Isaiah 53:11

He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied,.... "The travail of his soul" is the toil and labour he endured, in working out the salvation of his people; his obedience and death,

He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities. Yah eh is still speaking Yahweh is still speaking.

He shall see, he shall receive or enjoy, as this word commonly signifies, of the travail of his soul, the comfortable and blessed fruit of all his hard labours and grievous sufferings, and shall be satisfied; he shall esteem his own and his Father’ s glory, and the salvation of his people, an abundant recompence for all his sufferings. By his knowledge; either, 1. Actively, by that knowledge of God’ s will, and of the way of salvation, which is in him in its highest perfection, and which by him is revealed unto men, and by his Spirit is imprinted in the minds and hearts of his people, so as to produce faith and obedience in them. Or, 2. Passively, by the knowledge of him, as my fear and thy fear are put for the fear of me and of thee, ; knowledge being here, as it is most frequently in Scripture, taken practically, for that kind of knowledge which worketh faith, and love, and obedience to him. So the sense is the same in both cases. My righteous servant; which title is here given to Christ, partly to vindicate him from those false imputations of wickedness which were fastened upon him by his adversaries, and which found the more belief because of his most grievous and unexampled sufferings both from God and men; and partly to show his fitness for this great work of justifying sinners, because he was exactly holy, and harmless, and undefiled, , and fulfilled all righteousness, according to his duty, ; and therefore his person and performance must needs be acceptable to God, and effectual for the justification of his people, which was the great design of his coming into the world. Justify acquit them from the guilt of their sins, and all the dreadful consequences thereof; for justification is here opposed to condemnation, as appears from the following clause, and from many other passages in this chapter, and as it is used in all places of Scripture, one, or two at most, excepted, where it is mentioned. And Christ is said to justify sinners meritoriously, because he purchaseth and procureth it for us; as God the Father is commonly said to do it authoritatively, because he accepted the price paid by Christ for it, and the pronunciation of the sentence of absolution is referred to him in the gospel dispensation. Many; which word is seasonably added, partly by way of restriction, to show that Christ will not justify all, but only such as believe in him and obey him; and partly by way of amplification, to declare that this blessed privilege shall not now be, as hitherto it had in a manner been, confined to Judea, and the Jews, but shall be conferred upon an innumerable company of all the nations of the world.

Isaiah 53:11 He shall see of the travail of his soul, [and] shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.Ver. 11. He shall see of the travail of his soul.] Or, Because his soul laboureth, he shall see (his seed), and be satisfied. A metaphor from a travailing woman. Compare Acts 2:24 John 16:21. And shall be satisfied.] As a parent is in his dear children, or a rich man in the sight of his large farms and incomes. If therefore we would gratify and satisfy Christ, come by troops to the ordinances. By his knowledge,] i.e., By the lively light and impression of faith. Faith comprehendeth in itself these three acts - knowledge in the understanding, assent of the will, and trust of the heart; so that justifying faith is nothing else but a fiducial assent, presupposing knowledge. The Popish doctors settle the seat of faith in the will, as in its adequate subject, that they meanwhile may do what they will with the heart, and with the understanding. To which purpose they exclude all knowledge; and as for confidence in the promises of Christ, they cry it down to the utmost, and everywhere expunge it by their Indices Expurgatorii; for a bare assent, though without wit or sense, is sufficient, say they; and Bellarmine defendeth it, that faith may better be defined by ignorance than by knowledge. Shall my righteous servant.] Jesus Christ, "the just one." "Jehovah our righteousness." Justify many,] i.e., Discharge them from the guilt of all iniquity by his righteousness imputed unto them. This maketh against justification by works. Cardinal Pighius was against it; so before him was Contarenus, another cardinal. And of Stephen Gardiner it is recorded, that he died a Protestant in the point of man’ s justification by the free mercies of God and merits of Christ. For he shall bear their iniquities.] Baiulabit; that, by nailing them to his cross, he may expiate them. Saturabitur salute fidelium quam esurivit. Fuller’ s Church Hist.

