Isaiah 53

[græy]

Hi friends,

I was trying to prepare some notes for upcoming meetings and came across Isaiah 53 (3-5 are the famous versus).

3 He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
4 Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

Knowing of the whole Deutero-Isaiah deal-y-o, I started to wonder what the secular understanding of those particular versus is. But I'm not finding a lot.

Christians all assume it is directly describing Christ.

Non-Christian/Seculars all seem to just leave it alone.

Jews bounce back and forth believing it is either speaking about Isreal as a whole (but that interpretation has problems, for instance the singular "He" used throughout), or that is is describing an as-yet unknown messiah who definitely wasn't or willn't be Jesus. Some even say it was Isaiah himself, King Cyrus, Hezekiah, Josiah, etc. A very few believe it to be referring to Yeshua (Jesus).

What say you? Any additional insight or material you've come across?

[dogbite]

The question is more about when the embodied individual saving messiah doctrine arose. Technically all jewish kings were annointed ones as part of the coronation I think.

[Hagoth]

I go with the interpretation that the Man of Sorrows is symbolic of the Israelite peoples' repentant state before Yahweh.

A similar confusion comes with Zachariah 13:6

The King James version says:

And one shall say unto him, What are these wounds in thine hands? Then he shall answer, Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.

But look how more recent translations render it:

New International Version
If someone asks, 'What are these wounds on your body?'

New Living Translation
And if someone asks, 'Then what about those wounds on your chest?'

English Standard Version
And if one asks him, ‘What are these wounds on your back?’

Berean Study Bible
If someone asks him, ‘What are these wounds on your chest?’

New American Standard Bible
"And one will say to him, 'What are these wounds between your arms?'

Christian Standard Bible
If someone asks him: What are these wounds on your chest?

Contemporary English Version
And if any of them are asked why they are wounded

Good News Translation
Then if someone asks him, 'What are those wounds on your chest?'

Holman Christian Standard Bible
If someone asks him: What are these wounds on your chest?

NET Bible
Then someone will ask him, 'What are these wounds on your chest?'

New Heart English Bible
One will say to him, 'What are these wounds between your hands?' T

GOD'S WORD® Translation
"When someone asks him, 'What are these scars on your chest?'

JPS Tanakh 1917
And one shall say unto him: 'What are these wounds between thy hands?' T

New American Standard 1977
“And one will say to him, ‘What are these wounds between your arms?’

American Standard Version
And one shall say unto him, What are these wounds between thine arms?

English Revised Version
And one shall say unto him, What are these wounds between thine arms?

World English Bible
One will say to him, 'What are these wounds between your arms?'

This is obviously a mistranslation in the KJV that Christians took and ran with. Fortunately we have restoration scripture to set us straight in those places where the Bible is not translated correctly (AoF 8).

And this is further clarified in D&C 45:

51 And then shall the Jews look upon me and say: What are these wounds in thine hands and in thy feet?

52 Then shall they know that I am the Lord; for I will say unto them: These wounds are the wounds with which I was wounded in the house of my friends. I am he who was lifted up. I am Jesus that was crucified. I am the Son of God.

Oops!

[græy]

I go with the interpretation that the Man of Sorrows is symbolic of the Israelite peoples' repentant state before Yahweh.

A similar confusion comes with Zachariah 13:6

The King James version says:

And one shall say unto him, What are these wounds in thine hands? Then he shall answer, Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.

But look how more recent translations render it:

New International Version
If someone asks, 'What are these wounds on your body?'

This is obviously a mistranslation in the KJV that Christians took and ran with. Fortunately we have restoration scripture to set us straight in those places where the Bible is not translated correctly (AoF 8).

And this is further clarified in D&C 45:

51 And then shall the Jews look upon me and say: What are these wounds in thine hands and in thy feet?

Oops!

Good points Hagoth.

It seems Dr. Charles Harrell in This is My Doctrine had a couple of paragraphs devoted to the Song of the Sorrowing Servant. He basically sums it up by saying most scholars note the past tense phrasing and interpret the whole thing as pointing to an individual such as Isaiah or Josiah, who had already suffered by that point.

[Hagoth]

Good points Hagoth.

It seems Dr. Charles Harrell in This is My Doctrine had a couple of paragraphs devoted to the Song of the Sorrowing Servant. He basically sums it up by saying most scholars note the past tense phrasing and interpret the whole thing as pointing to an individual such as Isaiah or Josiah, who had already suffered by that point.
[/quote]
Good points yourself, graey. I kind of slipped off in a different direction there (that's what I do, it seems). I think one thing we can all be pretty certain about is that it's not talking about Jesus. None of it.

[Arcturus]

Unless this is referring to Christ’s final days on earth, isn’t it inconsistent with the new testament verse that he “grew in favor with God and men?” Also, his triumphal entry into Jerusalem his first time going there in his ministry - seems to have been a popular guy throughout his life.

I was taught in seminary that Jesus was “despised” and an outcast his entire life. But a new testament class at BYU showed the different angle...