ISAIAH 53:
THE
FORBIDDEN
CHAPTER
copyright 1999 Rabbi Walter Leiber
Source: http://www.tikvatcleveland.com/Isaiah53.html
ISAIAH
52 13 See, my servant will act wisely;
he will be raised and lifted up highly and exalted.
14 Just as there were many who were appalled at him -
his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man,
and his form marred beyond human likeness -
15 so will he sprinkle many nations, and kings will shut
their mouths because of him. For what they were not told,
they will see, and what they have not heard, they will understand.
53 1 Who has believed our message and to whom has
the arm of the Lord been revealed?
2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root
out of dry land. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows,
and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide
their faces he was despised and we esteemed him not.
4 Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows,
yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed
for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we were healed.
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us turned to his own ways;
and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her
shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.
8 By oppression and judgment, he was taken away. And who can
speak of his descendents? For he was cut off from the land of the living;
for the transgressions of my people he was stricken.
9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence, nor was their deceit in his mouth.
10 Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer and
though the Lord makes his life a guilt offering. He will see his offspring
and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hands.
11 After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light of life and be satisfied.
By his knowledge my servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide
the spoils with the strong because he poured out his life unto death and
was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many and
made intercession for the transgressors.
ISAIAH 53: THE FORBIDDEN CHAPTER
Forbidden! Human nature being what it is, what is forbidden intrigues us. It tends to make us desire something more than if it had received no special attention. Often to ignore something produces a more effective insulation against it for one who wants to screen someone else from examining it or knowing about it. When it comes to the 53rd chapter of Isaiah, the rabbis have utilized the more subtle strategy of avoidance to keep the Jewish people in ignorance of perhaps the most important chapter in all our Scriptures. So while technically Isaiah 53 has not been “forbidden” the effect has been virtually the same.
When was the chapter written and what was its purpose? The prophetic ministry of Isaiah last from roughly 740 - 680 BCE. A detailed elucidation of his historical setting isn’t necessary here except to point out that it led Isaiah to set before us more information about the coming Messiah than any other prophet in our history. The above chapter is justifiably one of the best known, except among our Jewish people, to whom it was originally addressed.
Most people who have even a vague acquaintance with the life of Yeshua (Jesus) see a profound correspondence between the description of the person in Isaiah 53 and the life and treatment of Yeshua. My own father-in-law is a good example. Many years ago I asked him if he would read the chapter and then tell me of whom he thought it was speaking. His reply, without hesitation or equivocation, was that it spoke of Jesus. I then asked him when he thought it was written. He was certain that I had shown him some 1st century “Christian” writing. When I said that it had been written by the Jewish prophet around 700 BCE, he was speechless. What could he say? He had just admitted that Isaiah described Yeshua centuries before he lived.
O.K., you may say, it does seem to have some correspondence with what I know about Yeshua, but I am sure that there must be an alternative explanation. I mean, what do the rabbis says? If it was really that obvious wouldn’t they have known it and told us, the ordinary Jewish people? The sad answer is, “Yes, it is that obvious, and no, they didn’t tell you.”
If you ask virtually any rabbi today, “Of whom does Isaiah 53 speak?” his answer will be that it speaks of the nation of Israel. In fact if you suggest any other explanation it will be given short shrift. It will be treated as if virtually the only possible “Jewish” explanation is Israel. Supposedly it speaks of the suffering of the Jewish people over the millennia. That is a plausible explanation. It does have a superficial likeness, but it ultimately fails for several reasons.
What your rabbi probably won’t volunteer is that the universal opinion of the ancient rabbis was that the passage spoke of the Messiah, and that opinion was only changed in response to centuries of Christians pointing out the fulfillment of the passage in the person of Yeshua. For instance, the Targum (a paraphrased translation from Hebrew into Aramaic) of Jonathan, a 1st century or earlier work, begins with, “Behold my servant the Messiah shall prosper.” The 14th century commentator Rabbi Moshe Cohen Iben Crispin states that those who for controversial reasons apply the prophecy of the suffering servant to Israel find it impossible to understand the true meaning of this prophecy, “having forsaken the knowledge of our teachers and inclined after the stubbornness their own opinions.” Their misinterpretation, he declares, “distorts the passage from its natural meaning,” for “it was given of God as a description of the Messiah, whereby when any should claim to be the Messiah, to judge by the resemblance or non-resemblance to it whether he were the Messiah or no.” 1
Isaac Abrahanel (1475-1508), a bitter opponent of Christianity, in his explanation of Isaiah 53, makes the following statement. “The learned among the Nazarenes expound it of the man who was crucified in Jerusalem at the end of the second Temple, and who according to them was the Son of God and took flesh in the virgin’s womb, as is stated in their writings. Jonathan Be Uzziel interprets it in the Targum of the future Messiah, and this is also the opinion of our learned men in the majority of their midrashim.” 2
Alshech (Rabbi Moshe el Sheikh, second half of the sixteenth century), who was the Chief Rabbi of Safed, makes this statement in his Commentaries on the Earlier Prophets, “Our rabbis with one voice accept and affirm the opinion that the prophet is speaking of the King Messiah, and we shall ourselves also adhere to the same view.” 3
And even more penetrating view was expressed by Rabbi Elijah de Vidas, Cabbalist Scholar at Safed in the sixteenth century. He affirms that “the meaning of ‘He was wounded for our transgressions, …. bruised for our iniquities,’ is, that since the Messiah bears our iniquities, which produce the effect of his being bruised, it follows that whoso will not admit that the Messiah thus suffers for our iniquities must endure and suffer for them himself.” 4 We’ll want to return to that comment later.
