Isaiah 53 explained: The Servant Who Suffered for Others

An unlikely figure (vv. 1-3)

The speakers can hardly believe that God's power, pictured as his 'arm', was at work in someone so ordinary, like a thin shoot pushing up from dry ground. People despised him and looked away, as they would from someone badly sick or disgraced.

Wounded for others' wrongs (vv. 4-6)

The speakers admit they had wandered off like lost sheep and had assumed God was punishing him. Now they see he was wounded for their wrongs, and that his suffering brings them peace and healing.

Silent and condemned (vv. 7-9)

Like a sheep led to be killed, he does not protest, and he dies after an unjust trial though he had done nothing wrong. The Hebrew of verses 8 and 9 is hard, and translations differ on details such as who failed to speak up for him and whether his grave is with the rich or with one rich man.

God's will and the offering (v. 10)

The poem says plainly that it was the LORD's will that he be crushed, and it calls his life an offering for sin, the kind of sacrifice brought to make amends for a wrong. Yet the same verse promises he will see descendants and live long, which many readers take to point beyond his death, though the poem never explains how.

Honored by God (vv. 11-12)

God now speaks, calling him 'my righteous servant', who will set many right with God by carrying their guilt. Because he gave up his life, was counted among wrongdoers and pleaded for them, God gives him a place among the great, like a victor sharing the spoils.

Who is the servant? (vv. 1-12)

Earlier chapters sometimes call the servant Israel, so many Jewish readers see the nations here describing Israel's suffering in exile, and some scholars suggest the prophet himself or another figure of his time. Christians, following the New Testament, read it as Jesus, who stayed silent at his trial, was killed beside criminals and was laid in a rich man's tomb.

Key verse: Isaiah 53:5

Where Christians differ

Most Christians read this as pointing to Jesus but differ on whether Isaiah foresaw him directly or first described Israel or a figure of his own time, and on whether bearing others' sins means taking their punishment in their place or more broadly sharing and overcoming human sin and suffering.

Something to think about

Why do you think people so often assume that someone who is suffering must have done something to deserve it?