isaiah 53

[theterminator]

12Therefore, I will allot him a portion in public, and with the strong he shall share plunder, because he poured out his soul to death, and with transgressors he was counted; and he bore the sin of many, and interceded for the transgressors.

what does it mean "bore the sin of many" ?

is this referring back to ,

Despised and rejected by men, a man of pains and accustomed to illness, and as one who hides his face from us, despised and we held him of no account.

Indeed, he bore our illnesses, and our pains-he carried them, yet we accounted him as plagued, smitten by God and oppressed.


But he was pained because of our transgressions, crushed because of our iniquities; the chastisement of our welfare was upon him, and with his wound we were healed.

it doesn't read like a ritual sacrifice to me. maybe vicarious suffering , but not ritual sacrifice

[John2]

I think it is referring back to Is. 53:5, and regarding this verse, this website notes:

"Isaiah 53:5 is a classic example of mistranslation: The verse does not say, 'He was wounded for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities,' which could convey the vicarious suffering ascribed to Jesus. Rather, the proper translation is: “He was wounded because of our transgressions, and crushed because of our iniquities.” This conveys that the Servant suffered as a result of the sinfulness of others."

http://www.aish.com/sp/ph/Isaiah_53_The ... rvant.html

It also adds regarding Is. 53 in general:

"Though the 'servant' in Isaiah 53 is not openly identified – these verses merely refer to 'My servant' (52:13, 53:11) – the 'servant' in each of the previous Servant Songs is plainly and repeatedly identified as the Jewish nation. Beginning with chapter 41, the equating of God’s Servant with the nation of Israel is made nine times by the prophet Isaiah, and no one other than Israel is identified as the 'servant.'"

And:

"The Bible is filled with other references to the Jewish people as God’s 'servant'; see Jeremiah 30:10, 46:27-28; Psalms 136:22. There is no reason that the 'servant' in Isaiah 53 would suddenly switch and refer to someone other than the Jewish people."

This theme of Israel suffering "because of" other nations is also expressed in Ps. 44, for example:

"You have made us a reproach to our neighbors, the scorn and derision of those around us. You have made us a byword among the nations; the peoples shake their heads at us. I live in disgrace all day long, and my face is covered with shame at the taunts of those who reproach and revile me, because of the enemy, who is bent on revenge. All this came upon us, though we had not forgotten you ... But you crushed us and made us a haunt for jackals; you covered us over with deep darkness ... for your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered."

[semiopen]

I like your response John.

With the recent threads here on Isaiah and Messianism, one really has to wonder whether the sages opinion of these verses wasn't somewhat influenced by the rise of Christianity.

It seems to me that it's plausible that Yoshke committed suicide by Isaiah.

While the sages make sound arguments, why wouldn't people living in a nutty messianic era interpret these verses differently. In order to go full Thomas Covenant ( The_Chronicles_of_Thomas_Covenant) Yoshke might have wanted to sort of fulfill some early first century CE interpretation of Isaiah.

Of course, before you get there, you have to get around the serious question of whether Yoshke actually existed in some human form.

Anyway, I might be wrong but I'm not aware of any evidence that suggests that the sages' opinions were actually mainstream during that period.

[iskander]

Job is called the 'servant of God' --ebed YHWH-- in several verses.

I don't think that the verses of Isaiah are the explanation for the belief in the Christian messiah. Isaiah and others were simply giving a literary form to this messianic expectation . The Christian use of Isaiah 53 came after they had felt already redeemed and it is nothing more than a convenient explanation .

[John2]

semiopen,

I suppose post-70 CE Jewish opinions of these verses were somewhat influenced by the rise of Christianity (including the Targum of Isaiah, mentioned in the link below), but I still think the plain meaning of the text is that the Suffering Servant is Israel. I don't know if this was the mainstream view in the first century CE. There are some rabbinic (and Karaite) writings that see the Servant as the Messiah, as this Messianic Jewish site mentions, but I don't know if any of these references go back to pre-70 CE:

https://jewsforjesus.org/answers/prophe ... -isaiah-53

You wrote:

"...why wouldn't people living in a nutty messianic era interpret these verses differently," and so they did (e.g., Acts 8:32-33), though I think Acts is post-70 CE too.

I wish the Isaiah Pesher fragments had Is. 53. That would help clarify pre-70 CE interpretations (and I do think the DSS sect was proto-Jewish Christian).

