Isaiah 53 modern translation. David Wilkerson: "Who Will Prolong His Days" (Text Sermons). Why I Believe Yeshua Fulfilled This Prophecy

The Spirit of Christ in the Old Testament saints testified in advance of two great things: the sufferings of Christ and the glory that would follow (1 Peter 1:11). Christ Himself, interpreting Moses and all the prophets, showed that the meaning and purpose of these prophecies was to show that Christ should suffer and then enter into His glory (Luke 24:26,27). But nowhere in the whole Old Testament are these two truths so clearly and completely prophesied as in this chapter, from which certain passages are quoted in the New Testament in relation to Christ. This chapter is so filled with the ineffable riches of Christ that it can rather be called the Gospel of the evangelist Isaiah than the prophecy of the prophet Isaiah. In it we may notice, I. The disgrace of Christ's sufferings: the unattractiveness of his appearance, the greatness of his sorrow, and the prejudice against his doctrine which arose among many as a result (v. 1-3). (II.) That this disgrace is dispelled, and His sufferings stamped with eternal glory, notwithstanding humiliation and dishonour, upon the following considerations:

(1) He thereby fulfilled the will of the Father (vv. 4,6,10).

(2) In this way He atoned for man's sin (vv. 4-6, 8, 11, 12), for He did not suffer for His own sin (v. 9).

(3.) He bore His sufferings with invincible and exemplary patience (v. 7).

(4) He will successfully complete His task, and His suffering will end in eternal glory (vv. 10-12). By adding faith to the prophecy of this chapter, we can increase our knowledge of Jesus Christ crucified and glorified, who died for our sins and rose again for our justification.

Verses 1-3. At the conclusion of the previous chapter, the prophet foresaw and predicted that the gospel of Christ would be joyfully received by the heathen, that nations and kings would welcome it, and that those who had not seen Him would believe in Him. Although there was no prophecy of gospel grace among them to raise expectations and dispose them to receive it, yet at the first notice of it they would duly weigh and consider it. And now he predicts with surprise the unbelief of the Jews, despite the previous announcement in the Old Testament that the Messiah would come to them and they would have the opportunity to personally meet Him. Please note here:

I. The contempt they would show of the gospel of Christ (v. 1). This word will be fulfilled when, at the time of the Savior, the Jews turn out to be unbelievers (John 12:38). This is also evidenced by the little success of the apostles preaching among Jews and Gentiles (Rom. 10:16). Please note:

(1.) Among the many who have heard the message of the gospel, few, very few, will believe it. It will be announced openly and publicly; it will not be whispered about in corners and it will not be limited to schools, but the Gospel will be proclaimed to everyone. His words are so honest and commendable that one would think that it should be universally accepted and everyone should believe in it. But the situation is quite the opposite: few believed the prophets who spoke before Christ; when He Himself came, none of the rulers and Pharisees followed Him, but only here and there simple people; and when the apostles carried this message to the whole world, there were believers everywhere, of whom there were relatively few. And today, of the many who profess to believe the gospel, only a few accept it wholeheartedly and submit to its power.

(2) The people did not believe the gospel message, because the arm of the Lord had not been revealed to them; they did not discern the truth and did not come to know the divine power that accompanies the word. The Lord bared His arm in the miracles (as stated in Isa. 52:10) which were performed to confirm the doctrine of Christ, in the astonishing success which attended it, and the influence it exercised upon the conscience; although she has a quiet voice, it is strong; but they have not comprehended or experienced the work of the Spirit, which makes the word efficacious. They did not believe the Gospel because they rebelled against the light they had and fell short of the grace of God. On this ground God justly deprived them of it and removed it from them, and for want of grace they did not believe.

(3) This is something that should greatly amaze us; this must be marveled at and greatly lamented, and ministers can go to God and complain to Him about it, just as the prophet does in this place. What a pity that such rich grace was received in vain, that precious souls would perish at the pond simply because they did not step up and be healed.

II. Their contempt for the person of Christ, the basis of which was His pitiful appearance (vv. 2,3). This fact seems to be given here as the reason why they rejected His doctrine: because they were prejudiced against His person. When He was on earth, many heard His preaching and could not but approve of what they heard, but could not respect or take into account His words, since He was an insignificant person and did not have external advantages to present Himself in an attractive form . Please note here:

1. The wretched conditions to which He submitted, and the manner in which He emptied Himself. The way He entered this world, the image in which He took on, did not agree with the idea of ​​the Messiah formed by the Jews and their expectations from Him, but significantly contradicted it.

