5.04. Chapter 3 - The Modern Jewish and Rationalistic Christian Interpretation of Isaiah 53

Chapter 3 The Modern Jewish and Rationalistic Christian Interpretation of Isaiah 53:1-12 On examining the different non-Messianic and controversial interpretations of this great prophecy, given by Jewish and unbelieving Christian Rabbis, it is an important fact to be borne in mind, as Pusey points out, that next to nothing turns upon renderings of the Hebrew. “The objections raised by Jewish controversialists (and I may add by the non-Messianic Christian interpreters) in only four, or at most five, words turn on the language.” It is not then a question of knowledge of Hebrew Grammar, or Philology; and ordinary intelligent English readers, with the Authorized or Revised Version of the Scriptures in their hands, are well able to judge of the merits of the different interpretations which are advanced.

“The characteristics in which all agree are, that there would be a prevailing unbelief as to the subject of the prophecy, lowly beginnings, among circumstances outwardly unfavourable, but before God, and protected by Him; sorrows, injustice, contempt, death, which were the portion of the sufferer; that he was accounted a transgressor, yet that his sufferings were, in some way, vicarious, and the just for the unjust; his meek silence; his willing acceptance of his death; his being with the rich in his death; his soul being (in some way) an offering for sin, and God’s acceptance of it; his prolonged life; his making many righteous; his continued intercession for transgressors; the greatness of his exaltation, in proportion to the depth of his humiliation; the submission of kings to him; his abiding reign.”^{1 1} Pusey in his Introduction to The Jewish Interpreters of Isaiah 53:1-12.

Now these characteristics stand out in all literal translations (as distinguished from mere paraphrases) whether made by Jews or Christians, in the east or in the west. “The question,” as the writer whom I have just quoted observes, “is not, ‘What is the picture?’—in this all are agreed—but ‘Whose image or likeness does it bear?’”

It is not necessary for us to examine those Jewish interpretations which apply this chapter to Jeremiah, Isaiah himself, Hezekiah, Josiah, or Job, etc., for they have been sufficiently refuted by Jewish writers themselves, but I may quote Hengstenberg’s observation in reference to those Christian writers who have followed in the same lines.

“Among the interpretations which refer the prophecy to a single individual other than the Messiah,” he says, “scarcely any one has found another defender than its own author. They are of importance only in so far as they show that the prophecy does most decidedly make the impression that its subject is a real person, not a personification; and further, that it could not be any means be an exegetical interest which induced rationalism to reject the interpretation which referred to Christ.” The most generally accepted modern Jewish interpretation of this prophecy is that which makes it apply to the Jewish nation. The first mention we have of this explanation is by Origen,² who, in his work against Celsus, says, “I remember once having used these prophecies in disquisition with those called wise among the Jews, whereon the Jews said that these things were prophesied of the whole people as one which was both dispersed abroad and smitten.” But this may then have been the opinion of that particular Rabbi, or the counter-explanation may have been advanced by him (as has been done by later Rabbis and Jewish commentators) as a device, “in order to answer heretics” who were pressing them with the remarkable resemblance between the prophecy and its fulfillment in Jesus of Nazareth.

² Born, 185 or 186 A.D.; died 253. The first of the authoritative Jewish commentators who applied this chapter to the Jewish nation was Rashi, and since his time it has become more and more that “generally received” interpretation among the Jews. And that unbelieving Israel should have departed from the ancient interpretation which applied this prophecy to the Messiah is really not to be wondered at, for first the idea of a suffering expiatory Messiah became more and more repugnant to Rabbinic Judaism, which lost the knowledge of sin and the consciousness of the need of salvation, such as alone could make the doctrine of a vicariously suffering Redeemer acceptable. “Not knowing the holiness of God, and being ignorant of the true import of the Law,” as Hengstenberg observes, “they imagine that in their own strength they can be justified before God. What they longed for was only an outward deliverance from their misery and oppressors, not an inward deliverance from sin. For this reason the Synagogue occupied itself exclusively with those Scriptures which announce a Messiah in glory, which passages also it misinterpreted.”

