By His Wounds We Are Healed
The servant grows up unremarkable, with no beauty to attract anyone, and is avoided and despised. The turn comes when the speakers admit they had it backwards: what they read as punishment on him was their own guilt, laid on him by our Father.
53 1Who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of our Father been revealed? a a v1 The "arm" of our Father is a picture of his saving strength put into action. 2For he grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no stately form or majesty to make us look at him, no beauty to attract us to him. b b v2 Isaiah's Suffering Servant is Jesus — the New Testament applies this entire chapter to him: 1 Peter 2:21-25, Acts 8:32-35, Matthew 8:17, Romans 4:25. 3He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and like one from whom people hide their faces, he was despised, and we thought nothing of him.
4Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we considered him stricken, struck down by our Father, and afflicted. 5But he was pierced for our rebellion; he was crushed for our sins; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. c c v5 He was wounded in our place — taking the punishment our sins deserved so that we could be made whole. Peter says it plainly: "by his wounds you have been healed" (1 Peter 2:24), pointing to Jesus. 6We all, like sheep, have gone astray; we have turned, each one, to his own way; and our Father has laid on him the sin of us all.
7He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; like a lamb led to the slaughter, and like a sheep silent before its shearers, so he did not open his mouth. 8By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and who among his generation gave any thought to this—that he was cut off from the land of the living, struck down for the rebellion of my people? 9They assigned him a grave with the wicked, and with a rich man in his death, though he had done no violence, and no deceit was in his mouth.
10Yet it was our Father's will to crush him and to make him suffer; when he makes his life an offering for guilt, he will see his offspring, he will live long, and the will of our Father will prosper through him. d d v10 The Father's will to crush the Son was love — giving him as the offering that brings his children home. John 3:16. 11After the anguish of his soul he will see the light and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant—Jesus—will make many righteous, and he will bear their sins. e e v11 1 Peter 2:21-25; Acts 8:32-35. 12Therefore I will give him a portion among the many, and he will divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his life to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and he intercedes for the transgressors.
