Passage
The Suffering Servant
Isaiah 52:13 to 53:12
The fourth and last of Isaiah's Servant Songs, and the passage the apostles quote when they explain the death of Jesus.
Part of Isaiah · Passage · Revised 5 September 2026
Antonio Ciseri, Ecce Homo (1871). Public domain, held on this site.
Summary
The song opens and ends with the servant lifted high, and between those ends it sets his death for the sin of others. The New Testament reads him as Jesus.
- It starts three verses before the chapter break. That opening is easy to miss.Isaiah 52:13he shall be exalted and lifted up
- The middle of the song says he carried what belonged to others.Isaiah 53:5But he was wounded for our transgressions
- After the death the song gives him long days and a share with the great.Isaiah 53:10he shall prolong his days
- Jesus applied the last verse to himself the night he was arrested.Luke 22:37…which is written must be fulfilled in me
- Jewish readers have read the servant two ways: as the Messiah, and as Israel.
The song, whole
The chapters around it speak to people under judgment with an exile in Babylon in view, and promise a rescue the LORD works with his own arm. It is the last of four passages in Isaiah that speak of one servant.
52:13 to 15
13 Behold, my servant shall deal wisely, he shall be exalted and lifted up, and shall be very high.
14 Like as many were astonished at thee (his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men),
15 so shall he sprinkle many nations; 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 understand.
53:1 to 3
1 Who hath believed our message? and to whom hath the arm of Jehovah been revealed?
2 For he grew 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 see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.
3 He was despised, and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and as one from whom men hide their face he was despised; and we esteemed him not.
53:4 to 6
4 Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows; yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
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.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and Jehovah hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.
53:7 to 9
7 He was oppressed, yet when he was afflicted he opened not his mouth; as a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and as a sheep that before its shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth.
8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who among them considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living for the transgression of my people to whom the stroke was due?
9 And they made his grave with the wicked, and with a rich man in his death; although he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.
53:10 to 12
10 Yet it pleased Jehovah 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 Jehovah shall prosper in his hand.
11 He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by the knowledge of himself shall my righteous servant justify many; and he shall bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he poured out his soul unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors: yet he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.
The text here is the American Standard Version. The same fifteen verses in the King James · the Berean Standard Bible
The passage at a glance
- Range
- Isaiah 52:13 to 53:12, fifteen verses
- Speaker
- The LORD, then a confessing “we”, then the prophet, then the LORD again
- Setting
- The song speaks into judgment and exile in Babylon, to people told that the LORD will bare his own arm and rescue them himselfIsaiah 52:10
- Position in the book
- After the herald of good news at 52:7 to 12, and before the barren woman's song of chapter 54Isaiah 52:7 · Isaiah 54:1
- Parallel passages
- The fourth of Isaiah's four servant songsIsaiah 42:1 · Isaiah 49:1 · Isaiah 50:4 · Isaiah 52:13
The shape of the song
The song starts high, goes down to a grave, and ends at the height it opened on.
Five stops in order. Isaiah 52:13 to 15 stands the servant high. Isaiah 53:1 to 3 brings him down to a man nobody wanted. Isaiah 53:4 to 6 puts other people's sin on him. Isaiah 53:7 to 9 carries him through an unjust trial to a grave. Isaiah 53:10 to 12 stands him high again, at the same height the song opened on.
- 52:13 to 15Lifted high
- 53:1 to 3Few believed
- 53:4 to 6Our load on him
- 53:7 to 9Silent to the grave
- 53:10 to 12High again
Who is speaking, and where the song says so.
- 52:13 to 15the LORDnamed: my servant
- 53:1 to 6a confessing wenot named
- 53:7 to 10a reporternot named
- 53:11 to 12the LORDnamed: my servant
The song names its speaker only where the first person stands in the text, at my servant. The two middle bands are unnamed, so any name given them is a proposal.
Who the “we” of 53:1 to 6 is
The prophet with the believing remnant, confessing what they had thought of him
The reading this site's Wesleyan-Pentecostal tradition takes, and the one the rest of this page follows. On this reading the confession is made by people who now see what the servant was doing, and it stands in the same book that calls Isaiah himself a man of unclean lips.