Secondly, lacking or rejecting the key to the true understanding of this prophecy, namely, its fulfillment in Jesus of Nazareth, Jewish commentators were encountered by great difficulties and inexplicabilities in their attempts to expound it. This picture of a Messiah, which represented Him as passing through the deepest humiliation and suffering, and pouring out His soul unto death, appeared to them irreconcilable with those prophecies which speak of the Messiah as coming in power and glory.

And, thirdly, this explanation was not only “too flattering to the national feeling not to be extensively adopted,”³ as Pusey observes, but it has really something plausible from their point of view as its basis. Is not Israel called Ebhed Yehovah—the Servant of Jehovah—in this very Book of Isaiah? And has not Israel among the nations suffered humiliations, and wrongs, and tortures, and massacres, such as have been the lot or experience of no other people? In this connection it is an interesting fact that the explanation of this chapter, which made the Jewish nation to be the innocent sufferer for the guilt of the other nations, originated in what has been described as “the iron age of Judaism.” Its author, Rashi, at an earlier period of his life—when he wrote his Commentary on the Talmud—actually followed the older interpretation, which applied Isaiah 53 to the Messiah, but he very probably wrote his Commentary on the Bible (in which the new interpretation is first introduced) after the second Crusade, when the hideous massacres of Jews in Spire, Worms, Mainz, Cologne, by the wild profligate swarm which gathered, after the first Crusaders were gone, might well have occasioned it. “Before the time of the first Crusade, the Jews in Germany” (says the Jewish historian and apologist Graetz, who counts as oppression any disparity of condition between them and any people among whom they sojourned) “were neither in a condition of oppression nor contempt, nor were shut out from holding property. In what has been called ‘the iron age of Judaism,’ there was too much occasion for representing them (as far as man was concerned) as guiltless sufferers.”

³ “Every truly Christian reader feels humbled as he reads this portion of Scripture, because he sees in it a description of his Saviour, and the cost of his redemption; almost every Jew is likely to feel lifted up, because he sees in it a description of the value of Israel to the nations of the world, and of his own sufferings as a means of peace and prosperity to Gentiles. There is thus a fundamental difference in the two interpretations of the chapter, answering to the fundamental difference that there is between Judaism and Christianity—the one a religion which magnifies human efforts, the other one which makes humiliation of soul necessary to true exaltation.”—Canon A. Lukyn Williams in Christian Evidence for Jewish People. To give Christian readers a good idea of what this modern Jewish interpretation involves and how consistently it is carried through, I reproduce the exposition of Manasseh-ben-Israel,⁴ which is an embodiment of practically all that Jewish controversialists and rationalistic Christian writers who have followed on the same lines, have to say on this subject. He calls his Commentary the Reconciliation, or an answer to the question, “If this chapter is to be interpreted of the people of Israel, how came Isaiah to say that it bore the sin of many, whereas every one, according to the testimony of Eze_18:20, pays only for his own guilt?” and proceeds:

⁴ Born about 1604; died 1657; Rabbi at Amsterdam; advocate before Cromwell and his Parliament for the readmission of Jews into England.

RECONCILIATION

“The subject of this question demands long argument, and for our verses to be perfectly understood it will be necessary to explain the whole of the chapter, which we shall do with all possible brevity, without starting any objections which may be made against other expositions, as our intention is solely to show what our own opinion is. Accordingly, for greater clearness I shall set down the literal text with a paraphrase of my own, and then illustrate it by notes.

“Isaiah prophesies: (1) The extreme prosperity of Israel at the time of the Messiah. (2) The wonder of all the nations at seeing the rise from such a low state to grandeur. (3) How they will perceive their mistake, acknowledging themselves to be the sinners and Israel to be innocent. (4) What they will think of their various sects. (5) The patience of the people in suffering the troubles of the captivity; and the reward they will receive for their suffering.

