Isaiah 53
This inquiry originated
when one of its authors wondered why the earliest Christians used Isaiah 53 for
apologetic purposes. They would have understood easily the inapplicability of
Isaiah’s image to Jesus, at least as it is understood today. So perhaps they
understood the Isaiah 53 or, not yet bound by dogma, the life of Jesus (or
both) very differently from the common modern interpretation.
Careful reading of
Isaiah 53 on our part at first produced various interpretations, but all of
them left certain words unexplained. Our final rendering, however, which we
share here, we believe is logically coherent, historically plausible, and
impeccable in conveying the Hebrew grammar.
The Isaiah 53’s author,
a mainstream Jew, relates the life story of a certain person who quickly rose
to prominence on rumors that he was the Messiah. Instead of uniting the nation,
however, he soon fell into the common sin of starting a sect of one’s own
outside normative Judaism and disseminating this teaching. God—who, in the
Isaiah author’s view, favored Judean unity and thus desired orthodoxy and
opposed sects and sectarianism—suppressed him. The people also rejected that
person’s odd teaching, and he was executed for violating the law, a consequence
of the fact that his interpretation of the law and theirs were different.
Disapproving of him overall, but also respecting some aspects of his
personality and career, the author of Isaiah 53 suggests that had the man
repented of his delusions, he would have become and remained an important
figure in Jewish society.
The process by which the
Isaiah 53, which describes current events, was taken by later generations as
prophecy, is reminiscent of another famous piece of Isaiah, his prophecy of the
savior Emmanu El to be born to King Ahaz, which prediction did not come true,
and so was taken by posterity as referring to events to come in a distant
future.
Ancient authors spoke to
their contemporaries about current events, hardly expecting an audience
distanced by millennia. Many details are omitted, therefore, simply because the
intended audience knew them well. Those details are often impossible for us to
reconstruct.
This article separates
the translation and the interpretation—things, which are often lumped together
as “translation.” The translation presented here is word-for-word, with the aim
of precisely transmitting the original meaning, even at the expense of good
English style.
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53 1a |
Who believed what was heard among us?[1]
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:1b |
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:2a |
And he rose up[3]
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2b |
*suckling, youth |
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2c |
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2d |
not
a vividness in him, |
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2e |
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2f |
and we would see him[vi] |
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2g |
and
not a sight[vii] |
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2h |
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:3a |
Despised[7]
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3b |
*everyone; cut from men |
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3c |
a man of suffering[8], |
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3d |
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3f |
*lit., faces[xiii];
**turning faces from him |
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3g |
despised |
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3h |
and
disregarded. |
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:4a |
||
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4b |
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4c |
but we regarded him |
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4d |
tormented*[xviii] |
*experiencing divine retribution |
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4e |
stricken
by the Lord |
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4f |
and
pressed upon[xix]* |
*one who is shuttered, or received a rejoinder |
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:5a |
But he is made trembling[xx]*
because of our crimes, |
*emptied out[xxi] |
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5b |
dejected
because of our sinful deviations[xxii]*; |
*iniquities |
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5c |
Conscience* of our world**
on him, |
*blame; **our circle[xxiii],
being, well-being |
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5d |
And
in his community[xxiv]
is our relief. |
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:6a |
*lit., sheep and goats; **staggered |
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6b |
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6c |
and God attached[xxvii]
to[xxviii]*
him sinful deviation** of us all[15]. |
*lit., caused to touch into; **iniquity |
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:7a |
*pressed hard |
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7b |
and
he is shuttered*, |
*pressed upon, received a rejoinder[17] |
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7c |
and will not open mouth;* |
*, |
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7d |
*kid[xxxi] |
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7e |
and
as a sheep is dumb[xxxii]
before its shearers, |
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7f |
and will not open his mouth[19]. |
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:8a |
From[xxxiii]
pressure*[xxxiv]
and from trial he was taken[20]; |
*confinement[xxxv]
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8b |
