Sea

I recently studied Isaiah 53 in the context of Deutero-Isaiah as a whole. I think I have an interpretation which is a better match for the chapter's context than either the mainstream Christian or Jewish explanations. Fundamentally, this thread is not intended as an attack on other interpretations but as an invitation to critique the one I'm presenting. Does it have any major flaws?

Mainstream Christian Interpretation

Not much to say here. Christians usually consider Isaiah 53 to be speaking directly and primarily about Jesus. The servant is Jesus. The speakers are all of humanity.

Mainstream Jewish Interpretation

This article by Messiah Truth, a counter-missionary website, is typical of what I found. The servant is the Jews. The speakers are gentiles being healed of "the sickness of anti-Semitism that the nations will experience when they have this enormous revelation about the Jews at the End of Days."

A Hypothesis

Chapters 40-55 are, in general, about the end of the Babylonian exile. Might chapter 53 also be about the end of the Babylonian exile? The servant is the faithful Jews in Israel. The speakers are the unfaithful Jews in Israel. Sickness and death are metaphors for the exile.

The Themes of Deutero-Isaiah

Chapter 40 begins with an announcement that Israel has suffered "double for all her sins" and this punishment is all coming to an end. Imagery of a second Exodus is used here and throughout the text. See Is 52:9-12 right before chapter 53.

King Cyrus is mentioned either explicitly or by description in chapters 41, 44, 45, and 46. He is even called God's messiah (45:1). Cyrus is the man who conquered Babylon and allowed the Jews to rebuild their temple.

Babylon's fall and Babylon's helpless idols are other major themes. Chapters 45 and 46 are the most concentrated sections of this. Babylon is lectured for going too far when punishing the Jews.

God speaks of his "servant" in several passages. In several places this servant is explicitly identified as Israel. For example in 43:10, "You are My witnesses," declares the LORD, and My servant whom I have chosen." There is no question that a singular "servant" can refer to a group of people.

A theme both Christian and Jewish commentators either skip or read apart from historical context is summed up here: "Israel has been saved by the LORD with an everlasting salvation; You will not be put to shame or humiliated to all eternity" (45:17).

The second Exodus motif immediately precedes chapter 53 and the promise Israel will prosper and never again be shamed by foreign nations immediately follows.

First Cause of Confusion

Why so many interpretations of Deutero-Isaiah? Because so much of it was short term prophecy which failed, spectacularly. Anyone familiar with the book of Daniel will see strong similarities. Daniel -- written during the horrible oppression under Antiochus IV -- predicted the restoration of the temple...followed by never ending global rule by the Jews. The first part came true; the latter did not. Conservative Jews and Christians aren't about to admit Daniel contains failed prophecies, so the original meaning of the text is off the table. No surprise a variety of interpretations would follow.

Same for Deutero-Isaiah. This anonymous author predicted a restored (well, rebuilt) temple followed by never ending global rule by the Jews. Cyrus was supposed to be the messiah to bring this about. I suspect the text was written for the political purpose of getting Cyrus to give permission for reconstruction. What ruler wouldn't want to be The Prophesied One in a region he just conquered? But Cyrus did not convert to the Jewish religion (41:25) and the Jews are still waiting for world rule to start.

Skeptics and liberal Jews and Christians are in a better position to understand this text because we can recognize failed prophecy for what it is.

Second Cause of Confusion

Isaiah 53 itself does not explicitly identify the servant or the speakers. God's servant is identified as Israel elsewhere, but in at least one other chapter this does not work:

"And now says the LORD, who formed Me from the womb to be His Servant, to bring Jacob back to Him, so that Israel might be gathered to Him" (49:5).

Even if we drop the Christian pronoun capitalization, it's clear the servant can't be identical to Israel in this case. It wouldn't make sense for Israel to bring Israel back to God. But maybe part of Israel is supposed to bring all of Israel back to God. A faithful minority bringing back the religiously unfaithful and the geographically scattered sons of Israel.

I admit the text does not spell out that this particular distinction is taking place here, but some solution is needed and this is a much smaller adjustment to the established 'servant=Israel' identity than the adjustment Christians make.

The Meaning Of Isaiah 53

Could the servant in chapter 53 be a representation of those Jews who stayed faithful throughout the exile? Could the speakers represent Jews who gave up on their religion before and during the exile and who had been mocking the faithful? Quotes from the NJPS version.

"He was despised, we held him of no account."

The unfaithful Jews looked down on those who still worshiped the God who failed to save Judah from foreign rule and exile.

"Yet it was our sickness that he was bearing, our suffering that he endured. We accounted him plagued, smitted and afflicted by God; But he was wounded because of our sins, crushed because of our iniquities. He bore the chastisement that made us whole, and by his bruises we were healed."

Christians view this as a substitution of punishment; the servant was punished instead of the speakers. What if the servant was punished along with the speakers, but the speakers finally realized they were the ones who deserved it. And now because of the unearned suffering of the righteous Jews, all of Israel is going to be released from exile and the scattered tribes brought home.

"We all went astray like sheep, each going his own way; And the Lord visited upon him the guilt of us all."

Unfaithful Jews admitting their faults and recognizing how the faithful were affected by the consequences of those sins.

"By oppressive judgment he was taken away, who could describe his abode? For he was cut off from the land of the living through the sin of my people, who deserved the punishment."

