Terminator,
What is your native language? Вы по-русски понимаете?
theterminator wrote:
"What you said in the passage above sounds right. How does this show whether Isaiah 53 is about the Messiah?
Elizabeth and Zak were seen as righteous, but it never says that they "did not commit lawlessness", were "found with no lies", and were unblemished like a lamb.
There are enough things to distinguish the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53 from other righteous Israelites, like the fact that they did not atone for their nation.
where does it say that they did commit lawlessness?
where does it say that they did lie?
Isaiah 59.
The author of Isaiah 53 saw each and every israelite as violent and dishonest. So he didn't have in mind some average righteous Israelite like Zak. He had in mind the exception, who who was the single sprout in dry ground. Is. 53 verse 1. Check back to isaiah 11 - that is the root of Jesse.
nearly every jew i know of says people have SUFFERED for other people in the ot, but that does not mean there suffering was a magical atonement for sins,
Yes, it does not mean there was a magical atonement for sins, one reason being that the sufferers themselves in those cases were not themselves unblemished. As isaiah 59 sees it, they have all been in sin, even the prophetic author Isaiah.
only that the guilt of seeing the suffering would bring a person to repent.
OK, so this can be one explanation of how the process works. The singers described in Isaiah 53 can see the Servant's suffering, and once they realize that he is honest and nonviolent, they can come to repentence. So being familiar with the whole philosophy of atonement and Temple sacrifice that back in Isaiah's time was key in Judaism, isaiah could have chosen to portray the Servant's suffering in that way.
Isaiah 53 verse 11 says:
By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall
justify many,
For
He shall bear their iniquities.
This idea of bearing the iniquities was still a big part of Judaism when the Temple was around up to 70 AD, because of the whole atonement ritual at Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement), when an unblemished animal was sacrificed for the people's sins. It was part of the author's philosophy. But nowadays we don't have the Temple sacrifices carried out and this philosophy is not as ever-present in people's minds like it was for the author.
it is no different than seeing suffering today and then feeling sad over the bloodshed which takes place today.
Isaiah 52
"So shall He cause to be sprinkled many nations."
The verb used there repeatedly refers to sprinkling blood in the Torah.
Isaiah 53
"He was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities;"
This is buying into the Atonement philosophy of ancient Judaism and Torah.
"Yet He opened not His mouth;
He was led as a lamb to the slaughter"
This is talking about the lamb getting killed. It's what happens in the sacrifice each year.
"For He was cut off from the land of the living;
For the transgressions of My people He was stricken."
Killing the Servant + More atonement philosophy
"When You make His soul an offering for sin,"
"Sin offerings" were the temple sacrifices
"He poured out His soul
unto death,"
That's what the animals did. Torah says "the soul is in the blood". The sacrificed animals got their blood drained.
Getting poured out to death means the person died.
"He bore the sin of many, And made intercession for the transgressors."
Atonement philosophy is all over this chapter.
"But now, please forgive their sin--but if not, then blot me out of the book you have written."
if god does not forgive them , moses asks to be blotted out. what has this got to do with guilt offering?
It's the same philosophy and concept.
Moses had installed a practice by his Torah for all Israel to follow - they killed an animal each year for the people's sins and it cleansed their sins and God forgave them.
Moses is making a proposal to God on the same philosophy, out of his love for his people. He is asking to be an atonement for the people's sins so God will forgive them.
3. When it explains "with his wound we were healed", it means that the wound occurs on their behalf, as the wound itself heals them. If a person receives or does something that helps another, it means he/she does so on their behalf. If someone does something on their behalf, he does it "for" them.
so you are forgiven because of bloody wounds or bloodless wounds?
is it wounds which atones for your sins or the slaying which atones for your sins?
where is their magical atonement going on in this verse "with his wound we were..."
?
where is there idea of forgiveness or pardoning of sins?
In Isaiah 53, the Servant did not commit lawlessness or lie, but instead he is wounded because of their sins and his suffering is healing for them.
De facto he is suffering on their behalf, for the sins of the nation, and he is healing the nation by that suffering. It reflects a classic Torah concept and understanding of how atonement and "guilt offering" work, which is why the chapter says he undergoes a guilt offering.
the servant did not commit lawlessness or lie
in the situation of being persecuted. that does not mean he was free from sin.
It does not add "in the situation of being persecuted".
It only says he had not done lawlessness and was found without sin in his mouth. Somebody who was not free from sin would have lawlessness or be found with sin in their mouth. In Isaiah's context, his normal strong idea is that every Israelite has sin and lawlessness, just a couple chapters later in Isaiah 59. So Isaiah is giving a very different strong image about the Servant than about the rest of the Israelites.
Also, the animals in the sin offering ritualss were unblemished. When it talks about sin offerings in the atonement mindset of Isaiah 53, it means whoever is goes to be the offering is unblemished too.
the suffering , wounds etc is not forgiveness for sins.
"The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,"
"And made intercession for the transgressors."
It means God didn't punish them because of his intercession. If God doesn't punish them, it means he forgives them. God is not holding their sins against them anymore.