The Suffering Servant
How could pain, rejection, and defeat possibly be the method to heal the world?
The study notes for this passage are still being written. The passage itself is below — read it now, and the notes will be here when you return.
Isaiah 52:1-53:12
Read the whole passage before anything else. Everything below exists to help you understand what you just read.
1Awake, awake! Put on your strength, Zion. Put on your beautiful garments, Jerusalem, the holy city, for from now on the uncircumcised and the unclean will no more come into you.
2Shake yourself from the dust! Arise, sit up, Jerusalem! Release yourself from the bonds of your neck, captive daughter of Zion!
3For the LORD says, “You were sold for nothing; and you will be redeemed without money.”
4For the Lord GOD says: “My people went down at the first into Egypt to live there; and the Assyrian has oppressed them without cause.
5“Now therefore, what do I do here,” says the LORD, “seeing that my people are taken away for nothing? Those who rule over them mock,” says the LORD, “and my name is blasphemed continually all day long.
6Therefore my people shall know my name. Therefore they shall know in that day that I am he who speaks. Behold, it is I.”
7How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news, who proclaims salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns!”
8Your watchmen lift up their voice. Together they sing; for they shall see eye to eye when the LORD returns to Zion.
9Break out into joy! Sing together, you waste places of Jerusalem; for the LORD has comforted his people. He has redeemed Jerusalem.
10The LORD has made his holy arm bare in the eyes of all the nations. All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.
11Depart! Depart! Go out from there! Touch no unclean thing! Go out from among her! Cleanse yourselves, you who carry the LORD’s vessels.
12For you shall not go out in haste, neither shall you go by flight; for the LORD will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rear guard.
13Behold, my servant will deal wisely. He will be exalted and lifted up, and will be very high.
14Just as many were astonished at you— his appearance was marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men—
15so he will cleanse many nations. Kings will shut their mouths at him; for they will see that which had not been told them, and they will understand that which they had not heard.
1Who has believed our message? To whom has the LORD’s arm been revealed?
2For 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.
3He 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.
4Surely he has borne our sickness and carried our suffering; yet we considered him plagued, struck by God, and afflicted.
5But 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.
6All we like sheep have gone astray. Everyone has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
7He 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.
8He 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?
9They 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.
10Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him. He has caused him to suffer. When you make his soul an offering for sin, he will see his offspring. He will prolong his days and the LORD’s pleasure will prosper in his hand.
11After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light and be satisfied. My righteous servant will justify many by the knowledge of himself; and he will bear their iniquities.
12Therefore I will give him a portion with the great. He will divide the plunder with the strong, 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.