Isaiah 53:5

5. wounded—a bodily wound; not mere mental sorrow; literally, “pierced”; minutely appropriate to Messiah, whose hands, feet, and side were pierced (Ps 22:16). The Margin, wrongly, from a Hebrew root, translates, “tormented.”

for … for—(Ro 4:25; 2 Co 5:21; Heb 9:28; 1 Pe 2:24; 3:18)—the cause for which He suffered not His own, but our sins.

bruised—crushing inward and outward suffering (see on Is 53:10).

chastisement—literally, the correction inflicted by a parent on children for their good (Heb 12:5–8, 10, 11). Not punishment strictly; for this can have place only where there is guilt, which He had not; but He took on Himself the chastisement whereby the peace (reconciliation with our Father; Ro 5:1; Eph 2:14, 15, 17) of the children of God was to be effected (Heb 2:14).

upon him—as a burden; parallel to “hath borne” and “carried.”

stripes—minutely prophetical of His being scourged (Mt 27:26; 1 Pe 2:24).

healed—spiritually (Ps 41:4; Je 8:22).

53:5 was pierced for our transgressions The people realize that the Servant is suffering for their wrongdoing, not being punished for his own sin.

crushed because of our iniquities The Servant suffers on behalf of other people. See note on Isa 53:11.

our peace The Servant brings people into right relationship with God (vv. 11–12) and others. This could also indicate that there is a spiritual component to the Servant’s healing ministry described in v. 4.

his wounds we were healed The Servant is able to heal people—metaphorically and physically—because he is willing to follow the will of Yahweh—even though it results in his suffering.

53:5. Pierced … crushed … punishment … wounds are words that describe what the remnant will note about the Servant’s condition on their behalf and because of their transgressions (peša‘, “rebellion”; cf. v. 8; 1:2) and iniquities. As a result those who believe in Him have inner peace rather than inner anguish or grief (see comments on “infirmities” in 53:4) and are healed spiritually. Ironically His wounds, inflicted by the soldiers’ scourging and which were followed by His death, are the means of healing believers’ spiritual wounds in salvation. Jesus’ physical agony in the Crucifixion was great and intense. But His obedience to the Father was what counted (cf. Phil. 2:8). His death satisfied the wrath of God against sin and allows Him to “overlook” the sins of the nation (and of others who believe) because they have been paid for by the Servant’s substitutionary death.

II. His Redemption (53:4–6)

Why should an innocent man such as Jesus Christ die such a terrible death on the cross? These verses explain why: He was taking the place of sinners and bearing their judgment for them. See 1 Peter 2:24 and 2 Cor. 5:21. Note the price that he paid: (1) wounded, or pierced, referring to His death on the cross, pierced by nails—John 19:37, Zech. 12:10; (2) bruised, which means “crushed” as under a burden, the weight of sin which was laid on Him; (3) chastised, or punished as though He had broken the law, in this case with stripes from the scourging.

But these physical sufferings were nothing compared to the spiritual suffering of the cross, when He bore our transgressions (vv. 5, 8), our rebellious and deliberate breaking of God’s Law; our iniquities (vv. 5–6), the crookedness of our nature; and our griefs and sorrows (v. 4), our calamities and the unhappy results of our sins. We are sinners by birth (“All we like sheep have gone astray”) and by choice (“we have turned every one to his own way”). See Ps. 58:3 and Rom. 5:12ff. Verse 6 begins with the “all” of condemnation, but ends with the “all” of salvation. He died for us all. These verses are the very heart of the Gospel—“Christ died for our sins.”

THE MAN OF SORROWS

ISAIAH 53:3–6

The world in every age has had many a sorrowful man, but there has been only one “Man of Sorrows.” The sorrows of the Son of Man were entirely unique and unparalleled. His was the sorrow of a unique—

I. Humiliation. Many a man, nurtured in the lap of opulence, has, through accident or failure, been reduced to poverty and shame, but no one ever had so much to give up as Christ had when He “emptied Himself, and took upon Him the form of a servant … becoming obedient unto death” (Phil. 2:7, 8, R.V.). He who was rich—how rich!—for our sakes became poor, and, Oh, how poor!