*clan |
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8c |
since he was sheared[23]
from land of [the] living? |
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8d |
Because
of the crime of my nation, |
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8e |
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:9a |
And he[xxxvii]
gave[xxxviii]
[the][xxxix]
wicked[25]*
his tomb, |
* (plural) |
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9b |
and[xl]
[the] rich[xli]*—his**
high burials[xlii]***,[xliii] |
*sing. or plural; **rich man’s or
his own; ***altars[xliv] |
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9c |
although not a violence[26]
he did, |
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9d |
and
not a deceit was in his mouth. |
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:10a |
And God, willing his dejection[27],
made him ill: |
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10b |
*put aside his guilt |
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10c |
he
will see descendants, |
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10d |
prolong
days, |
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10e |
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:11a |
*slyness[xlvii] |
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11b |
he
will see[34], be
satiated, |
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11c |
by his knowledge, the righteous one[xlviii]
will justify my slave[xlix]
before [the] nobles*[l], |
*multitude[li],
great |
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11d |
and their sinful deviations* he
will withstand[35]**. |
*iniquities; **lit., carry[lii] |
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:12a |
Because of this, I will allot[liii]
him [place*] among nobles;** |
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12b |
*numerous[lviii];
**gain[lix]; ***captives will destroy the
strong |
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12c |
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12d |
and
among criminals[37]
had been reckoned.” |
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12e |
But punishment from* [the] nobles**
he has borne*** |
*offense[lxii]
of; **multitude, great***; lifted, shared, declared,
forgave; |
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12f |
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The reviewers of this
translation often criticized us for disregarding the earlier translations and
the opinions of authorities. But what modern science or scholarship values all
ancient opinions—especially above the facts? The Hebrew text is there for
everyone to read. There are almost no variant readings in the manuscripts—and,
in fact, a known Qumranic variant in במת׀ (his altars)
only demonstrates that the scribes attempted to resolve the puzzle even back
then.
Our approach is actually
in conformity with the earlier rabbinical views, who generally believed that
the opinion of a later teacher should prevail over that of an earlier one. The
developed religions, Judaism and Christianity alike, closed the
interpretational window, choosing to accept unquestionably opinions of the old
authorities instead of meeting the challenges of modern interpretations.
Moreover, we have little
idea of how all the ancients interpreted the Bible. Talmud preserves only
Pharisaic views. Sadducees were likely close to our interpretation, taking
Isaiah 53 for historical narration of events in the author’s lifetime, not a
prophecy. But once the concept of the Isaiah 53 as prophecy was fixed, even
freethinking commentators until very recently had little leeway, if they wanted
to stay in their religious community.
The common interpretation
is a house of cards. Let any piece of contrary evidence sink in, and the
interpretation is destroyed. If “the arm of God” has negative connotation when
applied to the man, then the author did not approve of some of his activity. If
he did not forgive the sins, but shared them, especially the sectarianism, he
is hardly a messenger of God. If we refuse to twist
במת׀ beyond recognition, then the man left altars to the rich, not was buried with them. And so on with almost
every word for which we have offered a different translation.
Unless a word remained
in the modern usage, its sense is often unknown and has to be reconstructed
from the Tanakhic and Talmudic entries. When only a handful of such entries
exist for rare words, the meaning often cannot be readily established from the
context. There is no need, however, to resort to conjectures, and the
translators should exercise no license in interpreting particularly the verbs.
With the known root meaning and the sense of each verb form, the verbs are always
comprehensible.
But is not it true that
Hebrew verbs sometimes deviate from the grammatically correct meaning? Although
this may be so, this is an exception which has to be justified by the
established usage of the word—something lacking in the case of rare words, in
the first place. Even though the ancient author might have an unusual meaning
in mind, we have no way to know or prove it. A priori, grammatically standard meanings have to be used in
translation, at least if they fit the context, whether we like it or not.
We had to make
assumptions as to impossible and implausible. Every interpretation advanced
previously is possible in a sense. It is often possible to suppose an unusual
meaning, or a grammatical error, or just to stretch semantics a bit or more
than a bit. In a language so economical as Hebrew, small variations in
interpreting the pronoun suffixes, tenses and prepositions can lead to major
changes of the meaning. Therefore, almost every meaning desired by any party
can be substantiated by adjusting the translation.
