The one prophecy that is quoted more than any other in support of the messiahship of ‘Jesus’ and his godhood, is Isaiah chapter 53. It is indeed sad then, that this is accomplished by deception, since the chapter is always taken completely out of context, and its wording is deliberately distorted and mistranslated. There are pronouns that are clearly plural in Hebrew that have been changed to singular in English, to make it look like it is referring to one person (‘Jesus’); there are words missed out, prepositions changed, etc.
Christian apologists isolate Isaiah 53 from the chapters either side of it, ignoring what comes before and after it, because the suffering servant within it is not named. However, it is actually part of a whole section on ‘The Servant’ (chapters 40-55), where the Servant is most definitely named – many times in fact. In the whole ‘Servant’ section of Isaiah, the word ‘servant’ appears 30 times, and in most cases Jacob (i.e. the people of Israel, the Jewish people) is explicitly identified as the servant.
For example, 41:8-9, and again at 44:1-2 “And now listen, Jacob My servant, Israel whom I have chosen’…. Do not be afraid, Jacob My servant, Yeshurun, whom I have chosen”; 44:21, “Remember these things, O Jacob, And Israel, for you are My servant; I have formed you, you are My servant, O Israel, you will not be forgotten by Me.” 45:4, “For the sake of Jacob My servant, And Israel My chosen one” 48:20 “Yahveh has redeemed His servant Jacob.” 49:3, “You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will display my Glory”. Also implicitly: 43:10 – “You yourselves are my witnesses (plural), and the servant (singular) whom I have chosen” i.e. the servant is a collective group of people, not a single person. For other references of Israel as God’s servant, see Jeremiah 30:10, 46:27-28, and Psalm 136:22.
There are those who say the servant cannot be Israel (a point which I will shortly go into). Whether the suffering servant is Israel or not, there are verses which make it plain that the suffering servant cannot be ‘Jesus’ either. The main one is 53:10 – “he will get to see his offspring and live out a long life”. The Hebrew word for offspring is zera`, literally ‘seed’, which is most definitely biological offspring, not just followers/disciples. As far as we know, Yeshua` did not have any biological descendants. Nor did he live out a long life.
Other important points to make are: if Jesus is a god, how can a god call himself ‘My servant’? How can God be a servant to Himself? If Jesus is a god, why would a god reward himself (with descendants and a long life)? Why would a god redeem himself (53:1 – “to whom has the arm of Yahveh been revealed” i.e. whom has Yahveh redeemed)? How can a god save and redeem himself?
Some of the objections to interpreting Israel as the suffering servant are that the people of Israel have not collectively died or suffered from plague. As I point out below, exile is likened to death elsewhere in the Bible, and disease/plague is often a metaphor for trials and tribulations. Also, it is often claimed by Christian apologists that the suffering servant is portrayed as perfectly innocent and guiltless, but this is not the case. Even though no human being is sinless, a person can still be called righteous (which means that they are essentially a good and decent person, even though they fail and make mistkes sometimes).
The most important thing to understand about chapter 53 is, who is speaking? Verses 52:11b-12 is God, 53:1 is Isaiah, but the bulk of the passage, 53:2-11a is the voice of Gentile rulers and world leaders, who are astonished at what they see about the Jewish people, and eventually realise the gravity of the sins they have committed against Israel over the centuries. Immediately following chapter 53 is, lo and behold, chapter 54, which speaks of the redemption of Israel after what we have suffered.
Here are explanations of the passage, line by line:
53:1 “Who would have believed our report?” Indeed! Who would have believed that, after 2,000 years of exile, the Jewish people could have been returned to our ancestral lands? Also, ‘to whom has the arm of Yahveh been revealed?’ This is a Hebrew idiom, meaning ‘who has been redeemed by Yahveh? (cf Deut 5:15). If Jesus were a god, why and even how would he redeem himself?
53:2 the image of a sapling growing in dry ground is a metaphor for the faith of Israel thriving even in a pagan environment.
53:3 ‘A man of pain and well-acquainted with disease’: Israel’s adversities are often likened to sickness e.g. Isa 1:5-6, Jer 10:19, Jer 30:12
‘And like one who hides his face from us’ – that is, like a leper
53:4 (see also Jer 30:17), the servant Israel is regarded by the nations as an outcast, abandoned by God.
53:5 – ‘he bore wounds because of our transgressions, and was crushed because of our iniquities’ – the nations will realise that Israel’s suffering is a direct result of what the nations have done to Israel over the centuries i.e. rather than because of Israel’s own faults.
