Hi @colewd and @Faizal_Ali,
I agree that at first blush, the Servant of Isaiah 53 (which you cited above) sounds a lot like Jesus. However, it would be a good idea to have a look at what Jews have to say about this passage of Scripture.
The best online Jewish response I’ve seen is by Rabbi Tovia Singer, in his article, Who is God’s Suffering Servant? The Rabbinic Interpretation of Isaiah 53. For a detailed verse-by-verse commentary, I’d refer you to the article, Isaiah 53: The Suffering Servant by Marshall Roth.
A. Who is the Suffering Servant?
Rabbi Singer makes the following points:
(1) The passage is the fourth of the Servant songs in Isaiah. In the first three songs, the Servant is clearly identified as Israel (see Isaiah 41:8-9, 44:1, 45:4, 48:20 and 49:3). Common sense would dictate that Israel would be the logical choice for the identity of the Servant in Isaiah 53. Moreover, according to rabbinical commentators, it is especially the faithful members of Israel, who willingly suffer for Heaven’s sake and walk in the footsteps of Abraham, who are identified in the Tanach as God’s servant (see Isaiah 41:8, 43:10).
(2) Contrary to the claims of Christian polemicists, Jewish rabbis have interpreted the Suffering Servant as the Jewish people (or the nation of Israel) for the past 2,000 years. Back in the 3rd century A.D., Origen acknowledged as much when he wrote that the Jews in his time believed that Isaiah 53 “bore reference to the whole [Jewish] people, regarded as one individual, and as being in a state of dispersion and suffering, in order that many proselytes might be gained, on account of the dispersion of the Jews among numerous heathen nations." (Contra Celsum, Chadwick, Henry; Cambridge Press, book 1, chapter 55, page 50.) The Talmud (Berakhot 5a) and the Midrash Rabba on Numbers 23 bear out this interpretation.
(3) The New English Bible, Oxford Study Edition, also identifies the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53 with the people of Israel. Here is its note on Isaiah 52:13-53:12:
The “fourth Servant Song, the Suffering Servant, Israel, the servant of God, has suffered as a humiliated individual. However, the servant endured without complaint because it was vicarious suffering (suffering for others). 52:13-15: Nations and kings will be surprised to see the servant exalted. 53:1: The crowds, pagan nations, among whom the servant (Israel) lived, speak here (through verse 9), saying that the significance of Israel’s humiliation and exaltation is hard to believe (page 788-789).
See also the Revised Standard Bible, Oxford Study Edition, page 889.
(4) The passage actually begins at Isaiah 52:13, not Isaiah 53:1. That’s important. It begins by describing the reaction of kings, upon beholding the Servant, whose “appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any human being and his form marred beyond human likeness.” We are told that “kings will shut their mouths” [in amazement] “because of him.” These kings are of course Gentile kings. Chapter 53 continues with the kings’ astonished report at the Servant’s vindication: he has been “lifted up and highly exalted.” When he grew up among them, the Servant “had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him… he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.” Isaiah 53:8 concludes with their stunning confession, “for the transgressions of my people [the gentile nations] they [the Jews] were stricken.” Singer comments: “The fact that the servant is spoken of in the third person, plural לָמוֹ (lamo) illustrates beyond doubt that the servant is a nation rather than a single individual.”
(5) There is one ancient Jewish source which appears at first sight to support a messianic interpretation of Isaiah 53. Christian missionaries are apt to misleadingly quote the second-century Targum Yonatan ben Uziel on Isaiah 52:13, which identifies God’s servant as the messiah, the foremost member of God’s Suffering Servant, Israel. But they selectively omit the commentary on the following verse (52:14), which identifies Israel as the long-suffering and humiliated servant. Again, in its commentary on Isaiah 53:10, on the words of Isaiah, “He is crushed and made ill,” the Targum identifies the suffering servant as the nation of Israel who suffers unbearable chastisement. Singer explains:
In rabbinic thought, all of God’s faithful, gentiles included (Zechariah 13:8-9), endure suffering on behalf of God (Isaiah 40:2; Zechariah 1:15). Thus, Jewish leaders of the past, such as Moses12 and Jeremiah,13) Rabbi Akiva,14 as well as future eschatological figures, such as the messiah ben Joseph and the messiah ben David, are held up in rabbinic literature as individuals who exemplify the “servant” who willingly suffers on behalf of Heaven… When Isaiah speaks of the suffering remnant of Israel, the messianic king is, therefore, included.
However, Singer contends that the primary meaning of the passage refers to the suffering of the nation of Israel. He adds:
Bear in mind that the rabbinic commentary on Isaiah 53 is not dualistic or multilateral. Meaning, the sages of old did not suggest that Isaiah 53 refers to either the righteous remnant of Israel, Moses, Jeremiah, or an anointed leader. Rather, the servant in all four Servant Songs are the faithful descendants of Abraham.
B. A Common Christian Objection
Marshall Roth, in his article, Isaiah 53: The Suffering Servant, answers a common Christian objection based on Isaiah 53:5: “He was wounded as a result of our transgressions, and crushed as a result of our iniquities. The chastisement upon him was for our benefit; and through his wounds we were healed.” The objection runs: if the Servant is Israel, then why is he said to suffer for “our” sins, and not “his” sins? Roth offers the following response:
This verse describes how the humbled world leaders confess that Jewish suffering occurred as a direct result of “our iniquities” – i.e., depraved Jew-hatred, rather than, as previously claimed, the stubborn blindness of the Jews.