(1) His lineage was expected to be great and noble. He must be the Son of David and come from a family that had a great name, like the name of the great ones on earth (2 Samuel 7:9). But he came from a royal and famous family when it became impoverished and decayed, and Joseph, the son of David, His supposed father, was only a poor carpenter, perhaps a shipbuilder, for most of his relatives were fishermen. It is this fact that is meant here by the words "sprout from dry ground": that He was born into a wretched and despised family, in the north, in Galilee, into a family in which, like the dry and barren soil, nothing green and significant was expected, in a country whose reputation was that nothing good could come from it. His mother, being a virgin, was like dry earth, nevertheless, a sprout appeared from her, which turned out to be not only a fruit, but also a root. A seed falling on rocky soil does not take root; but, although Christ grew out of dry ground, He was both the root and offspring of David, the root of the good olive tree.

(2.) He was expected to enter before a large crowd of people with pomp and ceremony. But instead He grew before God, not before men. God looked at Him, but people did not pay attention to Him: “He went up before Him like a offspring, quietly and unnoticed, without any noise, as wheat grows, that tender plant of which we do not know (Mark 4:27) . Christ grew like a tender plant, which (one might think) could easily be crushed or damaged by a cold night. At the very beginning the gospel of Christ was like a mustard seed, so insignificant it seemed (Matthew 13:31,32).

(3) His person and appearance were expected to be distinguished by a singular beauty which would enchant the eye, attract the heart, and arouse anticipation in all who beheld Him. But there was nothing of the kind in Him; this does not mean that there was any defect in Him, but there was neither appearance, nor grandeur, nor anything unusual in Him, which one hoped to see in the external appearance of an incarnate deity. Those who saw Him saw no beauty in Him that would attract us to Him, nothing in which He was better than other beloved ones” (Song 5:9). Moses was very handsome at birth, which was considered a blessed sign (Acts 7:20; Heb 11:23). When David was anointed, it was noted that he had beautiful eyes and a pleasant face (1 Samuel 16:12). But our Lord Jesus had nothing that represented Him well. Or perhaps it has less to do with His Person than with His appearance in this world, which was not accompanied by visible glory. His gospel was not preached in the powerful words of human wisdom, but in simplicity suited to the subject.

(4) He was expected to live a carefree life and experience to the full all the pleasures of the sons and daughters of men that would be offered to Him, but He, on the contrary, was a man of sorrows, acquainted with sorrows (English translation). Not only were the last moments of His life tragic, His whole life was not only pitiful, but also miserable: “one continuous chain of labors, sorrows and devouring pain” (Sir. R. Blackmore). Thus, having become sin for us, He submitted to the sentence that was pronounced on us for sin: “in sorrow you will eat of it all the days of your life” (Gen. 3:17), thereby significantly mitigating the severity of the sentence imposed on us. His situation was in every respect sad. He had no place to live where He could lay His head, He lived on alms, faced opposition and threats, and endured the reproach of sinners. His Spirit was tender and subject to sorrow. We do not read anywhere that He laughed, but He often wept. Lentulus, in his letter to the Roman Senate regarding Jesus, writes that “no one saw Him laugh”; He was so worn out and exhausted by constant grief that at the age of a little over thirty He looked fifty years old (John 8:57). He was intimately familiar with grief, closely perceived the grief of others, sympathized with them and was never far from them; at the transfiguration He spoke of His illness, and during His triumphal entry He wept for Jerusalem. Let's look at Him and mourn Him.

2. People had a low opinion of Him for this reason. Since, basically, they are inclined to judge with their eyes about persons and things by their appearance, they did not see in Him the beauty that would attract them to Him. There was a lot of true beauty in Him, the beauty of holiness and piety, enough for Him to be recognized as Desired by all nations, but the overwhelming majority of the people among whom He lived and with whom He communicated did not see this beauty, for it can only be discerned spiritually. Carnal hearts see no excellence in the Lord Jesus: nothing to make them desire to know Him or have a part in Him. Moreover, He was not only not wanted, but was despised and humiliated, He was abandoned and abhorred, He became a reproach among people, a despicable person with whom it was a shame to deal and nothing to value: a worm, not a man. He was despised as a nonentity and rejected as a bad person. He was the stone that the builders rejected; the people did not want Him to reign over them. The people who should have been wise enough to understand things better, to be more sensitive and not to trample a person into poverty, the people to whom He came to find and save them, rejected Him: “We turned away our faces from Him, looked in side and did not notice His suffering, although the sorrow was never similar to His sorrow.” Moreover, we behaved not only like people who did not notice Him, but also like people who abhor Him, disgusted with Him.” It can also be read this way: “He seemed to turn His face away from us, hiding the glory of His majesty, and covered it with a veil, so He was despised, and we thought nothing of Him, since we could not see Him through this veil. Christ took upon Himself the task of bringing satisfaction to the justice of God for the insult done to Him and His glory by the sin of man (God can only be injured by injury to His glory);