Israel as a nation, or the nations looking on at Israel
Holders of the national reading, from Rashi forward. Rashi takes the prophet to speak of all Israel as one man; most who follow him take the speakers of this stretch to be the astonished kings and nations of 52:15, confessing what they had done to Israel.
The kings of 52:15, whose mouths the song has just shut
Bernhard Duhm and the critics who follow him, carrying the pronoun straight across the chapter break from the kings who see what they had not been told.
52:13 to 15
Lifted high, and unrecognisable
The servant is raised as high as a person can be, then shown too disfigured to look at.
Isaiah 52:14…visage was so marred more than any man
deal prudently52:13 to 15
The fourth servant song opens here and runs through 53:12, and its first note is exaltation: the servant shall deal prudently, be exalted, extolled, and very high. Verse 14 sets against that height a marring beyond any man's, the visage and form disfigured past ordinary recognition, and the astonishment of the nations in verse 15 answers the astonishment the marring itself caused. Paul quotes verse 15 at Romans 15:21 of the gospel reaching those who had not heard, and the Targum of Jonathan reads the servant here as the Messiah exalted, a reading named under the site's handling of rabbinic sources though it places the songs' sufferings elsewhere.
Drawn from Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Isaiah; Albert Barnes, Notes on the Book of Isaiah.
Sprinkle, or startleIsaiah 52:15
He shall sprinkle many nations, which is what a priest does with blood at the altar, so that the nations are made clean.
The Hebrew text as the Masoretes preserved it, and the King James and American Standard translators who print it that way.
So shall many nations be startled at him.
The ancient Greek translators, who read the same consonants as astonishment.
The two readings do different work. The first makes the servant a priest and the nations the thing cleansed, which carries the song forward into the sacrifice named at 53:10. The second keeps the whole verse on the nations' reaction, so that the horror of 52:14 and the silence of 52:15 are one movement.
Paul quotes the second half of this verse at Romans 15:21, and that half reads the same either way, so his citation settles nothing about the disputed word.
How marredIsaiah 52:14
Scholars have proposed more than one way of reading one word of the Great Isaiah Scroll at this verse, and the proposals turn on a single consonant. The site prints no reading of the scroll here, because the reading itself is still argued.
The Hebrew text's own reading is the one shown above: his appearance was marred past any man's. That reading is not in dispute.
Albert Barnes reads the song as beginning here, not at the chapter break.
The most important portion of Isaiah, and of the Old Testament, commences here, and here should have been the beginning of a new chapter.
Albert Barnes· Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
The rest of the passage
It is the description of the suffering Messiah, and is continued to the close of the next chapter. As the closing verses of this chapter are connected with the following chapter, and as it is of great importance to have just views of the design of this portion of Isaiah, it is proper in this place to give an analysis of this part of the prophecy.
53:1 to 3
Who believed the message?
The stanza opens on a question about widespread unbelief. Nothing about the servant would make a person want him.
Isaiah 53:1Who hath believed our message? and to whom hath the arm of Jehovah been revealed?
Who hath believed our report53:1 to 3
The fourth servant song began at 52:13, and its central movement opens with a question the New Testament quotes twice, at John 12:38 of Israel's unbelief and at Romans 10:16 of the gospel's: who has believed our message? What follows is a portrait of a man nobody wanted to look at, a shoot out of dry ground with no beauty to draw anyone, despised and rejected, and well acquainted with grief. The speakers are a group admitting they had written him off, and they say it looking back, because the whole chapter describes a suffering still to come in the past tense, which Delitzsch calls the prophetic perfect.
Drawn from Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Isaiah; Albert Barnes, Notes on the Book of Isaiah.
Charles Spurgeon says the expectation of a prince in splendour made a plain prophecy easy to miss.
It is marvelous that with such plain prophecies concerning the Messiah the Jews should have made such a fatal mistake in reference to Him.
Charles Spurgeon· The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 1075: “A Root Out Of A Dry Ground” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition), 1872
The rest of the passage
They looked for a temporal prince who would come in splendor, notwithstanding that this and other Scriptures speak of His humiliation in express terms.