Of his “Commentary” I am only able, for lack of space, to reproduce his notes on those verses which speak particularly of the vicariousness of the sufferings of Jehovah’s righteous servant. He says, on Isa_52:13 :

‘Servant’ was one of the many titles of honour with which the blessed God honoured Israel (Isa_41:8; Jer_30:10; Eze_37:25; Psa_136:22). And as the prophet in this chapter praises the fidelity with which Israel, as loyal servants, were ever in the service of the blessed Lord, suffering innumerable persecutions in this captivity, he therefore applies this title to them here. Whence it appears that the sole subject of this prophecy is the people of Israel; and that is the true meaning of it; and the certainty of this is further proved by its connection with the preceding chapter, where the prophet says, ‘Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion,’ etc. (Isa_52:1-15); and then he continues (Isa_52:13), ‘Behold my servant shall prosper, or understand, etc.’

“The prophet addresses himself to the people, and shows that in the same manner as the nations of the world wondered at their low estate and fortunes, even going so far as to change them with being disfigured, having a form unsuitable to man, and unlike other mortals, so at that period will they wonder at their prosperity and elevated state; for, seeing the sudden change in the fortune of Israel, rising from such extreme meanness to such extensive empire, all the kings of the earth will wonder and discourse on the subject. And he gives the reason of this, namely, because what had never been told them of any nation they see in the people of Israel, whose grandeur none ever equaled, and what they had never heard from their false teachers, they now understand. Or יקפצו, yiqp‘tsu, signifies they will shut their mouth, speaking with great respect and modesty of that people which they had shortly before known as captives, subject to the will of their tyrannous power (Mic_7:15-16).” On Isa_53:4-7 he puts the following words into the mouth of the Gentile nations: “We unbelievers more justly merited the troubles and calamities which this innocent people suffered in their captivity. But we were so blind that we considered him to be wounded, smitten, and afflicted by God, and not through ourselves, and that all this came on them for keeping themselves apart from the truth, and not joining with us in our religion.

“But it was quite the contrary, for our wickedness alone was the cause of his troubles; did they not arise from any hatred God bore them. The punishment (מוסר, musar) or discipline of our peace, was upon him, for, as grief always accompanies pleasure, the chastisement of this happiness appears to have fallen on him. Or it may also mean, when in the enjoyment of peace adversaries were wanting, we immediately turned our arms against this people, and what we established for the discipline and good government of our states all redounded in measures against him, decrees of death, banishment, and confiscation of property, as experience daily shows. or otherwise, the doctrine (מוסר, musar) taught by our preachers was that our tranquility depended upon our being irritated against him, and ultimately we should find health in wounding him.

“But all we like sheep went astray, etc. That is, they will not only acknowledge the ill-treatment and bodily inflictions they had made Israel suffer, but at the same time their errors, attributing their wickedness thereto; for many will say, We all (Ishmaelites and Idumeans) like sheep went astray, each in his own way following a new sect, just as the prophet Jeremiah says (Jer_16:19). And the Lord made to fall on him the wickedness of us all. That is, we erred; they followed the truth; consequently they suffered the punishments which we deserved.

“We deprived them of their property as tribute, and afflicted their bodies with various kinds of torture, yet he opened not his mouth, etc. The experience of this is seen every day, particularly in the cruelties of the Inquisition, and the false testimony raised against them to take their wool and rob them of their property. And it is exactly this that the Psalmist says, ‘Thou hast given us, O Lord, like sheep appointed for meat’ (Psa_44:11); and further on, ‘For thy sake are we killed every day; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter’ (Psa_44:22), suffering daily with the greatest patience these acts of tyranny and fearful calamities.” On Isa_53:9 he says: “The nations continue, We have frequently condemned this people to death, and buried them with malefactors, and with the rich, במתיו, in their various deaths, though it is certain that, in order to take away their property, we raised against them innumerable false testimonies, and martyred them, without them having committed any crime or our having any charge against them, except of having accumulated weather, although he had committed no חמס, robbery, and there was no deceit in his mouth, that is, allowing themselves to be robbed of the property they had not robbed, and to be killed for the sanctification of the Lord, and refusing to acknowledge with their mouth any other religion.