[John2]

I do think, however, that 1 Cor. 15:3 could be based on Is. 53, so that may be an indirect pre-70 CE messianic reference.

"For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures..."

And because the DSS sect was messianic and Isaiah was "one of the most influential books and the one quoted most among the Dead Sea Scrolls" (https://books.google.com/books?id=SBMXn ... ls&f=false), I suspect that they would have seen Is. 53 as a reference to the Messiah, even if they weren't proto-Jewish Christians.

[John2]

But then again, the DSS sect interpreted Isaiah's cornerstone imagery (which is applied to Jesus in the NT) as a reference to their Community Council (which consisted of twelve men and three priests).

[semiopen]

Bec C.Smith's Lady Wisdom thread seemed important to me. Apparently a minor mention or two in some relatively questionable canonical books gets blown totally (not to mention pointlessly) out of proportion in the Apocrypha.

In addition, I was looking at Jewish Isaiah commentary more closely recently, inspired by the various Isaiah threads on here. Not being any kind of expert in this area, it seems to me that the sages do not handle Isaiah in the same manner as the rest of the canon.

For example, there is general agreement that Jacob had his famous ladder dream on the Temple Mount even though

He named that site Bethel; but previously the name of the city had been Luz. (Gen 28:19 TNK)

It's difficult to dance around that verse. Similar examples, and even more outrageous ones, are easy to find.

Isaiah just doesn't seem to get the same kind of treatment.

I like this theory because it is is approximately equally offensive to both sides, and that gives it a certain amount of elegance.

[iskander]

Psalm44 ends with these desperate words:
23 Rouse yourself! Why do you sleep, O Lord?
Awake, do not cast us off forever!
24 Why do you hide your face?
Why do you forget our affliction and oppression?
25 For we sink down to the dust;
our bodies cling to the ground.
26 Rise up, come to our help.
Redeem us for the sake of your steadfast love


But these desperate people were good people:
17 All this has come upon us,
yet we have not forgotten you,
or been false to your covenant.
18 Our heart has not turned back,
nor have our steps departed from your way,
19 yet you have broken us in the haunt of jackals,
and covered us with deep darkness.


People wanted redemption and freedom.
Many years later Martin Luther also satisfied similar needs with the opening of the prison that was the dogma of Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus

Many years before Luther the Buddhists were liberated from the rigid Theravada by the generous Mahayana .

Today Secularism liberates the mind from the fear of the unseen.

It is called the all embracing evolution

[rakovsky]

12Therefore, I will allot him a portion in public, and with the strong he shall share plunder, because he poured out his soul to death, and with transgressors he was counted; and he bore the sin of many, and interceded for the transgressors.

what does it mean "bore the sin of many" ?

is this referring back to ,

Despised and rejected by men, a man of pains and accustomed to illness, and as one who hides his face from us, despised and we held him of no account.

Indeed, he bore our illnesses, and our pains-he carried them, yet we accounted him as plagued, smitten by God and oppressed.


But he was pained because of our transgressions, crushed because of our iniquities; the chastisement of our welfare was upon him, and with his wound we were healed.

it doesn't read like a ritual sacrifice to me. maybe vicarious suffering , but not ritual sacrifice

I like this thread as you and I have discussed Isaiah 53 elsewhere.
May I ask, are questions of interpretations of Judaism and the Tanakh for this section or for the Christian section when the issues are debated between the two religions?
Or maybe it does not matter?

"The many" is sometimes used as a phrase in the Tanakh for the many nations aka the multitudes. So in the end of Isaiah 53, it talks about being numbered among the mighty, sharing the spoils with the strong. And back in the end of Isaiah 52, it talks about the kings shurting their mouths at him. So Isaiah is talking about international repercussions of the Servant, with the many being many nations. God told Abraham he would be the Father of many nations . So the Servant is bearing their sins and did "justify the many" in another verse.

References to ritual sacrifice I see as Isaiah's theological poetic prophetic understanding of the Servant's death, ie in Is. 52 the Servant sprinkles the nations, a reference to the lamb's blood sprinkling on the Ark of the covenant, and another reference to " the many. "

Other references are the leading of the lamb to slaughter, the guilt offering, the pouring out of the soul, the bearing the sins. All these were part of ritual sacrifice front and center of temple Judaism as it existed in Isaiah's day.