The Hebrew here
The Hebrew behind Who believed the message?
makob: pain
Hebrew · H4341Strong's entry: anguish or (figuratively) affliction
The word behind sorrows at 53:3. It names pain, the kind a body feels.
16 times in the Old Testament · makob, in full →
choli: sickness
Hebrew · H2483Strong's entry: malady, anxiety, calamity
The word behind grief at 53:3. It names sickness, which is why Matthew reads the next stanza of the healings.
24 times in the Old Testament · choli, in full →
53:4 to 6
He bore what we owed
The servant carries what belonged to other people. The stanza says so by trading pronouns: our griefs, our transgressions, our iniquity laid on him.
Isaiah 53:6All we like sheep have gone astray
Surely he hath borne our griefs53:4 to 6
The substitution is stated in a drumbeat of exchanged pronouns: he bore OUR griefs and carried OUR sorrows while WE esteemed HIM smitten of God; he was wounded for OUR transgressions and bruised for OUR iniquities, and the chastisement of OUR peace was upon HIM. Matthew quotes verse 4 of the healing ministry (Matt 8:17) and Peter quotes verse 5 of the cross, by whose stripes ye were healed (1 Pet 2:24), the two quotations carrying the two halves of the verse's reach. Verse 6 closes the confession with the flock scattered every one to his own way and the iniquity of us all made to meet on him, the Hebrew figure the commentators render as converging on one point.
Drawn from Albert Barnes, Notes on the Book of Isaiah; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.
Athanasius reads the carrying as something done in a body of his own.
Rather, he carries our infirmities, and he himself bears our sins, that it might be shown that he has become human for us, and that the body that in him bore them was his own body.
Athanasius of Alexandria· Discourses Against the Arians 3.31, the fourth century
The line beside it is 53:5, he was wounded for our transgressions.
Diego Velazquez, Christ Crucified (1632). Public domain, held on this site.
The Hebrew here
The Hebrew behind He bore what we owed
nasa: to lift: raise
Hebrew · H5375Strong's entry: to lift, in a great variety of applications, literal and figurative, absolute and relative
The verb behind borne at 53:4. It is the word for lifting a load, and the law uses it of the goat that carries the people's guilt away.
656 times in the Old Testament · nasa, in full →
sabal: to bear
Hebrew · H5445Strong's entry: to carry (literally or figuratively), or (reflexively) be burdensome; specifically, to be gravid
The verb behind carried at 53:4, and behind bear at 53:11. It is the word for shouldering a burden.
9 times in the Old Testament · sabal, in full →
chabburah: wound
Hebrew · H2250Strong's entry: properly, bound (with stripes), i.e. a weal (or black-and-blue mark itself)
The word behind stripes at 53:5. It names the mark a blow leaves on skin.
7 times in the Old Testament · chabburah, in full →
53:7 to 9
Silent, and buried
He said nothing under oppression. A judgment cut his life short, and he was buried with a rich man though he had done no violence.
Isaiah 53:9And they made his grave with the wicked
as a lamb to the slaughter53:7 to 8
He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb: the silence under oppression that the Gospels record at the trials, and the exact passage the Ethiopian eunuch was reading in his chariot at Acts 8:32, whose question, of whom speaketh the prophet this?, the canon itself answers when Philip began at the same scripture, and preached unto him Jesus. Taken from prison and from judgment, cut off out of the land of the living, for the transgression of my people was he stricken: the death is judicial, premature, and vicarious in one verse, and who shall declare his generation carries readings the commentators set out (his posterity, his contemporaries' complicity, the mystery of his origin) without settling.
Drawn from Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Isaiah; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament.
with the rich in his death53:9
He made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death: appointed a criminal's burial and given a rich man's, a doubling that sat unexplained for seven centuries until a rich man of Arimathaea begged the body (Matt 27:57-60), which the commentators present as among the chapter's most exact details. The ground given is his innocence, because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth, the clause Peter applies word for word at 1 Pet 2:22. Gill and Barnes carry the philology of the plural deaths in the Hebrew and the readings attached to it, named without a verdict.
Drawn from John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; Albert Barnes, Notes on the Book of Isaiah.