“From Isa_53:10 onward the prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, and relates the reason why these troubles were suffered, and the reward to be hoped from them. And, firstly, he says that the will and determination of the Lord has been to crush them and to make them sick by so many different calamities, that, being purified by these means, they may become worthy of such great felicity. If he offer his soul as an expiation, אשם, surrendering it for the sake of the Law; or, if he give himself up and acknowledge himself guilty, becoming repentant, as Joseph’s brethren, who said, ‘But we are guilty’ (Gen_42:21), he shall see seed, that is, they shall multiply infinitely (Eze_36:37; Zec_10:10; Deu_30:5). He shall prolong days. The same prophet confirms this where he says, ‘As the days of the tree,’ that is, the tree of life, ‘are the days of my people’ (Isa_65:22); and Zechariah, ‘And every man with his staff in his hand from multitude of days’ (Zec_8:4). Lastly, and the will of the Lord, which is to oppress him and make him sick with punishments for his greater glory, shall prosper in his hand, for the purpose and end to which they are directed will be attained. Or, the will of the Lord, which is that all should be saved and come to the holy knowledge of himself, will prosper through his hand and means and take effect.

“By his knowledge my righteous servant shall justify many. This is, Israel, who is termed ‘a righteous people and holy nation,’ justifies many by his knowledge and wisdom, bringing them with brotherly love over to the true religion, and separating them from their vain sects; and this at the very time that he bears their iniquities, patiently suffering the tyranny of their wickedness. Or it may otherwise means, At that time my servant Israel will justify and make many nations meritorious (Mic_4:2; Zec_8:23).

“And he shall bear their iniquities. For, being a most religious and holy people, he will take charge of the spiritual administration of the observance of the Law as Moses says to Aaron, ‘Thou and thy sons with thee shall bear the iniquity of the sanctuary’ (Num_18:1).

“Because he poured out his soul unto death, etc. The prophet here attributes four merits to them, for which they justly deserve the reward of that happiness; and again in the form of a compendium he recapitulates the contents of the chapter, (1) Because he delivered himself up to death, allowing himself to be killed for the sanctification of the Lord’s name and the observance of His most holy Law. (2) Because he was reckoned among the wicked, patiently enduring to be called a heretic. (3) For having borne the sin of many, the wickedness and tyranny of others falling on his shoulders. (4) Lastly, in having observed the precept of Jeremiah, ‘Seek the welfare of the city whither I have caused you to be carried captive’ (Jer_29:7); and this, too, so carefully that in all their prayers they pray for the health of the prince, and the peace of the kingdom or province wherein they reside; and, what is more, it may be even for the welfare of those from whom they are receiving insult and wrong, which is highly meritorious, and a convincing proof of the constancy and patience with which they receive from the Lord’s hand the yoke of captivity and sufferings of its misfortunes.”

This, then, is the modern Jewish view of this prophecy. “Among Christians,” to quote the words of a great German Bible student, “the interpretation has taken nearly the same course as among the Jews. Similar causes have produced similar effects in both cases. By both, the true explanation was relinquished, when the prevailing tendencies had become opposed to its results. And if we descend to particulars, we shall find a great resemblance even between the modes of interpretation proposed buy both. Even a priori, we could not but suppose otherwise than that the Christian Church, as long as she possessed Christ, found Him here also, where He is so clearly and distinctly set before our eyes—that as long as she in general still acknowledged the authority of Christ and of the Apostles, she could not but, here too, follow their distinct, often-repeated testimony. And so, indeed, do we find it to be. With the exception of a certain Silesian called Seidel—who, given up to total unbelief, asserted that the Messiah had never yet come, nor would ever come—and of Grotius, both of whom supposed Jeremiah to be the subject—no one of the Christian church has, for seventeen centuries, ventured to call in question the Messianic interpretation.

“On the contrary, this passage was always considered to be the most distinct and glorious of all the Messianic prophecies. It was reserved to the last quarter of the eighteenth century to be the first to reject the Messianic interpretation. At a time when Naturalism exercised its sway, if could no longer be retained. For, if this passage contains a Messianic prophecy at all, its contents offer so striking an argument with the history of Christ that its origin cannot at all be accounted for in the natural way. Expedients were therefore sought for; and these were so much the more easily found that the Jews had, in this matter, already opened up the way.

“All that was necessary was only to appropriate their arguments and counter-arguments, and to invest them with the semblance of solidity by means of a learned apparatus.”