(11) He shall see of the travail . . .—Better, On account of the travail of his soul, he shall see, and be refreshed. We may find the truest explanation in the words, “To-day thou shalt be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43). The refreshment after travail, because of the travail, was already present to the sufferer’s consciousness. By his knowledge . . .—The phrase admits of two meanings, objective and subjective: (1) by their knowledge of Him; or (2) by His own knowledge; and each expresses a truth. Men are saved by knowing Christ. To know Him and the Father is eternal life (John 17:3). On the other hand, the Christ Himself makes His knowledge of the Father the ground of His power to impart that knowledge to men, and so to justify and save them (John 17:25). Without that knowledge He could not have led them to know God as He knew. If we dare not say that the prophet distinctly contemplated both meanings, we may rejoice that he was guided to use a phrase which includes both. Isaiah 11:2 and Malachi 2:7 are in favour of (2). For he shall bear.—The conjunction is not necessarily more than and. The importance of the renewal of the assurance given in Isaiah 53:4 lies in its declaring the perpetuity of the atoning work. The sacrifice of the Servant is “for ever” (Hebrews 10:12). He “ever liveth to make intercession for us” (Hebrews 7:25). He taketh away the sin of the world, through the æons of all duration (John 1:29).

Verse 11. Shall be satisfied - "And be satisfied"] The Septuagint, Vulgate, Syriac, and a MS. add the conjunction to the verb, וישבע vaigisba. Shall my righteous servant justify - "Shall my servant justify"] Three MSS., (two of them ancient,) omit the word צדיק tsaddik; it seems to be only an imperfect repetition, by mistake, of the preceding word. It makes a solecism in this place; for according to the constant usage of the Hebrew language, the adjective, in a phrase of this kind, ought to follow the substantive; and צדיק עבדי tsaddik abdi, in Hebrew, would be as absurd as "shall my servant righteous justify," in English. Add to this, that it makes the hemistich too long.

11. An amplification of the meaning of Isa 53:10. He shall see &c.] Lit. Of the travail of his soul he shall see, shall be satisfied. It is doubtful if the preposition “of” can express result, as the E.V. suggests, or can introduce the object of the verb “he shall see.” It may be used in its local sense (“away from,” or “free from”) or causally (“in consequence of”), hardly in a temporal sense (“after”). The asyndetic construction of the two verbs probably indicates that one is to be subordinated to the other: he shall see with satisfaction, sc. the cause of Jehovah prospering in his hand (as Isaiah 53:10). The LXX. deserves attention: “And it pleased the Lord to deliver (a variant reading of the last clause of Isa 53:10) (him) from the trouble of his soul: to cause him to see light” &c. by his knowledge] The gen. is not that of the obj. (“by the knowledge of him”) but of the subj.; the knowledge of God and salvation which he possesses, and which he communicates to others. The reference is to the prophetic activity of the Servant (see Isaiah 42:1 ff., Isaiah 49:2, Isaiah 50:4 f.) which had seemed to be cut short by his death, but will be resumed and crowned with success in his exalted state. shall my righteous servant justify many] Rather: shall a righteous one, my servant, make the many righteous; but the Hebr. is very peculiar. The ordinary sense of the word for “justify” (“declare righteous”) is here unsuitable, and the only other passage where it bears the ethical sense of “making righteous” is probably based on this verse (Daniel 12:3, “they that turn the many to righteousness”). The many contains a reference to Isaiah 52:14 f. The clause would read more smoothly if we could suppose that the word rendered “a righteous one” has arisen through dittography; but the source of the difficulty probably lies deeper. he shall bear their iniquities] Cf. Isaiah 53:4.

He shall see of the travail of his soul - This is the language of Yahweh, who is again introduced as speaking. The sense is, he shall see the fruit, or the result of his sufferings, and shall be satisfied.

10, 11. It pleased the Lord to bruise him — Notwithstanding his innocence.