Matthew Henry points out that the judge who condemned him found no fault in him.
He never offended either in word or deed, nor could any of his enemies take up that challenge of his, Which of you convinceth me of sin?
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible
The rest of the passage
The judge that condemned owned he found no fault in him, and the centurion that executed him professed that certainly he was a righteous man.
The body taken down from the cross, the moment before the burial 53:9 speaks of.
Rembrandt, The Descent from the Cross (1633). Public domain, held on this site.
53:10 to 12
The death was the LORD's own purpose
The death was the LORD's own purpose. Past it the servant is given offspring, long days, and a portion with the great.
Isaiah 53:10Yet it pleased Jehovah to bruise him
it pleased the Lord to bruise him53:10 to 11
The chapter's deepest sentence: it pleased the Lord to bruise him, the suffering not an accident intercepted but an offering appointed, when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, the asham of Leviticus 5, the trespass offering's own word, which Delitzsch presses as the vocabulary of the altar. Then the future on the far side of death, stated as flatly as the death was: he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand, which the older writers read as resurrection in the prophet's mouth, a dead man seeing offspring and lengthening days. By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities: justification and sin-bearing joined in one clause, the sentence Paul's doctrine is built from, as the commentators state it.
Drawn from Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Isaiah; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.
numbered with the transgressors53:12
The song ends in a victor's division of spoil earned by a death: because he hath poured out his soul unto death, and he was numbered with the transgressors, the clause the Lord quoted of himself on the night of the arrest, this that is written must yet be accomplished in me (Luke 22:37). He bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors: the chapter's last word is the servant praying for the men in whose number he was counted, which the Gospels record from the cross. The Targum of Jonathan reads the servant of 52:13 as Messiah and assigns these sufferings elsewhere, and Rashi and the medieval commentators read the servant as the people of Israel suffering among the nations.
Drawn from Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Isaiah; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament.
John Gill reads the travail of the servant's soul as the labour of childbirth.
The travail of his soul" is the toil and labour he endured, in working out the salvation of his people; his obedience and death, his sorrows and sufferings; particularly those birth throes of his soul, under a sense of divine wrath, for the allusion is to women in travail; and all the agonies and pains of death which he went through.
The Hebrew here
The Hebrew behind The death was the LORD's own purpose
asham: guilt (offering)
Hebrew · H817Strong's entry: guilt; by implication, a fault; also a sin-offering
The word behind offering for sin at 53:10. It is the law's own term for the guilt offering of Leviticus 5, the sacrifice brought when guilt has to be dealt with. Where a wrong can be repaid the law asks for that as well, but the sacrifice is not the repayment.
46 times in the Old Testament · asham, in full →
zera: seed
Hebrew · H2233Strong's entry: seed; figuratively, fruit, plant, sowing-time, posterity
The word behind seed at 53:10. A man cut off out of the land of the living is given offspring to see.
229 times in the Old Testament · zera, in full →
One word at 53:11: the oldest copies carry a word the printed Hebrew does not, and the word is light.
The words used here
- Witness
- Any copy of the text that can be questioned about a reading: a manuscript, an ancient translation, or an early writer quoting it.
- Siglum
- The short label scholars give a manuscript. 1QIsa-a means the first Isaiah scroll from Cave 1 at Qumran.
- Masoretic Text
- The Hebrew Bible as the Masoretes copied and pointed it. It is the text behind the King James and the American Standard Version, so it is the reading in most English Bibles a reader already owns.
- Septuagint
- The Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible made by Jewish translators in the last centuries BC.
- Colophon
- The scribe's own note at the end of a manuscript, giving the date it was finished and often the name of the man who wrote it.
- The Jewish revisions
- Three later Greek translations, by Aquila, Symmachus and Theodotion, each known only from the writers who quote it and each dated on its own evidence.
One word at 53:11: the oldest copies carry a word the printed Hebrew does not, and the word is light.
