sins, not for our diseases, for physical disease in itself is not sin; it is merely one of the results of sin. 4b. Israel will confess that the Messiah bore shame and misrepresentation. The latter half of this verse dramatically describes Israel's self-accusing confession at the second advent concerning the true cause of the Messiah's sufferings: "We thought they were His own sins He was punished for. But, alas, they were ours!" In the Talmud, Jesus of Nazareth is relegated to hell alongside Titus and Balaam, undergoing the severest and most degrading punishment. What a wail of repentance will arise at Christ's revelation when Israel realizes her terrible mistake and sin in maligning and crucifying her Deliverer! |
| 53:5 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. | Israel will confess that the Messiah bore her wounds and stripes. He was crushed by the terrific load of human sin that He took upon Himself, burdened with God's wrath for (because of) humanity's sin. Well being = peace (Heb. shalom, it is used in the sense of reconciliation with God (Rom. 5:1), eventuating in man's general well-being And by His scourging (or stripes) we are healed--"healing was [brought] to us," that is, spiritual healing, the remission of sins, like the spiritual "peace." Here the "stripes" are literally "stripe," collective, denoting a tumor raised by pitiless scourging. |
| 53:6 All 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. | Here is stressed the individuality of sin. To fall on Him (or laid on Him) is literally "caused to meet or fall, made to strike with terrific impact" the iniquity of us all. |
| 53:7 He 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. | He suffered patiently and unresistingly, the voluntary character of His passion being emphasized. He was oppressed ("hard pressed, relentlessly driven, and hunted down"). |
| 53:8 He 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. | Christ would undergo "an oppressive judicial sentence" (Hengstenberg). Although both Judas His betrayer and Pilate His judge both asserted His innocence, nevertheless judicial miscarriage delivered Him to death. As for His generation… = "And who of His contemporaries would consider that He was cut off from the land of the living for the transgression of my covenant people to whom the stroke was due?" The land of the living is the realm of physical life, and to be cut off from it is physical death, which Christ endured as the result of the common legal justice denied Him. |
| 53:9 And 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. | 9a. The Servant's grave was assigned to be with wicked men by His enemies, the denial of honorable burial being considered the height of ignominy. 9b. But God intervened so that He would be granted an honorable burial with a rich man--fulfilled by Joseph of Arimathea (Matthew 27:57-60) 9c. He had done no violence, Nor was there any deceit in His mouth, these are representative of all areas of Christ's sinlessness. |
| 53:10 Yet 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. | If He would render Himself as a guilt offering should be translated "When His soul [He Himself] shall make an offering for sin." that is, "make atonement." They passage sets forth the voluntary laying down of the Messiah's life, "an offering for sin," that is a sin offering with reference to the guilt and penalty of sin. Six great results accrue from the Messiah's vicarious sufferings and stoning death: He will see His offspring = he will have a glorious spiritual progeny He shall prolong his days, wonder of wonders! He is "cut off from the land of the living!" He pours out His soul unto death. He dies and is buried; yet He lives and has continuance of days. How is it possible? By His resurrection. The good pleasure of the LORD will prosper in His hand, by His redemptive work, God's purpose is completely accomplished. |
| 53:11 He 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. | As a result of the anguish...be satisfied, the "travail" (toil, labor) of His soul includes not only His physical but also His deeper spiritual sufferings (Psalm 22:1), Gethsemane's agonies (Luke 22:39-46), which He endured, afterward bringing Him the fullest realization of expectation and gratification of the deepest desires of His holy soul. 11b. By His knowledge...My Servant will justify the many, that is "by the knowledge of Him", denoting experiential knowledge on the part of others, the result of faith in His atoning work, He shall justify ("declare or pronounce righteous in His sight" many (all who believe). 11c. How will He "justify" many? He will bear ("carry." as a porter carries a load) their iniquities, He (emphatic by position) "will bear" vicariously and as the sinner's Substitute. |
| 53:12 Therefore 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. | He will be allotted a Portion with the great, as "King of Kings and Lord of Lords (Rev. 19:16), the great of the millennial earth will submit to Him and render Him homage (Psalms 2:4-12; 72:1-19) 12b. He will divide the booty with the strong, those who go forth to do battle with Him against His foes (110:2), and those who come with Him in glory (Rev. 19:14), who have shared in His suffering and rejection. 12c. Because He poured out Himself [or "His soul"] to death, paying the full price of the world's redemption. 12d. Numbered with the transgressors, He the Holy One, was crucified between two thieves and rejected in favor of a common murderer (Luke 23:18, 33). 12e. Interceded for the transgressors, that vast prophetic portraiture concludes fittingly with an allusion to the Messiah-Savior's priestly function (Psalm 110:4) couched in an indefinite future, expressing a work begun but not yet ended in our behalf. |
Edited and adapted from Merrill Unger: Unger's Commentary on the Old Testament, 2 vols, Moody: 1981.