Then how do we know that our
translation is better? Because it does not require any grammatical twisting,
but explains every word, form, or affix in its standard meaning, without
resorting to plenty of highly nonstandard interpretations of the grammatically
perfect text as the other translations do. In any field of humanistic sciences,
scholars prefer that explanation which requires fewer assumptions. Ours
requires none. Or, put another way, our translation relies on statistically
more probable meanings of the words and grammatical forms, those encountered
more often in Tanakh. This translation is better in the sense of being more
probable. There is only one benchmark other than probability: compliance with
preconceived views, disguised as historical or contextual analysis.
Appendix.
On the context.
Several reviewers voiced an opinion
that our interpretation does not fit into the texture of those books of Isaiah
that basically deal with the return from exile. Apparently, their view is
incompatible with the common view of Isaiah 53 as a prophecy of the future
messiah, and would lead to seeing Cyrus in every servant or savior reference,
which is not the case with references to the servant in Isaiah 42:2–3, 49:3–4.
Rather, we conclude that several
references to the enigmatic man were interpolated into Isaiah’s text so that,
while superficially preserving textual continuity, they are actually out of the
context and speak of a different subject. They appear in random order both
before and after Isaiah 53. Significantly, those before Isaiah 53 tend to refer
to the man in the future tense, describing his glorious prospects, while the
later ones bitterly complain of his rejection. These references were embedded
into Isaiah in such a way as to be visible only to readers who know what they are looking for. In this
sense, our interpretation fits the context—not that of the main chapters, but
of the numerous small interpolations.
The interpolations are stylistically
different from the surrounding hymns and lamentations, and often employ a much
later grammar, unusually careful, with the correct tenses, standard meanings of
prepositions, and the like,—with a peculiar tint of rare and archaic but still
grammatically impeccable—words, often modeled upon Job. In fact, no other
chapter in Tanakh has such density of ambiguous and rare words—still another
reason to read them in the grammatically correct manner, based on the root
meaning; any other reading is pure speculation. Since the language of Job is
very ancient, the Isaiah could have meant to affect archaic language. The
inserts employ the words whose superficial meaning is well related to the
context, but if we look more closely, only a different meaning fits the
context, such as “shalom” with the sense of dead silence, or
מנחה, a resting place—not a military tent, but a tomb,
or the grammatical form is actually different, משחת—not
marred, but anointment.
In its extremely careful wording,
the author of Isaiah 53 creates parallels between words used in different
contexts. He extensively employs synonyms; curiously, he also favors words of
related meaning with common two-letter root cells, such as
נגע (disaster) and נגש
(to bend), חלה (illness) and מחלל
(to shock), גזז (shearer) and גזר (to cut). He is fond of the causative form, describing action upon the man.
Another feature specific to these inserts is many pronouns of 1p and non-divine
3ms; unusually for Hebrew, pronouns and pronoun forms of other words are
employed without specifying the subject. The reader, who was expected to know
the subject, should have been a peculiarly informed reader, since the text
contains no inferences. Possibly, authors of the minor inserts were different
from the Isaiah of Isaiah 53, since his cautious endorsement of the man
contrasts with their all-out adherence, and his pity for the people who
rejected the man contrasts with the other authors’ hatred. His singular my slave gave way to the community of my slaves in chapter 65. The 53 author
identified himself with the sinful nation, while the later interpolators,
sectarians, referred to them.
The puzzling question is who could
have introduced these inserts. These people must have had exclusive access to
the scrolls in order to introduce the changes in every manuscript copied and to
make sure no alternative versions are left by denouncing them as heretical.
Considering their overall piety towards the texts, into which they introduced
only small pieces, they were not some fringe sectarians. Overall, they
seemingly controlled the temple or, at any rate, the major script shop, if
there was one. This is not easily reconciled with the fact that their revered
figure was executed, and they were seemingly reviled. We do not know much about
the ancient Jewish sects, but from the little we know, the Teacher of
Righteousness of the Essenes seems a good candidate, if we allow that some time
passed between his execution or exile, and the expulsion of the Essenes from
the Temple, where they seemingly had held a major role previously. While this is supposed to be an
anachronism, it is not impossible, given the absence of pre-second-century BCE scrolls of Isaiah. This is a pure
conjecture, since there are other figures more or less fitting this pattern,
starting from Akhenaton onward, and including Isaiah himself.