When each witness was written
The Great Isaiah Scroll (1QIsa-a)
about 150 to 100 BC by the letter forms; radiocarbon gives 250 to 103 BC
The second Isaiah scroll (1QIsa-b)
first century BC, commonly dated about 50 to 25 BC on the handwriting
A third Isaiah copy from Cave 4 at Qumran
second to first century BC by the letter forms
Isaiah translated in the second century BC on the usual reckoning; the Greek copies that carry it are centuries later
complete Hebrew copies from about AD 920 to 1010, dated by their own colophons
Aquila, Symmachus and Theodotion
three separate works, each dated from the writers who quote it; Aquila is usually put at about AD 130, Symmachus later in the second century, and Theodotion's date is argued
What each witness reads at this verse
| Witness | What it reads here |
|---|---|
| The Great Isaiah Scroll (1QIsa-a)A complete Hebrew Isaiah from Cave 1 at Qumran.about 150 to 100 BC by the letter forms; radiocarbon gives 250 to 103 BC | What it reads hereHe shall see light |
| The second Isaiah scroll (1QIsa-b)A fragmentary Isaiah from the same cave, elsewhere almost letter for letter the Masoretic Text.first century BC, commonly dated about 50 to 25 BC on the handwriting | What it reads hereHe shall see light |
| A third Isaiah copy from Cave 4 at QumranA fragmentary Hebrew Isaiah carrying the same reading at this verse.second to first century BC by the letter forms | What it reads hereHe shall see light |
| The SeptuagintThe Greek translation, whose Hebrew source is inferred from the Greek rather than preserved.Isaiah translated in the second century BC on the usual reckoning; the Greek copies that carry it are centuries later | What it reads hereHe shall see light |
| The Masoretic TextThe Hebrew Bible as the Masoretes preserved it.complete Hebrew copies from about AD 920 to 1010, dated by their own colophons | What it reads hereHe shall see, and be satisfied |
| Aquila, Symmachus and TheodotionThree later Greek revisions, each made from a Hebrew text that lacks the word.three separate works, each dated from the writers who quote it; Aquila is usually put at about AD 130, Symmachus later in the second century, and Theodotion's date is argued | What it reads hereHe shall see, and be satisfied |
The two readings
He shall see, and be satisfied
The same clause without the word light, so that the verb has nothing to see.
He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by the knowledge of himself shall my righteous servant justify many; and he shall bear their iniquities.
How the two readings are weighed, and what does not change
The weight
Witnesses are weighed rather than counted, and the weight here rests on independence. Three Hebrew copies from Qumran agree with a Greek translation whose Hebrew source was a different copy, on a word the medieval Hebrew lacks. The second scroll carries extra force, because it agrees with the Masoretic Text nearly everywhere else, so its agreement with the Greek is not a habit of the scroll. John Meade weighs those factors and judges that they decide in favour of the longer reading. On the other side stand the Masoretic tradition, whose scribes counted letters, and the three Jewish revisions of the Greek, which lack the word as well.
Meade names a plain mechanism. A copyist's eye could lose a short word standing between two words that begin alike, which is one of the commonest ways a line loses a syllable.
What does not change
The word adds an image to the servant's vindication and changes no doctrine. Verse 10 has already said that he shall see his seed and shall prolong his days, and verse 12 gives him a portion with the great.
The King James and the American Standard Version both print the shorter Hebrew reading. The American Standard Version was published in 1901, more than forty years before the scrolls were found, so it could not have weighed them. The 1611 translators said in their own preface that marginal readings are necessary, which is exactly what a reader is doing here when he weighs two readings side by side. A phrase printed in some modern versions, the light of life, has the extra words in no manuscript at all.
- John Meade, “He will see light in Isaiah 53:11”, Evangelical Textual Criticism, 2020.
- Emanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, third edition, Fortress, 2012.
- The Israel Museum's digital facsimile of the Great Isaiah Scroll, and the Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library.
