Isaiah 53:1

Who hath believed our report?.... Or "hearing" (a). Not what we hear, but others hear from us; the doctrine of the Gospel, which is a report of the love, grace, and mercy of God in Christ; of Christ

Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed?

ISAIAH CHAPTER 53 The incredulity of the Jews: the death of Christ, and the blessed effects thereof, ; his exaltation and glory, . Who hath believed our report? the prophet having in the three last verses of the former chapter made a general report concerning the great and wonderful humiliation and exaltation of Christ, of which he intended more largely to discourse in this chapter, before he descended to particulars he thought fit to use this preface. Who, not only of the Gentiles, but even of the Jews, will believe the truth-of what I have said and must say? Few or none. The generality of them will never receive nor believe in such a Messias as this. Thus this place is expounded by Christ himself, , and by Paul, . And this premonition was highly necessary, both to caution the Jews that they should not stumble at this stone, and to instruct the Gentiles that they should not be surprised, nor scandalized, nor seduced with their example. The arm of the Lord; either, 1. The word of God, called the report in the former clause; the doctrine of the gospel, which is expressly called the power of God, , because of that admirable virtue and success which accompanied the preaching of it. Or, 2. The Messiah, who also is called the arm or power of God, ; and that most fitly, because the almighty power of God was both seated in him, and declared and exercised by him in his powerful words and mighty deeds, as Simon for some great works wrought by him was called by the Samaritans the power of God, . Revealed; not outwardly, for so Christ was revealed and preached to vast numbers, both of Jews and Gentiles, as is evident from this context, arid from divers other places of Scripture; but inwardly and with power to their minds and hearts, of which kind of revelation see , and compare it with . Thus even Moses, though sufficiently revealed to the eyes and ears of the Jews, yet is said to be unrevealed or hid from their minds and hearts, ,15. The sense of the place is, few or none of the Jews will believe the gospel, or receive their Messiah when he comes among them.

Isaiah 53:1 Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed?Ver. 1. Who hath believed our retort?] q.d., The Gentiles, some of them, even of their potentates, have believed our report concerning the Messiah: but, Lord, how few Jews will give credit to what we have said? Albeit this chapter may not unfitly be called "The Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Isaiah"; and things are here set down so plainly that Augustine thinks they need no exposition; yet those buzzards, the later Rabbis, cannot, or rather will not, see that the prophet speaketh here all along concerning Christ; but do strangely writhe, wring, and wrest his words to a wrong sense, applying them, some to Moses, some to Ezra, some to Joshua, the son of Josadak, &c. John Isaac, indeed, the Jew, confesseth of himself, as hath been said before, that by pondering upon this chapter he was converted to the Christian religion. The like we read of some few others in Andreas Bayna and Cornelius a Lapide. But the Jews themselves will tell you, falsely and maliciously, that such pretended proselytes are not of them, but poor Christians hired by us to impersonate their part. Such a thick veil is still before their eyes, such a hard hoof upon their hearts, till God pleases, by his own holy arm made bare, to remove it. "They could not" - that is, they would not - "believe." "They have not all" - nay, scarce any in comparison - "obeyed the gospel," but blasphemously call it Avengelaion, a volume of vanity, scorning to be saved by a crucified God, although by mighty miracles wrought among them he showed himself to be the Son of God, and an arm to save all who believe in his name. And to whom is the arm of the Lord?] i.e., His gospel, which is his power to salvation, and is hid only to them that perish. Lib. i. De Consens. Evang., cap. 31.

LIII.(1) Who hath believed our report? . . .—The question has been variously interpreted as coming from the lips of the prophet or of Israel. The former view commends itself most, and the unusual plural is explained by his mentally associating with himself the other prophets, probably his own disciples, who were delivering the same message. The implied answer to the question may be either “None,” or, “Not all.” St. Paul (Romans 10:16) adopts the latter.

