Biblion Bible Commentary
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He Poured Out His Soul to Death
Isaiah 53:7-12
7 He was oppressed, yet when he was afflicted he didn’t open his mouth. As a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and as a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he didn’t open his mouth. · WEB
A silent defendant, a grave assigned twice over, and a sentence that says the whole thing pleased God.
He was oppressed, yet when he was afflicted he didn't open his mouth. As a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and as a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he didn't open his mouth Isaiah 53:7.
The silence is stated twice in one verse. And the two animal images are not the same: a lamb going to slaughter does not know, but a sheep being sheared is not in danger and submits to being handled. Both are quiet, and only one has a reason.
This is the passage the Ethiopian was reading in his chariot, and the question he asked — who is the prophet talking about? — is answered by Philip preaching Jesus Acts 8:32–35.
He was taken away by oppression and judgment. As for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living and stricken for the disobedience of my people? Isaiah 53:8.
A judicial process is named, and nobody present drew the right conclusion from it.
They made his grave with the wicked, and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth Isaiah 53:9.
Two burials in one verse, and they do not go together. Executed criminals were thrown into a common pit; this one was assigned that grave and buried in a rich man's Matthew 27:57–60. And the reason given is his innocence, stated in both departments — nothing done and nothing said.
Yet it pleased Yahweh to bruise him. He has caused him to suffer Isaiah 53:10.
The hardest sentence in Scripture, and it should not be softened. The word is the ordinary one for taking pleasure in something, and it is used of the Father with respect to the crushing of the Son.
What is being said is not that the suffering was enjoyed. The clause that follows supplies the sense: when you make his soul an offering for sin, he will see his offspring. The pleasure is in what the offering accomplishes, and the verse names the transaction — a guilt offering, which in the law was the sacrifice brought when restitution was owed and could not be paid.
After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light and be satisfied Isaiah 53:11.
The verb see is the pivot of the second half. He sees offspring, prolongs days, sees light, and is satisfied — all of it after being cut off out of the land of the living. Whatever this passage describes, it does not end at the grave, and nothing in it explains how.
My righteous servant will justify many by the knowledge of himself; and he will bear their iniquities.
Therefore I will give him a portion with the great... because he poured out his soul to death and was counted with the transgressors; yet he bore the sins of many and made intercession for the transgressors Isaiah 53:12.
The last verse gives the reason for the exaltation announced before the song began, and it is four things: he poured himself out, he was numbered with criminals — which Jesus quotes of himself on the last night Luke 22:37 — he carried the sin, and he prayed for the guilty. The final act named is intercession, and it is for the people who put him there.
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