53:7 – the image of Israel being like sheep led to the slaughter is found elsewhere: “You give us as sheep to be eaten and have scattered us among the nations… we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered” (Psalms 44:12, 23). The silence does not refer to any absence of protest to our persecutors for our suffering, but rather that Israel does not turn against God or curse God as a result of what we endure at the hands of other nations. Also it is worth pointing out that, throughout the history of the ill-treatment of the Jewish people, we did not do violence to our host nations; and in spite of wicked and oppressive laws enacted against us, we did not terrorise or plot to destroy our host nations.
53:8 – ‘By oppressive judgment he was taken away’ – that is, into exile.
‘And his eventual abode, who would have considered it’ – the place where Israel ends up in exile is too bad to even consider
‘He was cut off from the land of the living’ – see Ezek 37:11-14, where Israel is described as ‘cut off’. Exile is likened to death, and return to Israel is bringing Israel back to the land of the living. The ‘land of the Living’ is therefore the Land of Israel.
‘because of the transgressions of my own people’ – i.e. of a Gentile nation; remember, this is a Gentile ruler/s speaking here),
53:9 – ‘He was assigned his grave among the wicked’ – see Ezek 37:11-14, the grave is the place of Israel’s exile, and the wicked are the wicked among the nations who have taken Israel into exile. This is a metaphorical death; Israel’s exile is a death amongst the nations.
‘and his tomb among the haughty’ – This is an alternative interpretation; if במתיו is emended to מתו, his tomb / place of death (as suggested by the JPS translation). If the words are left as they are, they should be rendered as, ‘and in his deaths among the haughty’. The word ‘deaths’ is plural in the Hebrew.
53:10 – ‘But it was Yahveh’s will to crush him with diseases’ – again, Israel’s suffering is metaphorically likened to disease (see note for 53:3).
‘if he renders himself as a guilt-offering’ – A guilt-offering is always symbolic of how the human soul is brought near to the Divine Radiance – the ‘Glory’ – of God, for purification from the stain and injury of sin. The guilt-offering does not in and of itself bring about forgiveness or atonement. By understanding the expiation process from a purely Yahwist perspective, then if Israel was a ‘guilt-offering’, Israel was pushed towards the fiery radiance of God’s Glory against her will by the sinful actions of other nations; the guilt-offering does not bring about ‘atonement’ (expiation).
‘He shall see his seed (i.e. biological descendants) and live a long life’ – Yeshua` didn’t live a long life, and he had no biological descendants. The Hebrew word for ‘seed’ always implies direct biological descendants; it could not refer to his followers.
53:11 – ‘In spite of his own anguish, he shall see it’ – ‘it’ refers to God’s redemption that is delivered upon Israel.
‘he will cause the many to be righteous’ – not as some Christian bibles translate it, ‘he will justify the many’ (e.g. KJV, NIV, NAS). Israel’s deeds and sufferings will cause many among the nations to turn to God and righteousness, out of shock when they realise what they have been doing to the Jewish people.
‘for it is their punishment that he bears’ – The suffering that should have been the nations, fell on Israel instead; the wrongful actions of the Nations caused Israel to suffer.
Summary and Conclusion
Some people think that innocent people suffer calamities, trouble and strife during their lives because they are being punished for their sins, but this is not the case. Sometimes even the innocent suffer because of what wicked people do to them. For example, the Jewish people suffered terribly during the Antiochian oppression (168-164 BCE) not because of their own sins, but because of the wickedness of Antiochus Epiphanes. The Jewish people suffered in the Holocaust, not because of anything they had done, but because of the wicked and abominable actions of the Nazis and the German people.
This is the point that Isaiah 53 is making. In the end, the Gentile nations who persecuted the Jewish people over the centuries will be redeemed by the Message of YHVH, which is borne to them by the Jewish people (including Yeshua, who was also a Jew).
Overall, this is a prophecy of how the nations will one day realise the full gravity of what they have done to Israel over the centuries, and feel shame and sorrow for the evil they have done to Israel. We were sent to bring a moral way of life to the nations, and thereby be the light of Yahveh to the nations. In ancient times, the nations had serious faults, questionable ethics and violent societies, and when they saw the way of life of Israel, they were enraged and persecuted us. They saw nothing attractive in our way of life – indeed, they saw it as a weakness and despised us. But over time the just and righteous Way of our God startled many peoples, and humbled the kings of many nations to silence. The nations claimed that what we suffered at their hands was our own fault – because of our own sins, but we were suffering because of their sins – because of the cruelty they were inflicting upon us. One day the nations will realise the awful, cruel and terrible things they have done to God’s suffering servant – Israel (cf Micah 7:15-16), and come to us and ask to know our God.