The Sacrificed Servant – Isaiah 53:4-6

One Jewish interpretation of Isaiah 53 is that the suffering servant is Israel and the griefs and sorrows Israel has carried are the griefs and sorrows of the nations.  In fact, their punishment of Israel has actually worked to bring them peace.  Make sense?  Not really!  This makes the speaker in Isaiah 53 the nations, something unprecedented in Scripture, and fails to take seriously the movement of the Servant of Yahweh from the nation as a whole to an individual who brings the nation back to God.  Isaiah is definitely talking about Jesus the Messiah.

Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.  But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.  All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:4-6, ESV)

The servant of Yahweh is not suffering for himself, but for Israel and for us.  We thought he was being punished by God for his own transgressions, but God was punishing him for our transgressions.  By doing so he secured peace for us with God, a healing of our desperate guilt before God.

We are all guilty of turning away from God, of going astray from what He knows is best for us and has commanded for us.  We want our own way and the penalty for this is death.  But Yahweh put the guilt for all our iniquity on the servant.

An Israelite understood the purpose of an animal sacrifice.  You laid your hand on the unblemished animal, transferring your guilt to this creature, and then penalized it with death, what you deserved.  Now Yahweh is providing the real substitute sacrifice, His servant.  An animal cannot really take away my sin, but Yahweh’s servant can.

Discussion Questions

1. Describe your experience(s) of seeing animals sacrificed.
2. What griefs and sorrows of ours do you think Isaiah is speaking about?  Is that made more plain by what follows?
3. Why the words “pierced” and “crushed”?
4. What peace were we lacking that Jesus brought to us?
5. What healing was needed?
6. Have all of us really turned to our own way?