and He did this by not only depriving Himself of the glory that accompanies incarnate deity, but also by subjecting Himself to the disgrace that accompanies the worst of men and criminals. Thus, by denigrating Himself, He glorified His Father; and this is a good reason why we should highly esteem Him and learn to honor Him; let the One whom people have denied be accepted by us.

Verses 4-9. In these verses:

1. He had sorrows and sorrows; this acquaintance did not stop after He got to know them, but He was not ashamed of such a sad acquaintance. Were sorrows and sorrows meant for Him? He bore them and did not blame His lot; He carried them and did not faint under their weight. The burden was heavy and the path long, but He did not faint, but reached the end until He could say: “It is finished.”

2. He was struck and damaged; He was defeated, punished and humiliated. His sorrows overwhelmed Him; He felt their pain and blows; they were inflicted on His most sensitive parts, especially when they dishonored God and when God abandoned Him on the cross. All along the way, He was struck with the tongue, when they found fault with Him and attributed the worst character traits, when all sorts of evil were spoken about Him. In the end they beat Him with their hands, blow after blow.

3. He was covered in wounds and bruises. He was punished not according to the merciful Jewish law, which did not allow more than forty lashes to be given to the worst offenders, but according to Roman customs. And His punishment was undoubtedly especially severe, since Pilate wanted it to be equivalent to His crucifixion, but it turned out to be a preface to it. His arms, legs and side were wounded. Though it was commanded that not one of His bones should be broken, yet His whole body (as we like to sleep when we are called to suffer for Him), from the head crowned with thorns to the heels that were nailed to the cross, was composed of nothing but wounds and bruises.

4. He was wronged and insulted (v. 7): “He was tortured, He was treated cruelly.” He was accused of something of which He was completely innocent, something was placed on Him that He did not deserve; in both ways He was defeated: tortured and insulted. He took His oppression to heart, and although he was patient, he did not remain insensitive; He wept with those oppressed who had no comforter, for in the hand of those who oppress them is power (Eccl. 4:1). Oppression is severe suffering; it makes many wise men fools (Eccl. 7:7);

although our Lord Jesus was oppressed and suffered, yet He preserved His soul.

5. He was tried and imprisoned; this is implied by the words “he was taken from bonds and judgment” (v. 8). Since God made Him to be sin for us, He was treated as a criminal; He was arrested, taken to prison and became a prisoner; He was tried, accused, His case was investigated, and He was convicted according to the requirements of the law. God recorded the proceedings, judged Him according to the process, and imprisoned Him in a prison tomb, the entrance of which was sealed with a rolled stone.

6. He was untimely cut off from the land of the living, although His life was very useful and He did many good deeds; and all of them were such that one would think that for some of them He was stoned. He was struck to death, and a tomb was assigned to Him with the villains (for He was crucified between two thieves, as if He were the worst of the three), but was buried by a rich man, for He was buried in a tomb that belonged to Joseph, the respected adviser. Although He died with the wicked, and according to the custom of the treatment of criminals He should have been buried with them where He was crucified, yet God foretold, and Providence so decreed, that His grave should be near the innocent and the rich, as a mark of distinction among Him. and those who truly deserved death and such suffering.

II. A full description of the meaning of His suffering is given. The great mystery was that such a great Person should endure such suffering, so it was natural to ask in surprise, “How could this happen? What evil did He do? his enemies certainly believed that He suffered justly for His guilt, and although they could show nothing against Him, they thought that He was smitten, punished, and humiliated by God (v. 4). Because they hated and persecuted Him, they thought that God was doing it, that He was His enemy and was fighting with Him, so they became even more furious against Him, saying: “God has forsaken him; pursue and seize him” (Ps. 70:11). He who is justly punished is punished by God, for by Him the princes dispense justice, and therefore they believed that He was justly punished and put to death as a blasphemer, a deceiver and an enemy of Caesar. Those who saw Him nailed to the cross did not ask about His merits, but considered His guilt proven in everything of which He was accused, and therefore revenge did not allow Him to remain alive. (So ​​Job’s friends believed that God was punishing Him, since there was something unusual in his suffering). It is true that He was smitten by God, v. 10 (or, as some read this passage, He was punished and humiliated by God, although the Son of God, yet punished and humiliated), but not in the sense in which they understood it; for although He endured all these sufferings:

1. He never did anything that in any way deserved such cruel treatment. Although He was accused of seducing the people and inciting rebellion, this was an absolute lie; He did not commit sin, but did only good. And although He was called a deceiver, He did not deserve such a description, for there was no lying in His mouth (v. 9), to which the apostle refers (1 Peter 2:22): “He committed no sin, and there was no flattery in His mouth.” His". He did not offend in word or deed, and not one of His enemies could respond to His challenge: “Which of you will convict Me of unrighteousness!” The judge who condemned Him admitted that he found no guilt in Him, and the officer who carried out the execution realized that He was certainly a righteous man.

2. It was clear from His conduct during His suffering that He did not suffer for evil deeds, for although He was punished and humiliated, He did not open His mouth (v. 7), nor did He plead His own innocence, but voluntarily offered Himself, to suffer and die for us, and had nothing against it. That He willingly submitted to punishment for a great and holy purpose washes away the shame of the cross. Thanks to His wisdom, He could avoid the sentence, and with His strength resist its execution, but so it is written, and so it was necessary for Him to suffer. He received this commandment from the Father, and therefore, like a sheep, He was led to the slaughter, without any reluctance or resistance (He is the Lamb of God);

and as a lamb is silent before its shearer, nay, before the butcher, so He opened not His mouth, which implies not only His exemplary patience in suffering (Ps. 38:10) and His meekness when others reproached Him (Ps. 37: 14), but also His joyful agreement with the will of the Father. Not My will, but Yours be done. Here I go. We will be sanctified because He offered His soul and His own life as a sacrifice for our sin.

3. Jesus Christ suffered in our place for our good. This is stated here clearly and in full with a great variety of pathetic expressions.

(1) It is clear that we are all guilty before God. We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (v. 6): "We have all gone astray, like sheep." No one is an exception. The whole human race is stained with original depravity, and each individual is guilty of many actual crimes. We have all wandered away from God our rightful owner, turned away from Him, from the goals He intended for us to move towards, and strayed from the path intended for us. We have all wandered, like sheep prone to wandering, which, having lost their way, are unable to find the way back home. This is our true character; we are prone to apostasy from God, and of ourselves are not able to return to Him. This is spoken of not only as our misfortune (that we leave green pastures and expose ourselves to the danger of becoming a prey predator), but about our iniquity. We offend God by walking away from Him, because we turn into our own path and enter into competition with God and His will, which is sin. Instead of obediently following God's path, we deliberately turn away and we stubbornly follow our own path, the path of our hearts, along which our own vicious desires and lusts lead us. We plan for ourselves, we want to be our own leaders and creators, do what we want and have what we want. Some people think that this refers to our own evil path, as opposed to the evil path of others. Sinners have their own iniquity, their own beloved sin, which takes possession of them with particular ease; they especially love it and bless themselves in it.

(2) Our sins are our sorrows and sorrows (v. 4) or (you can read it this way) our illnesses and wounds; The Septuagint translates this passage as our sins, and the apostle quotes them in the same way (1 Pet. 2:24). Our original vices are the infirmities and illnesses of our soul, our habitual malaise, and our actual crimes are wounds of the soul that cause pain to the conscience, unless it is burned and insensible. Or our sins are called sorrows and sorrows, since they are the consequence of our sin, and our sin deserves sorrow and sorrow, which can be extremely strong and eternal.

(3) Our Lord Jesus was appointed to make satisfaction for our sins, and He did it; thereby He saved us from their fatal consequences. He was determined to do this by the will of His Father, for the Lord laid upon Him the sins of us all. God chose Him to be the Savior of poor sinners and willed Him to save them by taking upon Himself their sins and the punishment for them: not idem the same punishment that we would have suffered, but tantundem that punishment which would exceed its equivalent for the sake of preserving the glory of holiness and the justice of God, who rules the whole world. Observe, first, how we are saved from the destruction that awaits us because of sin; we lay our sins on Christ, as the sins of the sacrificer were laid on the sacrifice, and the sins of all Israel on the head of the scapegoat. Our sins had to come upon Him (written in the margin);