It should be clear from these profound rabbis comments that the “natural” explanation of Isaiah 53 had to be the congruence with the known facts of Yeshua’s life. During Yeshua’s life he offered the kingdom of God, the Messianic Age of Peace to Israel. The leadership of that day rejected him, whereupon he clearly prophesied that destruction would come to Jerusalem and the Jewish people would be carried away captive to every nation. The fulfillment of that is a simple matter of the historical record. Since then we have been suffering for and enduring the pains of our iniquities. Even when these things became more and more obvious, our rabbis became harder and harder to the truth. And we suffered more and more. By the way, if you have ever thought “Jesus can’t be the Messiah, because there isn’t peace in the world.” Don’t blame it on him. He made the offer. We said no. End of that debate!
But this is today. We can’t change the past. Besides, you may look at Isaiah 53 and think that it would be speaking of Israel. Maybe all of those earlier rabbis were wrong and we just had to suffer long enough as a people for it to become apparent that it really was speaking of the nation’s suffering. If you will give adequate consideration to the following points you’ll see the impossibility of that position being tenable.
1) There is no hint of anything like the plural in the passage at all. It clearly identifies one individual throughout.
2) The nations and kings recognizing this person connects with many other messianic passages, eg. Psalm 2, Psalm 72, Isaiah 11, etc.
3) If the prophesy speaks of Israel, who is the “my people” in Verse 8? Was Isaiah the prophet a goy?
4) How did Israel become a guilt offering? Verse 10 calls this person an “asham,” the Hebrew word for guilt offering. Does Israel’s suffering remove the guilt of the nations?
5) In the Scriptures an offering to God had to be without spot or blemish. Can anyone say that that is the case with Israel?
6) Israel is said to suffer for their own sins, not because of someone else’s faults or vicariousness.
7) Was Israel and unresisting sufferer? Hardly. Too many examples to the contrary are readily available from our history?
8) If the rabbis really believed this passage gave an explanation for the suffering of Israel over the last 2,000 years, you can believe that every Jew would be very familiar with it. Instead of being shunned it would be the most popular passage in the synagogue. Imagine if we really believed this passage explained the cause of all or our suffering, including the Holocaust. What if instead of meaningless agony we believed that these sufferings were being used by God to bring forgiveness and peace to all of the world. What profound meaning that would invest our history with! We would be shouting it ……..(is there supposed to be something after this?)
9) Lastly, try this experiment for yourself. Read the passage out loud twice. The first time substitute Israel every it says he, him, etc. Then the second time substitute Yeshua in each of those instances. Determine for yourself which has the ring of truth!
If you find that you do believe it truly speaks of Yeshua, what should you do? First, acknowledge to God that you were one of those sheep going astray and that you want to repent. T’shuva, repentance, means to turn from your own ways to God’s way. Our sin, going our own way, is what was laid on him to be atoned for. Then, acknowledge Yeshua as your atonement. His death in your place is what will enable you to escape the punishment due you for your sins and bring you to eternal life. Remember the comments of Rabbi Elijah de Vidas! Ask God to forgive you through Yeshua the Messiah and tell him you will no longer go your own way, but with God’s help, will only walk in obedience to his will for you as expressed in the Scriptures, Old and New Covenants. It would not be inappropriate to meditate on the infinite love of God that motivated him to send his Son to die in your stead and then allow your emotions to respond, as well as your intellect and will. You may even find that the love of God begins to break your heart and leave you in tears.
If you do not feel quite that deeply just yet, don’t worry. If you truly commit your life to the Messiah, you will have a lifetime, even an eternity, of going deeper in the love and peace and aloowing him to radically change you from the inside out.
- Quoted in The Messianic Hope, Dr. Arthur Kac, Baker Book House. pp 75 & 76
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