II. Opposition. The contradiction that He suffered at the hands of sinners against Himself was also unique. Although “A Man of Sorrows” He was despised and rejected of men. Handel was found weeping while setting these words to music. The common sympathy bestowed on ordinary, suffering mortals was denied Him. The opposition of Satan to the “Death of the Cross” was another bitter element in the sorrows of the Saviour. Note the temptation in the wilderness. The rebuking of the wind; the same word used when dealing with “unclean spirits.” The rebuking of Peter, and the “get thee behind Me. Satan,” when he said “far be it from Thee, Lord” (referring to His suffering death). Even when He was on the Cross they cried, “Come down,” and we will believe in Thee.

I. THE BURDEN OF SYMPATHY.

The Bleeding Sympathy of the Servant. On the surface of these verses we have a declaration of Christ’s true sympathy. “And Jesus, moved with compassion.” That last word is an exceedingly strong one. “Passion”—that is a word descriptive of the sorest of suffering. “Com”—together, a suffering with another, a sharing of the sorrow because of the most intimate and closest affinity. Two harps, if perfectly tuned together, though at either end of a room, if one be struck the other will respond. We have not a High Priest who is not touched with the feeling of our infirmity. His manhood was, and is, so perfectly attuned to ours, that when we suffer, He suffers with us. A truly sympathetic sick-visitor will, when in the sick room beholding the gasping sufferer, involuntarily have the same sensation, and for the moment feel as if he or she were struggling for breath. Our Lord’s sympathy is a heart sympathy. He not only speaks the consoling word, but shoulders our burdens, getting right undo: our sorrows. True sympathy always means this. Let all Christian workers pray for grace to retain their tender and sympathetic touch, and to be preserved from those dulling and hardening effects of daily routine and constant contact with suffering.

But there is infinitely more suggested here than the sympathetic identification with the sorrows of others: we have

II. THE BURDEN OF SIN.

The Vicarious Suffering of the Servant. That is to say, we have here declared an active bearing of those consequences of sins which He had not committed. It is here we part from much, very much of the preaching and teaching of to-day. So-called “Modernism” sees only in the death of Christ the bleeding sympathy of Jesus with us. We, too, see that—but we go very much further. If words mean anything at all, verses 5 and 6, do clearly and emphatically declare the Saviour’s death as substitutionary.

There is a close connection between verses 3 and 4. They supposed He was suffering on account of some great sin of His own. But they had erred. It was for sin—but not His own actual transgressions. It was our sin imputed unto Him, and in that sense, and only in that way, made His own. This third stanza is an acknowledgment that they had erred.

Of course this is prophecy yet to be fulfilled so far as the Jewish nation is concerned. Even up to the present day they persist in their cruel and erroneous mistake. To-day, the orthodox Jew considers our Lord suffered for His own sins, and He is called Poshe—the Transgressor. “In the Talmud Jesus of Nazareth is placed in hell alongside of Titus and Balaam, and as undergoing not only the severest, but the most degrading form of punishment.” But they will alter their view. May that day be hastened!

A very eminent Jewish authority, himself a converted Jew, known and beloved by me in my own Mildmay days, but now with his Lord in the Glory, on verses 4 to 6, declared that no plainer or stronger words could be used to express the thought of vicarious suffering than those employed in the original of this verse. The verb “to bear,” is continually used in Leviticus of the expiation effected by the appointed sacrifices, as, for instance, Leviticus 16:22. Both the verbs used in Isaiah 53:4, “borne,” “carried,” are to be understood in the sense of an expiatory bearing, and not merely of taking away. “The meaning is not merely that the Servant of God entered into the fellowship of our sufferings, but that He took upon Himself the suffering which we had to bear, and deserved to bear, and bore them in His own person, that He might deliver us from them.