the sins of all whom He had to save, from all places and all ages, came upon Him, and He confronted them. They should have attacked Him (as some read), as those who came with swords and sticks to seize Him attacked. When we lay our sins on Christ, it means that they are taken from us; we are not subject to the curse of the law if we submit to the grace of the gospel. Sins were placed on Christ when He became sin (i.e., sin offering) for us and redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. Thus He was able to relieve those who came burdened with the weight of sin. (See Ps 39:7-13). secondly, by whom it was determined. The Lord laid our iniquities on Christ; He invented this method of reconciliation and salvation, and He accepted the substitutionary satisfaction that Christ had to make. Christ was put to death according to the definite advice and foreknowledge of God. God alone had the power to lay our sins on Christ, because the sin was committed against Him and it was necessary to bring satisfaction to Him, and also on the ground that Christ, on whom the iniquities were laid, was His own Son, the Son of His love, His saint child Jesus, who knew no sin. Thirdly, for whom this atoning sacrifice had to be made. The iniquities of us all were laid upon Christ, for Christ has sufficient merit to save all, and a great sacrifice was made for the salvation of all without exception, who does not exclude himself. This is the only way of salvation. He who is justified is justified by laying his sins on Jesus Christ; and even if there are many of them, He can bear the weight of them all. He made the decision to do this. God laid our iniquities on Him, but did He Himself agree? Yes, for some think that the following words are properly read (v. 7): "This was required, and He consented"; divine justice demanded satisfaction for our souls, and He chose to give this satisfaction. He became our surety: not one who is bound to us from the very beginning, but as a surety who guarantees for us: “Let this curse be upon Me, Father.” Therefore, when He was captured, He set a condition for those into whose hands He had given Himself, so that this would serve as the basis for the release of His disciples: “... if you seek Me, leave them, let them go” (John 18:8). By His voluntary decision He made Himself responsible for our debt, and it is good for us that He took responsibility. Now He must give back what He did not take away.

(4) Having taken on our debt, He had to be punished. Solomon says: “He who vouches for a stranger does harm to himself.” Christ, having become a surety for us, was beaten for this. He took upon Himself our infirmities and bore our sicknesses (v. 4). He not only submitted to the general weaknesses of human nature and the common misfortunes of human life which sin introduced, but He was subject to special sorrows when He said, “My soul is grieved unto death.” He made the sorrows of that time difficult for Himself, so that they would be light and easy for us. Sin is wormwood and gall in suffering and misfortune. Christ bore our sins and thereby bore our sorrows; He took them away so that they would not put more pressure on us. The apostle quotes these words (Matthew 8:17), applying them to the compassion which Christ felt for those who came to Him for healing, and to the power He showed for their healing. He did this by suffering for our sins (v. 5): “He was made for our sins,” to atone for them and to obtain forgiveness for us. Our sins were thorns in His head, nails in His hands and feet, and a spear in His side. The wounds and bruises were consequences of sin that we deserved and brought upon ourselves (Isaiah 1:6). So that these wounds and bruises would not turn out to be fatal, Christ was revealed for our sins, tormented (the word used here is used for the suffering of a woman during childbirth) for our disobedience and rebellion. He was tormented, or crushed, for our iniquities; they were the cause of His death. Verse 8 speaks of the same thing: “For the transgressions of His people He was beaten,” the blows that should have fallen upon us were inflicted on Him, and therefore some read: “He was cut off for the iniquities of His people, who deserved these blows." He was put to death for our sins (Rom. 4:25). Therefore, it is said that this was according to Scripture, according to this scripture, Christ died for our sins (1 Cor. 15:3). Some read: “For the transgressions of My people” (Russian translation), that is, by the wicked hands of the Jews, who by profession were the people of God, He was beaten, crucified and killed (Acts 2:23). But surely we must take it in its original sense, which is generously supported by the angel's prediction of the work done by the Messiah, which was solemnly communicated to Daniel; it said that He would cover transgression, seal up sins, and atone for iniquity (Dan 9:24).

