Isaiah 53

A reader has contributed this rendering of Isaiah 53 for consideration. By comparing a wide selection of translations, especially with the Septuagint, this version has been produced, worthy of quiet meditation. The italics at the beginning and the end mark direct utterances of the LORD: Yahweh. Attention is drawn to repeated allusions to the Servant's being offered by the Lord, as in a priestly role (vv. 6,10,12).

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'See My Servant's coming, wisdom and consequent prosperity, his coming exaltation and honour and supremacy. Just as many shall be astonished by the extremity of his disfigurement - to less than human form - so shall He (astonish and) cleanse many nations. Kings shall be dumbfounded at him, seeing and hearing things they never heard tell of.'

Who has believed what we have heard? And to whom has the Arm of Yahweh been revealed? When He sprouted as a 'runner' before him, (unregarded) like a shoot springing from dry soil: when we saw him, He had no beauty to attract us, no charm to make us choose him. He was despised and shunned by men, a man of sorrows and pains, familiar with grief and sickness; (He hid his face from us) we turned our faces from Him, He was not appreciated. He certainly carried our sickness, (grief and distress) and bore our pains (and sorrows). Yet we (ignorantly) considered him smitten by God, punished by disease and misery but he was pierced for our transgressions, in agony for our iniquities, punished for our good; by the weals of his scourging we were made well. On him YAHWEH laid the punishment of us all—all of whom have strayed like sheep, each has turned to his own path. The price was stated and He responded (He was bullied yet He humbled himself) and kept his mouth shut: as a sheep led to slaughter, as a lamb dumb before its shearers, so He opened not his mouth. In his humiliation He suffered injustice. Who can describe the wickedness of His generation? He was stricken for the transgression of my people, He was cut off from the land of the living. And I will give the wicked for his burial and the rich for his death, because He did no violence nor was deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the will of YAHWEH to bruise him, He has made him sick. When You make his soul a guilt offering He shall see His offspring, He shall prolong his days and the pleasure of YAHWEH shall prosper in His hand. He shall see (the result of) the travail of his soul and be satisfied with the knowledge. My righteous Servant shall make many righteous, bearing their guilt. Therefore He shall inherit many, divide the spoils of the mighty, because his soul was delivered to death, He was reckoned among the lawless, bore the sins of many and was handed over because of their iniquities.