Being taken away sure sounds like exile. Being cut off from the land of the living would literally be death, but we're taking much of this section to be figurative anyway. Jonah wasn't literally dead when he "cried for help from the depth of Sheol" (Jonah 2:2). And again, while this can be read as suffering in place of the guilty, it can also be an emphasis on the suffering of those Jews who were not guilty even though they were all punished.

"the Lord chose to crush him by disease that, if he made himself an offering for guilt, he might see offspring and have long life."

Faithful Jews are given a reason for their suffering. It hasn't been pointless. By serving as a guilt offering for Israel as a whole, one reward will be offspring. The next chapter compares Israel to a barren woman and cheers her with, "Shout aloud for joy [...] for the children of the wife forlorn shall outnumber those of the espoused." Earlier Judaism seems to be more about an everlasting line of descendants than personal afterlife.

"My righteous servant makes the many righteous, it is their punishment that he bears; Assuredly, I will give him the many as his portion, he shall receive the multitude as his spoil."

The faithful minority is responsible for bringing the straying majority back to God. Just like in Is 49:5.

"For he exposed himself to death and was numbered among the sinners"

Again, a poetic death. Exile from Jerusalem while the temple was in ruins for decades was no small thing for devout Jews. Being "numbered among the sinners" works perfectly for a righteous minority counted along with the sinners who brought on the exile. Interesting how Christians handle this by having Jesus suffer along with (not instead of) two sinners on neighboring crosses.

Support

In The Jewish Study Bible's footnotes for chapter 53, "Alternatively, the speakers may be the Judeans themselves, in which case the servant is either a pious minority (the ideal Israel, in contrast to the mass of Judeans whose faith and behavior miss the mark God set for them) or some individual within the Israelite community."

Peter Kirby's archived thread has a variety of interesting third party quotes, some of which support this hypothesis. See his thread for context on these:

"What is clear is that it has been the servant's ministry which has made possible this great change involving the return of God's people to his city."

"The ancestors have sinned, and the exiles are bearing the consequences." (Not quite the same as I'm suggesting, but close.)

"for Israel in this literature is exactly the humiliated (exiled) people who by the powerful intervention of Yahweh is about to become the exalted (restored) people of Zion. Thus the drama is the drama of Israel and more specifically of Jerusalem, the characteristic subject of this poetry."

"The fact that he chose instead the particle min indicates that he regarded the Servant's ill treatment as the result of the people's sin but not as a substitute for the punishment which they had deserved"

...and more. I highly recommend reading through it.

Conclusion

I consider Isaiah 53 to be entirely about Israel's exile and return, not about any future individual or corporate Jewish suffering. Deutero-Isaiah's unrealized optimism caused later Jews -- including early Christians -- to invent new meaning for failed prophecies. For this reason, skeptics should be careful not to simply pass along modern Jewish explanations which are more concerned with rescuing the text from error than discovering the original intent.

spamandham

Considering that chapter 49 states this explicitly, surely it's the right interpretation.

Listen to me, you islands;
hear this, you distant nations:
Before I was born the LORD called me;
from my birth he has made mention of my name.

He made my mouth like a sharpened sword,
in the shadow of his hand he hid me;
he made me into a polished arrow
and concealed me in his quiver.

He said to me, "You are my servant,
Israel, in whom I will display my splendor."

Keep in mind that there are no chapter breaks in the original text. Those were added much much later. It all flows as a single work. So, I would expect it to be reasonably cohesive, save some possible redactions and interpolations.

manwithdream

If you are willing to consider an unusual alternative explanation of Isaiah 53 by an amateur (me) who thinks the Hebrew is translated wrong, then look at my site on page 93 of my PDF. I think Isaiah 53 is about King Hezekiah.

http://www.messianicmistakes.com/

Kenneth Greifer

spamandham

The Hebrews equivocated the king with the kingdom with the population. Isaiah flows back and forth between these various contexts as if there really were no difference between them....exactly what you would expect from texts written for an egomaniacal king.

manwithdream

Maybe Isaiah 49:5 is about part of Israel bringing back the rest of Israel, even thought it does not say that. Isaiah 19:2 says "I will incite Egypt against Egypt, and they will fight a man against his brother..." Isaiah 16:7 says "Moab will cry for Moab". Maybe these quotes are similar to the idea that Israel will bring back Israel.

Zechariah 12:6 says Jerusalem will be inhabited again in (by) Jerusalem, which also sounds unusual.

Kenneth Greifer

sschlichter

I think what is more relevant than the interpretation of modern Jews and Christians is the interpretation of Jews before Christ.

Sea

If Daniel was written during the reign of Antiochus IV and predicted a messianic age immediately following the cleansing of the temple, then Jews a hundred years before Jesus would already have a motivation for misinterpreting the text.

Same goes for Deutero-Isaiah. If it predicted a messianic age immediately following the return from captivity, any later Jew trying to save the text from being wrong would have to misinterpret it. Even "later Jews" long before the time of Jesus.

A big part of my point in the OP is that Jewish interpretation has its own bias, prior to any attempt to thwart Christian views. I realize passages in Daniel and Deutero-Isaiah were understood by some BCE Jews to predict a future messiah. For example, the "one like a son of man" in Daniel 7 represents the saints of Israel who were to be given dominion after the fall of Antiochus. When this prophecy failed, it was reinterpreted to refer to some future event so it could still be "true."