(5) The consequences for us will be peace and healing (v. 5). Thus we receive peace: “...the chastisement of our peace was upon him”; He, by submitting to punishment, destroyed hostility and established friendly relations between God and man; He made peace through the Blood of His cross. Although we by our sin had made ourselves abominable to the holiness of God and vulnerable to His justice, yet through Christ God was reconciled to us and not only forgave our sins and saved us from destruction, but also established friendship and fellowship with Himself, and therefore peace came to us ( Col 1:20). He is our peace (Eph 2:14). Christ endured pain so that we could have peace; He satisfied the justice of God, that we might have satisfaction in our minds, and be able to take courage, knowing that through Him our sins are forgiven. Thus we are healed: “By His stripes we are healed.” Sin is not only a crime for which we are condemned to death and the forgiveness of which Christ purchased for us, but it is also a disease leading directly to the death of our soul, from which Christ provided us with healing. By His stripes (that is, by the sufferings He had to endure) He purchased for us the Spirit and grace of God to put to death our corruption, which is the disease of our soul, and healed our souls that they might serve God and be prepared to rejoice in Him. Through the doctrine of the cross of Christ and the powerful arguments against sin with which it provides us, the dominion of sin in us is broken, and we are armed against that which feeds disease.

(6) The consequence of this for Christ was His resurrection and exaltation to eternal glory. Thanks to this, the shame of the cross completely disappears; He consented to die as a sacrifice, as a lamb, and to make it evident that the sacrifice He offered was accepted, it is said here (v. 8) that He was delivered: "From bonds and from judgment He was taken"; though He was imprisoned in the tomb by legal procedure, and arrested for our debt, and it appears that He was condemned, yet by express command from heaven He was taken out of the prison of the tomb, and an angel was sent to roll away the stone from the entrance to tomb and give Him freedom. Therefore, the sentence passed on Him was reviewed and reversed; this contributed not only to His glory, but also to our consolation, for He was delivered up for our sins and rose again for our justification. This release of the lien resulted in a release from the debt. That He was given preference: “Who will explain His generation or the duration of His generation (means this word) the time of His life?” He has risen and dies no more; death no longer has power over Him. And he was dead, and behold, he is alive forever and ever; and who can describe the eternity for which He rose again, or number its years and ages? He was promoted to eternal life because, because of the sins of His people, He became obedient to the point of death. We may take this as an indication of the time of His usefulness; so it is said of David that he served his generation (English translation) and, therefore, corresponded to the purpose of his existence. Who can declare what a great blessing Christ will be to the world through His death and resurrection? Some by the word “his generation” mean His spiritual seed: “Who can count the great number of converts who, through the gospel, have been conceived for Him like the morning dew? He exalted himself to live and see the innumerable offspring of His adopted children who believed; A God-like people will outnumber the stars of heaven on the vault of grace Sir R. Blackmore Let us pray for this generation of Jesus as Moses prayed for the people of Israel: “The Lord God of your fathers will multiply you a thousand times as many as you are now; bless you as He has spoken to you” (Deuteronomy 1:11).

Verses 10-12. In the preceding verses the prophet had made a very detailed and solemn statement of the sufferings of Christ, yet adding some pleasant allusions to their successful issue. Here he again speaks of His sufferings, but foretells in more detail the glory that will follow. In these verses we may notice:

I. To the ministry and sufferings of Christ, when He humbled himself and submitted to them. Come and see how He loved us, see what He did for us.

1. He submitted to the displeasure of Heaven (v. 10): “But the Lord was pleased to smite him, and gave him over to torture, pain, or sorrow.” Scripture nowhere says that Christ suffered the wrath of God in His sufferings, but it does say, (1.) That the Lord smote Him, not only allowing men to smite Him, but lifting up His sword against Him (3ah 13:7). The people believed that Jesus was smitten by God for some great sin of his own (v. 4);

It is true that God struck Him, but for our sins. The Lord struck Him down; He did not spare Him, but delivered Him up for us all (Rom. 8:32). It was He who put the bitter cup into His hands and made Him drink it (John 18:11), laying our iniquities on Him. It was He who made Him a sin and a curse for us, and turned His burnt offering into ashes as proof that He had accepted it (Ps. 19:4).

(2) That the Lord smote Him that He might suffer. Christ adapted himself to this Divine providence and accepted the sorrow handed down by His Father; He suffered so much that he was in mortal pain; He was struck and suffered mortally.

(3) It pleased the Lord to do this. He decided that it must be so; it was the decision of the eternal council; He enjoyed it because it was an effective method of saving man and preserving and exalting the glory of God.