Let us have a look at the several
most probable inserts, and conjecture possible meanings for them.
Isaiah 52:13–15, describing the servant after the previous verses dealt coherently with the return from exile, contains specific parallels to Isaiah 53:
Isaiah 52:13: Lo, my
servant will contemplate, and will rise, and be exalted a lot.
Cf. 53:2, He rose up like a shoot.
53:11, filled by knowledge
Isaiah 52:14: Just as
nobles (many) were astonished at you, so you are showing[lxiv]
<and astonishing> him[lxv]
the anointment[lxvi] from man;
yet his vividness is of the sons of man
A superficial reader would see, yes, mutilated is his appearance among men,
and his vividness among sons of men, recalling 53:2, but we longed for him;
not vividness in him, no appearance, and 53:3, despised by men
Isaiah 52:15: So he will
sprinkle[lxvii]
great nations, on him their rulers will shut their mouths, because what [whom]
was not told them they saw, and what [whom] they did not hear they contemplated[lxviii].
Isaiah 53:11, and their
deviations he will withstand. 53:12, I will
allot him part among nobles; he will allot booty to strong . . . .
The verses of chapter 52
combine past and future tenses, indicating narration of current events: some
have already passed, and the author expected others soon. Avoiding this
explanation, commentators often resort to an artificial device which they call
the “prophetic perfect”: supposedly a prophet employs past tense along with the
future to transmit to readers the succession of future events.
The Isaiah of Isaiah 53
attempted to imitate the style of the last verses of Isaiah 52 in order to
create a sense of textual continuity for the interpolation. The same person
might write both pieces, but certainly with a large time gap. He assimilated
many words and concepts from chapter 52, notably vividness and appearance,
was told and heard, among men and knowledge.
Isaiah 52:13–15 relate
messianic prophecy about that man. It did not come true. Therefore, Isaiah 53
was written to explain the apparent fallacy of the prophet; 53:1–9 thus
constitutes a discourse about the man, and 53:10 starts the return from the
deviation of 53:1–9 to the details of 52:13–15. The style is abruptly changed
at 53:10 as the content changes to transmitting God’s promise, proving that the
unfulfillment of the man’s mission was his fault, and, had he behaved
differently, the prophecy would have been realized.
It may be speculated that Isaiah 52
describes a certain person of uncharacteristic ugliness who was expected at the
time to lead Jews from exile to victory. After he was unsuccessful, Isaiah 53
was written in the attempt to explain the reason for his failure. What that
reason was is unclear, but it seemingly had to do with people not believing the
man who had offered a peculiar doctrine. An ugly hero was plausible even in
beauty-minded Greek culture, cf. Socrates.
Isaiah 11:10: And it
will happen on that day, that a root
of Jesse… unto him will the nations seek, and his resting place shall be
glorious
The prophets
traditionally expected the messiah to smite and rob foreigners; the one whom
the foreigners willingly seek is not a military leader but a teacher or wise
king. In the time of Isaiah, Davidic descent was not a metaphor, but still
embodied in a king. Supposing it as a reference to the slave of Isaiah 53, who
was transgressing, mutilated, and despised, there is no royal candidate besides
Zedekiah. The confinement (perhaps, siege) and trial are thus Persian. The
hopes associated with the slave related to Zedekiah’s rebellion against Babylon.
Persians being wicked and rich, the altars could be high burials of Zedekiah
and his family. His חברה, which brings relief in 53:5,
may be the orthodoxy he professed before deviating into pagan worship.
This explanation is so
obviously forced that we should free the data by reading the Davidic descent as
unrelated to actual kingship. This, however, would date the text well after the
exile, when no certain royal heirs to David survived.
While the resting place may refer to the royal tent in a military camp, such reading is at odds with the rest of the chapter, where the hero smites virtually every known nation, and therefore there are no foreigners left to seek him. Rather, the verse seems to be introduced in the empty space of the scroll<