What the apostles did with it
The New Testament writers quote this song by name and apply it to Jesus.
| The song's line | Quoted at | The use made of it |
|---|---|---|
| Isaiah 52:15…told them shall they see | AtRomans 15:21…whom no tidings of him came | Paul. Grounds his mission where the name was never heard. |
| Isaiah 53:1…arm of Jehovah been revealed? | AtJohn 12:38Romans 10:16…arm of the Lord been revealed? | John, then Paul. Unbelief at the signs, then at the gospel. |
| Isaiah 53:4…he hath borne our griefs | AtMatthew 8:17and bare our diseases | Matthew. Reads the griefs as sicknesses, at an evening of healings. |
| Isaiah 53:5…his stripes we are healed | At1 Peter 2:24by whose stripes ye were healed | Peter. Carries the healing clause to the cross. |
| Isaiah 53:7…is led to the slaughter | AtActs 8:32Acts 8:33…as a sheep to the slaughter | Luke. Prints it as the text an official was reading. |
| Isaiah 53:9…any deceit in his mouth | At1 Peter 2:22…was guile found in his mouth | Peter. Says the innocence clause of Jesus by name. |
| Isaiah 53:12…was numbered with the transgressors | AtLuke 22:37And he was reckoned with transgressors | Jesus. Applies the closing verse to himself, the night of the arrest. |
The chariot on the Gaza road
An official of the Ethiopian court, riding home from Jerusalem and reading Isaiah aloud, asked Philip whether the prophet meant himself or some other man. Philip began at that same passage.
Acts 8:35And Philip opened his mouth, and beginning from this scripture, preached unto him Jesus.
A bound lamb, the figure the official was reading.
Francisco de Zurbaran, Agnus Dei (about 1635 to 1640). Public domain, held on this site.
Whose servant?
Two old strands run through Jewish reading of this chapter. One takes the servant as the Messiah, the other as Israel, and a named holder of each stands below.
The messianic strand
The servant read as the Messiah
A Targum is an Aramaic rendering read aloud in the synagogue beside the Hebrew.
Targum Jonathan on Isaiah 52:13
core traditions from the first centuries AD · Aramaic, from the land of Israel
It names the servant at the head of the song as the messiah, then moves the suffering of the middle stanzas onto Israel and the nations.
“Behold, my servant the messiah shall prosper, he shall be exalted and extolled, and he shall be very strong.”
On Sefaria, translated by C. W. H. Pauli (1871); dated in Bruce Chilton, The Isaiah Targum (1987).
The national reading
The servant read as Israel
Its strongest ground is that Isaiah names the servant as Israel in the chapters around this one. Christian readers answer that 53:8 sets the servant over against my people.
Isaiah 41:8But thou, Israel, my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen…
Rashi on Isaiah 53:3
1040 to 1105 · Troyes
He says it is this prophet's custom to speak of all Israel as one man, and this has been the mainstream synagogue reading ever since.
“So is the custom of this prophet: he mentions all Israel as one man.”
Judaica Press Complete Tanach, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, on Sefaria, CC BY.
The hinge: one rabbi holding both
Ramban, Rabbi Moses ben Nahman
1194 to 1270 · Girona
He held both readings at once, arguing at Barcelona in 1263 that the true sense is Israel and also expounding the passage of the Messiah. Parashah below is the synagogue reading portion, Midrash the older rabbinic teaching.
“The right view respecting this Parashah is to suppose that by the phrase 'my servant' the whole of Israel is meant... As a different opinion, however, is adopted by the Midrash, which refers it to the Messiah, it is necessary for us to explain it in conformity with the view there maintained.”
Driver and Neubauer, The Fifty-Third Chapter of Isaiah According to the Jewish Interpreters (1877), pages 78 to 85; the Barcelona account in Hyam Maccoby, Judaism on Trial (1982).
The full roster of readings
Origen, Against Celsus 1.55
about AD 248 · Alexandria and Caesarea
He records the answer Jewish teachers gave him when he quoted this chapter at a disputation, which makes this the earliest dated record of the national reading.
“these predictions bore reference to the whole people, regarded as one individual, and as being in a state of dispersion and suffering, in order that many proselytes might be gained”
Ante-Nicene Fathers volume 4, at the Christian Classics Ethereal Library, public domain.
Sanhedrin 98b
the Babylonian Talmud, redacted about the sixth century from older material · The discussion record of the rabbinic academies of Babylonia
In a discussion of the Messiah's name, the Rabbis apply Isaiah 53:4 to him.