CHAPTER LIII This chapter foretells the sufferings of the Messiah, the end for which he was to die, and the advantages resulting to mankind from that illustrious event. It begins with a complaint of the infidelity of the Jews, 1; the offence they took at his mean and humble appearance, 2; and the contempt with which they treated him, 3. The prophet then shows that the Messiah was to suffer for sins not his own; but that our iniquities were laid on him, and the punishment of them exacted of him, which is the meritorious cause of our obtaining pardon and salvation, 4-6. He shows the meekness and placid submission with which he suffered a violent and unjust death, with the circumstances of his dying with the wicked, and being buried with the great, 7-9; and that, in consequence of his atonement, death, resurrection, and intercession, he should procure pardon and salvation to the multitudes, insure increasing prosperity to his Church, and ultimately triumph over all his foes, 10, 11. This chapter contains a beautiful summary of the most peculiar and distinguishing doctrines of Christianity. NOTES ON CHAP. LIII That this chapter speaks of none but JESUS must be evident to every unprejudiced reader who has ever heard the history of his sufferings and death. The Jews have endeavoured to apply it to their sufferings in captivity; but, alas for their cause! they can make nothing out in this way. Allowing that it belongs to our blessed Lord, (and the best men and the best scholars agree in this,) then who can read Isaiah 53:4-6; Isaiah 53:8; Isaiah 53:10, without being convinced that his death was a vicarious sacrifice for the sins of mankind? On the first and second verses of this chapter I have received the following remarks from an unknown hand. "Verse 1. Who hath believed our report?] The report of the prophets, of John the Baptist, and Christ's own report of himself. The Jews did not receive the report, and for this reason he was not manifested to them as the promised Messiah. 'He came unto his own, but his own received him not.' Before the FATHER he grew up as a tender plant: but to the JEWS he was as a root out of a dry ground. 'He hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.' "Verse 2. For he shall grow up] Supposes something to have preceded; as it might be asked, what or who shall 'grow up before him,' c. As the translation now stands, no correct answer can be given to this question. The translation then is wrong, the connexion broken, and the sense obscured. זרוע zeroa, translated the arm, from the root zara. 1. To sow, or plant also seed, c. 2. The limb which reaches from the shoulder to the hand, called the arm or more properly beginning at the shoulder and ending at the elbow. The translator has given the wrong sense of the word.

ch. Isaiah 53:1-9. Having thus indicated the subject of his discourse, the prophet now proceeds to describe the career of the Servant, and the impression he had made on his contemporaries. This is prefaced in Isaiah 53:1 by a confession or complaint of the universal unbelief which had led to his being so grievously misunderstood. The speakers in this section are certainly not the heathen mentioned in Isaiah 52:15, but either all Israel or one Israelite in the name of all. The “nations” and “kings” are surprised by the Servant’s exaltation because they had not previously heard of it; those who now speak confess a deeper fault, they have heard but did not believe. It is generally assumed that there is a change of speaker in Isaiah 53:7-9, where the use of the 1st pers. plu. is discontinued, and where (Isaiah 53:8) we come across the expression “my people.” This assumption is to be avoided if possible, because Isaiah 53:7 ff. continue the narrative of the Servant’s sufferings, and it is unnatural to think that the story begun by one speaker should be completed by another unless there were some clear indication that this is the case. There appears to be no difficulty in the supposition that the prophet himself speaks throughout; although in Isaiah 53:2-6 he associates himself with his generation, the contemporaries of the Servant. There must be some reason for his thus merging his individual consciousness in that of the community; and the obvious reason is that in depicting the Servant as he appeared to men, he writes as a spectator along with others, and realises his solidarity with his nation. In Isaiah 53:7-9 the description simply becomes less subjective; the emphasis lies less on what men thought of the Servant, and more on what he was and endured; and when the prophet again has occasion to refer to Israel it is natural that he should do so as “my people.”—Another thing to be noted is that the language is consistently retrospective. Historic tenses are employed throughout, the speaker looks back on the completed tragedy of the Servant’s career, and on the people’s former thoughts of him as things that belong to the past. On the other hand, the exaltation of the Servant is always spoken of (both in Isaiah 52:13-15, and in Isaiah 53:10-12) as something still future. The standpoint assumed here seems therefore to be intermediate between the death of the Servant and his exaltation; and the great moral change which is described as taking place in the mind of the people is not the result of the revelation of his glory, but is brought about by reflection on his unparalleled sufferings, and his patient demeanour under them, preparing the people to believe the prophecies which had hitherto seemed incredible.

Who hath believed our report? - The main design of the prophet in all this portion of his prophecy is, undoubtedly, to state the fact that the Redeemer would be greatly exalted (see Isaiah 52:13; Isaiah 53:12).

1. Who — Who among this class of Israel. The question denotes a prophetic anticipation of a renewed lapse on the part of the Jews from a full faith in the true Messiah when he comes; and the “who” refers to this.