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 – not the opposite as Christians contend – that the Servant suffered to atone for the sins of others.
Bart Ehrman, in his online article, Does Isaiah 53 Predict Jesus’ Suffering and Death?, has another take on the passage:
The book of Second Isaiah itself indicates who the Servant of the Lord is. It is Israel, God’s people. In Isaiah 53, when the author describes the servant’s past sufferings, he is talking about the sufferings they have experienced by being destroyed by the Babylonians. This is a suffering that has come about because of sins. But the suffering will be vindicated, because God will now restore Israel and bring them back to the land and enter into a new relationship with them.
It may be fairly objected that the Servant is said to suffer for “our” sins, not “his” sins. Scholars have resolved that problem in a number of ways. It may be that the author is thinking that the portion of the people taken into exile have suffered for the sins of those in the land – some of them suffering for the sins of all. Those who have been taken into captivity have suffered displacement, loss, and exile for the sake of everyone else. But now the servant – Israel – will be exalted and restored to a close relationship with God – and be used by him to bring about justice throughout the earth.
Another frequently mistranslated verse is Isaiah 53:9, which the NIV translates as follows:
He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.
Christians interpret this verse as referring to Jesus, who was crucified with criminals, even though He had done nothing wrong, and who was buried by the wealthy Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus. Strictly speaking, though, Jesus was not buried with the wicked, as the verse suggests.
However, the Jewish translation of this verse cited by Roth in his article is quite different:
He submitted his grave to evil people; and the wealthy submitted to his executions, for committing no crime, and with no deceit in his mouth.
Roth, in his article, interprets this to mean that loyal Jews, throughout history, have “submitted to the grave” – i.e. chosen to die - rather than accept a pagan deity as their God. For this reason, these Jews were often denied proper burial, discarded “to the grave as evil people.” Additionally, wealthy Jews “submitted to his executions, for committing no crime” – killed so that wicked conquerors could confiscate their riches. Is Roth right? I don’t know. But his interpretation merits consideration.
C. Why Jesus is an awkward fit for the Suffering Servant, in certain respects
In their book, Jews and “Jewish Christianity”: A Jewish Response to the Missionary Challenge (Jews for Judaism, 2002), authors David Berger and Michael Wyschogrod offer the following comments on Isaiah 53:
So far, we have been arguing that any Messianic interpretation of Isaiah 53 is improbable. It’s time to note that a specifically Christian reading is even more difficult. First of all, whatever the complex relationship between the “Father” and the “Son” might be, is it really reasonable for God to call himself his own servant? If not for this chapter in Isaiah, would a believer in the trinity even consider the use of such an inappropriate term? Secondly, a straightforward reading of “see his seed and live a long life” doesn’t fit either the first coming or the second, since no Christian expects Jesus to have [biological, physical] children, and “long life” does not normally mean “eternal life.” A forced, nonliteral understanding of “seed” and “long life” becomes the only way out. Thirdly, the Hebrew phrase ish makh’ovot vidua‘ holi (“a man of pains, and familiar with illness”) refers to a man of constant, long-lasting afflictions and cannot refer to anguish, however intense, which lasted but a few hours, or even days. Finally, the lack of any explicit reference to a resurrection makes a Christological reading all the more difficult. In other words, even though parts of the crucifixion story may well have been written with Isaiah 53 in mind, there remains a residue of material in that chapter that cannot be squared with Jesus’ career or with the later belief that he was divine. Isaiah’s “suffering servant” is the Jewish people, and it is a terrible irony that their sufferings through the ages were made even more intense because of the belief that they are the villains, rather than the victims, in Isaiah 53.
D. Final Considerations
Isaiah 53 is hardly a convincing prophecy of Jesus, for the following reasons:
(1) It nowhere names Jesus, or the time and place in which he lived and died (April, 30 or 33 A.D., Palestine).
(2) It nowhere refers to Jesus’ crucifixion. Christian Bibles often translate Isaiah 53:5 as “He was pierced for our transgressions,” but the Jewish translation is vaguer: it uses the word “wounded,” rather than “pierced.”
(3) It nowhere refers to a Messiah.
(4) There is no clear reference to Jesus’ resurrection. The verse, “he will see his offspring;
and he will prolong his days” is not a reference to a resurrection, whatever else it might mean.
I have tried to present the Jewish case against Isaiah 53 being a prophecy about Jesus, not because I think the Jews are right and the Christians are wrong, but because I think Christians are utterly mistaken if they suppose that Isaiah 53 is a slam-dunk, open-and-shut case of a prophecy about Jesus’ passion and resurrection. It is far from that.
I’ll let the last word go to Dr. William Lane Craig. He writes that the early Christian disciples “wanted to show that Jesus’ resurrection was in some sense a fulfillment of Scripture, and, since the Old Testament has almost nothing to say about the resurrection, they had to apply novel interpretations to passages that weren’t really about the resurrection.”
He adds: “Now if that sort of hermeneutic strikes you as dishonest, understand that for an ancient Jewish exegete discerning such deeper meanings in the Scriptures was normal procedure and would be seen as a strength of one’s view. Giving a novel interpretation to familiar passages was seen as providing additional insight into Scripture.”
Fair enough. And maybe in the first century A.D., that would have been seen as a perfectly valid form of exegesis. But my point is that it would never convince a seeker after truth in the 21st century. For that reason, I think that Christian apologists do themselves no favors when they trot out Isaiah 53 as if it were a proof-text. It isn’t.