Is Isaiah 53 about Jesus? (Kipp Davis)

Most modern scholars are convinced that the “Suffering Servant” in this poem—extending from Isa 52:13–53:12—is the same figure as in Isa 41:8, 44:1–2, 21 and 45:4: the “Servant” is explicitly identified as “Israel.” These “songs” are written sometime shortly after the Persian conquest of Babylon, and reflect on the displaced remnant of Judah that has been in exile for decades: these people are the “Servant,” who was abused and punished for the sins of all of “Israel,” and whose suffering will provide the way for restoration. Importantly, while this reading fits well with the full contents of Isaiah 52–53, there is still room here to see the “Servant” also as an individual. A better translation than what is provided from v. 4 is this: “yet our sicknesses he lifted up, and our pains he carried. But we thought he was stricken, beaten by God and humiliated.” There is a lot of loaded language in the attached translation (from the NLT) that is just not there in the text: there is nothing about sorrows, nor punishment for sin. The same problems persist in v. 5, which I translate as this: “But he was wounded because of our transgressions; crushed because of our crimes; the chastisement of our well-being was on him and by his bruise we were healed.” So, the first word could be translated “pierced,” but this is far from certain. The difference depends on the vocalisation of the word, and even there, the difference is so subtle as to be inconsequential. The problem with “pierced” is that it brings to mind the picture of nails in Jesus’s hands, but this is not spelled out here—“wounding” is pretty generic, non-specific, and descriptive of any manner of impalement.

But, even more problematically here for seeing Jesus in this passage is the glaringly obvious setting as something that has already taken place: the description is not one of expectation, but of what has already happened. The Servant HAS ALREADY lifted up sickness and carried pain; he HAS ALREADY been beaten up and humiliated by God; he HAS ALREADY been wounded, crushed, disciplined and bruised. If this was written just after the Exile, then why on earth should we accept this as predictive of anything about Jesus?