Biblion Bible Commentary
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Despised and Rejected by Men
Isaiah 53:1-6
1 Who has believed our message? To whom has Yahweh’s arm been revealed? · WEB
A man nobody looked at twice, and the verse at the center that says whose sin it was and who put it on him.
Who has believed our message? To whom has Yahweh's arm been revealed? Isaiah 53:1.
The song's speakers are a we who did not understand at the time and are now saying so. The whole chapter is a confession made in hindsight, and John quotes this verse for the unbelief that met Jesus John 12:38.
The arm of Yahweh has been the book's image for overwhelming power Isaiah 52:10. It is now attached to what follows.
For he grew up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground. He has no good looks or majesty. When we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him Isaiah 53:2.
A shoot out of dry ground is something nobody expects to survive and nobody notices. And the assessment is aesthetic: there was nothing to look at. He did not draw people.
He was despised and rejected by men, a man of suffering and acquainted with disease. He was despised as one from whom men hide their face; and we didn't respect him Isaiah 53:3.
Despised twice, and the specific behavior named is looking away — the reflex in front of someone whose condition is uncomfortable to see.
Surely he has borne our sickness and carried our suffering; yet we considered him plagued, struck by God, and afflicted Isaiah 53:4.
The first surely in the chapter, and it marks the correction of an error. What they had concluded was the standard inference of the age and of Job's friends: a man in that condition is being punished. They were right that he was struck by God and wrong about whose account it was on.
Matthew quotes the first half of the verse of the healings at Capernaum Matthew 8:17.
But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought our peace was on him; and by his wounds we are healed Isaiah 53:5.
Four clauses, and each pairs something done to him with something belonging to us. Pierced and crushed are both violent and both fatal; the preposition running through the verse is the one that means because of and on behalf of.
And the last clause reverses the direction of the whole chapter. His wounds, our healing — the transfer is stated as an accomplished exchange rather than an arrangement.
All we like sheep have gone astray. Everyone has turned to his own way; and Yahweh has laid on him the iniquity of us all Isaiah 53:6.
The center of the song and the sentence its whole shape exists to hold. It opens with all we and closes with us all, so that the confession encloses him on both sides.
The middle clause is the definition of the straying and it is not dramatic. Not rebellion or atrocity — everyone has turned to his own way, which is what sheep do and what nobody thinks twice about.
And the last clause names the agent. The iniquity did not drift onto him and he did not take it up unbidden. Yahweh has laid it there.
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