“And the Rabbis say: The leper of the house of Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi is his name, as it is stated: 'Indeed our illnesses he did bear and our pains he endured'”
Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 98b, on Sefaria.
Ruth Rabbah 5:6
about the sixth century or later · A midrash on the book of Ruth, meaning a rabbinic commentary that teaches by story rather than by law
Reading Boaz's words to Ruth it hears the King Messiah, and takes the loaf dipped in vinegar as his afflictions.
“these are the afflictions, as it is stated: 'He was pained by our transgressions'”
Ruth Rabbah 5:6, on Sefaria.
A piyyut of the Day of Atonement
the older printed rite of the Jews of central and eastern Europe · A liturgical poem in the additional service of the Day of Atonement
A piyyut is a poem woven into the synagogue service. This one prays the chapter's sin-bearing of the Messiah, inside the prayer book itself. Many prayer books in use today do not carry it.
“Messiah, our righteousness, hath turned from us... Our iniquities and the yoke of our transgressions he will bear, for he was wounded for our transgressions”
Driver and Neubauer (1877), page 399, printed there anonymously from the rite. The attribution to Eleazar ha-Kalir that circulates elsewhere has no primary source and is not made here.
Ibn Ezra
1089 to 1164 · Spain, and then wandering
He reads the servant as Israel in exile, and records that Saadiah Gaon referred the passage to Jeremiah. His commentary is named here as a holder of both reports; the site prints no clause of it, because the clause that circulates in English does not carry either reading.
Ibn Ezra on Isaiah 52:13, on Sefaria.
Radak, Rabbi David Kimhi
about 1160 to 1235 · Provence
He reads the passage of the captivity of Israel.
“This Parashah refers to the captivity of Israel, who are here called 'my servant,' as in xli. 8.”
Driver and Neubauer (1877), page 49.
Moshe Kohen ibn Crispin
fourteenth century · Cordova, later Toledo
Writing after Rashi and Ibn Ezra, he argues the messianic reading as the plain sense of the passage.
“I am pleased to interpret it, in accordance with the teaching of our Rabbis, of the King Messiah, and will be careful, so far as I am able, to adhere to the literal sense.”
Driver and Neubauer (1877), pages 99 to 100.
Moshe Alshich
sixteenth century · Safed
He follows the midrashic tradition and says so in strong terms. His phrase is his own account of that tradition rather than a census, since Rashi, Ibn Ezra and Radak before him read the passage of Israel. His commentary works by homily rather than by grammar.
“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”
Driver and Neubauer (1877), section XXXVII, pages 258 to 259.
Why the national reading works for its holders
in the book's own words · Isaiah 41 to 54
Isaiah names the servant as Israel in the surrounding chapters, at 41:8, at 44:1 and 2, and at 49:3. After chapter 53 the word goes plural, the servants of the LORD at 54:17. Holders take the speakers of 53:1 to 9 as the astonished kings and nations of 52:15.
Isaiah 41:8; 44:1 and 2; 49:3; 54:17, American Standard Version.
Who holds it today
the present · Jewish teaching, Orthodox and non-Orthodox alike
The servant as Israel is the mainstream reading of Jewish interpretation today, and Jewish educators teach it as their own tradition's plain sense.
Aish and Outreach Judaism both present the chapter this way in their own teaching materials.
Scholars have proposed other identifications as well, among them the prophet himself, Jeremiah, Hezekiah, Moses, a humiliated Davidic heir, and the faithful remnant within the nation. Christopher R. North works through them one by one in The Suffering Servant in Deutero-Isaiah (Oxford, 1948).
Where this parts from Christ.
Neither strand reads this chapter as the death and resurrection of Jesus taking sin away. Two things the Christian faith cannot do without stand on that difference: whether Jesus is the promised Messiah, and whether his death takes sin away.
This site's tradition is Wesleyan-Pentecostal. It reads the servant as one person who dies for others and lives again, on the warrant of the index above.
Read more at Isaiah 53 and the rabbis, Every Jewish source on this chapter, named and dated..
The text behind the page
The song survives in a copy written before Christ, and who wrote these chapters is an old question.