2. As a sacrifice, He took the place of sinners. He made His soul a sacrifice for sin; He Himself explains (Matthew 20:28) that He came to give His life as a ransom for many. When people brought bulls and goats as sin offerings, they made them an offering because they had a part in them, since God laid them at the feet of man. But Christ made Himself a sacrifice; it was His personal action. We could not put Him in our place, He did it Himself, saying: “Father, into Your hand I commend My spirit”; it was said in a higher sense than David said or could have said. “Father, I entrust My soul to You, I place it in Your hands as the life of a sacrifice and the price of forgiveness.” Thus He will bear the iniquities of many whom He has chosen to justify (v. 11), and so He will blot out the sin of the world, taking it upon Himself (John 1:29). This fact is mentioned again in v. 12: “He bore the sin of many, which, if they had borne it themselves, would have been plunged into hell.” Look how the emphasis is placed on this: every time we think about the sufferings of Christ, we must see that in them He also bears our sin.

3. He subjected Himself to what would be the wages of sin to us (v. 12): He gave up His soul to death, poured it out as water, so little did He value it when He poured it out as the means ordained for our redemption. and salvation. He did not love His own soul even to death (Rev. 12:11), and His followers, the martyrs, did the same. Or rather, He poured it out as a drink offering to make His sacrifice perfect, poured it out like wine, that His Blood might be drink and His flesh bread for all who believe. During His suffering, not only was His body melted (Ps. 21:15): “I am poured out like water,” but His Spirit was also subjected; He poured it out until death, although He was the Lord of life.

4. In His sufferings He was numbered among sinners, but nevertheless offered Himself to be an intercessor for sinners (v. 12).

(1) His sufferings were greatly aggravated by the fact that He was counted among the villains; He was not only condemned as a criminal, but also executed along with two notorious criminals, and His cross was placed in the middle, as if He were the worst of the three. And the evangelist tells us that in this circumstance of His suffering the prophecy was fulfilled (Mark 15:27,28). Moreover, the worst of all criminals, Barabbas, who was a traitor, a thief and a murderer, competed with him for the favor of the people and won this competition; for the people did not want Jesus to be released, but Barabbas. Throughout His life He was counted among the criminals, for He was called a Sabbath breaker, a drunkard, a friend of publicans and sinners.

(2.) His sufferings deserved great praise and greatly contributed to His glory, since in them He became an intercessor for criminals for those who insulted and crucified Him, for He prayed: “Father, forgive them...”; thereby He showed that He Himself had forgiven them, and did something through which they could receive forgiveness for all other sins. This prayer was offered in the language of His Blood, crying not for vengeance, but for mercy, and therefore it spoke better than the blood of Abel, and served for the benefit of those who with their wicked hands shed it.

II. For the grace and glory of His exaltation; the graces He has bestowed upon us are in no way comparable to the glory bestowed upon Him. This glory was reserved for Him according to the covenant of redemption; and these verses give some idea of ​​it. He promised to offer His soul as a sacrifice for sin, agreed to be given up by the Father, chose to bear the sins of many, and, reflecting on this, the Father promises to glorify Him with more than the glory He had as God before the creation of the world (Jn. 1 7:5), but also by the glory of the Mediator.

1. He will have the glory of the eternal Father. Under this name He came into the world (Isa. 9:6), and He will absolutely live up to this name when He departs from it. Abraham (who in this was a type of Christ) was given the promise that He would be the father of many nations and heir of the world (Rom. 4:13,17). And since he was the root of the Jewish Church and the covenant was made with him and his descendants, then Christ was the root of the universal Church and with Him and His spiritual descendants a covenant of grace was made, based and grafted onto the covenant of redemption, of which some gracious promises are here given.

(1.) The Redeemer will have seed that will serve Him and bear His name (Ps. 21:31). True believers are the descendants of Christ; the father gave them to him that they might be so (John 17:6). He died to gain and purify them for Himself, falling to the ground like a grain of wheat to bring forth much fruit (John 12:24). The Word is the incorruptible seed from which they are born again, it is His word; The great Spirit, the Creator of their rebirth, is His Spirit; and it is His image that is impressed upon them.

(2) He will live to see His descendants. The children of Christ have a living Father, and since He lives, they will live too, for He is their life. Although He died, He rose again; He did not leave His children orphans, but took effective care to preserve for them the spirit, blessing, and inheritance of sons. He will see their great multiplication (the word is plural): “He will see the offspring, a huge multitude of them, so many that it will not be possible to count them.”

(3.) He will continue to attend to the affairs of His numerous family: He will prolong His days. Many, having seen their children and their children's children, want to retire in peace, but Christ will not transfer the care of His family to anyone else; no, He Himself will live long and there will be no limit to the increase of His government and peace, for He lives forever. Some believe that these words refer to believers: “He will see a long-lasting descendant” (Russian translation), for they are consistent with Ps 89:30,37: “His seed will endure forever.” As long as the world stands, Christ will have His Church in it, the life of which will be Himself.