The Great Isaiah Scroll came out of Cave 1 at Qumran in 1947, all sixty-six chapters on seventeen stitched sheets. Set beside the medieval Hebrew a thousand years younger it agrees across the book, and this song stands in it whole.
Most of what differs is spelling. Emanuel Tov counts the great majority of its roughly 2,600 differences as that kind, and the one that matters here is the word at 53:11.
About 150 to 100 BC by the letter forms; radiocarbon gives 250 to 103 BC.
The scroll's own page · The Israel Museum's digital facsimile
The column of the scroll that carries this song.
Photograph by Ardon Bar-Hama. Public domain, held on this site.
Who wrote these chapters
The traditional reading holds that Isaiah of Jerusalem wrote the whole book, and the New Testament quotes chapters from both halves of it under his name.
Most scholars in the field today read chapters 40 to 66 as the work of a later hand or hands writing in his line.
Read more at Isaiah, chapter by chapter, The whole book, and the authorship question at length..
Where it leads
Passage1
Story1
Doctrine1
Manuscript1
Sources
The works behind this page
- Scripture
- American Standard Version (1901), public domain, from the site's own verse store. The King James Version (1611) and the Berean Standard Bible (2023) are one click away in the reader.
- The exposition notes
- Written for this site and published in its exposition layer. Each note is shown here under its own anchor phrase with its own sources line, fetched at render.
- The voices quoted
- Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832 to 1869). Charles Spurgeon, The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, sermon 1075, A Root Out Of A Dry Ground (1872). Athanasius, Discourses Against the Arians 3.31 (fourth century). Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710). John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748 to 1763). All are public domain.
- The Jewish sources
- Targum Jonathan, Sanhedrin 98b, Ruth Rabbah 5:6, Rashi and Ibn Ezra as Sefaria prints them; Radak, Ibn Crispin, Alshich, Ramban's exposition and the Yom Kippur liturgical poem in S. R. Driver and A. Neubauer, The Fifty-Third Chapter of Isaiah According to the Jewish Interpreters (Oxford, 1877); Origen, Against Celsus 1.55, in the Ante-Nicene Fathers translation; the Barcelona account in Hyam Maccoby, Judaism on Trial (1982); Bruce Chilton, The Isaiah Targum (1987); Joel E. Rembaum, The Development of a Jewish Exegetical Tradition Regarding Isaiah 53, Harvard Theological Review 75 (1982).
- The text of 53:11
- John Meade, He will see light in Isaiah 53:11, Evangelical Textual Criticism (2020); Emanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, third edition (2012); the Israel Museum's digital facsimile of the Great Isaiah Scroll.
- The other identifications
- Christopher R. North, The Suffering Servant in Deutero-Isaiah (Oxford, 1948), cited and not quoted.
- The Hebrew
- Lemmas, transliterations, meanings and occurrence counts from the site's lexicon floor: STEP Bible's tagged Hebrew text (Tyndale House, CC BY 4.0), with Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (1890, public domain) labelled where it is the only entry.
- The paintings and the photograph
- Antonio Ciseri, Ecce Homo (1871); Diego Velazquez, Christ Crucified (1632); Francisco de Zurbaran, Agnus Dei (about 1635 to 1640); Rembrandt, The Descent from the Cross (1633); the Great Isaiah Scroll photographed by Ardon Bar-Hama. All public domain, taken from Wikimedia Commons and held on this site.
How this page is built
The song's verses, the New Testament verses and the clauses quoted in the Summary are fetched from the site's verse store at render, in the American Standard Version. Nothing on this page is typed from a Bible.
The exposition notes under each stanza are the published notes for that verse range, fetched at render and shown under their own anchor phrases with their own sources.
Each commentator's quotation is fetched from the quotation pool by its row id, so a row that is later withdrawn stops appearing without a change to this page. The pool's year field carries an author's death year on most early rows, so a Father is given his century and never a year.
The Hebrew words are read from the lexicon floor by Strong's key. No Hebrew is typed into this page.
The Jewish and patristic clauses in the readings section come from the public-domain translations named beside them, through the research brief that verified each one.
Dates for manuscripts are printed as ranges with the method that produced them, and never as a single year.