(4.) His great work will be successfully completed and will be in accordance with expectations: "The will of the Lord will be done successfully by his hand." God's purposes will be achieved, and not one iota of them will be left unfulfilled. Note, The work of man's redemption is in the hands of the Lord Jesus, in good hands. It is good for us that it is in His hands, for our own hands are not enough for us, but He can save everyone. Our redemption is in the hands of Him who sustains all. The Lord will enjoy it, that is, not only His plan, but also its contemplation; God therefore loved Him and was pleased with Him, since He decided to lay down His life for the sheep. His will has been successful up to this point and will continue to be successful, no matter what obstacles and difficulties may arise or stand in its way. Whatever is done according to the will of God will prosper (Isaiah 46:10). Cyrus, the type of Christ, will do all the will of God (Isa. 44:28), and therefore Christ will also prosper. Christ had everything necessary to accomplish His task and carried it out with great energy; it was so well conceived from the very beginning to the end that it could not fail, but gave glory to the Father and brought salvation to all His descendants.

(5.) He himself will receive complete satisfaction from its accomplishment (v. 11): “He will look upon the struggle of his soul with contentment.” He foresaw it in advance (one can understand it that way);

having foreseen His suffering, He also foresaw its fruits, and He will be fully satisfied with the transaction. He will see that they will end in the conversion and salvation of sinners. Note, Our Lord Jesus endured the anguish of soul for our redemption and salvation; He suffered greatly to be delivered from His torment; He endured pain and agony for our redemption. Christ will see the blessed fruits of the suffering of His soul when He establishes and builds His Church and the eternal salvation of all who have been entrusted to Him. He will reach His goal and complete all the work and see that He has not labored in vain. The salvation of souls will bring great satisfaction to the Lord Jesus. He will consider that all the sufferings laid upon Him will be amply compensated if, through Him, many sons pass from grace to glory. If this happens, then this is enough for Him. God will be glorified, repentant sinners will be justified, and then Christ will be pleased. Thus, imitating Christ, we too will be content if we do everything that serves the interests of the Kingdom of God in this world. Let doing the will of God be food and drink for us, as it was for Christ.

2. He will be glorified because he will bring everlasting righteousness, for so was prophesied about him (Dan 9:24). And here, for the same purpose, it is said: “... through the knowledge of Him (knowledge of Him and faith in Him) He will justify many”; He will bear the sins of many, and therefore will lay the foundation for our justification from sin. Please note:

(1.) The great privilege which results from the death of Christ, and justification from sin, is that we are freed from guilt, which in itself would destroy us, and receive God's favor, the only thing that can make us happy.

(2.) Christ, having obtained justification for us, applies it to us, interceding for us, preaching to us his gospel, and bearing witness by his Spirit in us. The Son of Man has the power to forgive sin even on earth.

(3.) Christ justifies many, but not all (crowds perish in their sins): yet many for whom he gave his life as a ransom, and whom our Lord God called. He does not justify a single chosen, outstanding and famous person, but many a despised crowd.

(4) We are justified by faith, by our consent to Christ, and by the covenant of grace; it is in this way that we are saved, for it is in this way that God is most glorified: in such a situation free grace is most efficacious, the human ego is especially humbled, and beatitude is most effectively preserved.

(5) Faith is knowledge about Christ, and without knowledge there cannot be true faith. Christ subordinates the will and feelings in a special way, enlightening the mind and sincerely persuading people to agree with divine truths.

(6) The knowledge of Christ and the faith in Him, by which we are justified, refer to Him as the servant of God and the Surety for us. As One who is employed by God to carry out His purposes, and to preserve and advance the interests of His glory. “He is My righteous servant and, being such, he justifies people.” God authorized and appointed Him to do this; it is in accordance with the will of God and for the sake of His glory that He does this. He Himself is righteous, and from His righteousness we have received everything. He who is righteous in Himself (for He could not offer an atoning sacrifice for our sin if He had any sin of His own to answer for) He has become for us the righteousness of God, the Lord of our righteousness. As the One who took responsibility for us. We must know Him and believe in Him as the One who bore our iniquities and saved us, so that we do not perish under the weight of the burden, taking it upon ourselves.

3. He will be glorified by having an undisputed victory and world dominion (v. 12). And since He will perform all these good services, God will give Him a share among the great and, according to the will of the Father, He will divide the spoils with the strong, just as a great commander, having driven the enemy from the battlefield, takes spoils for himself and his army that serves irrefutable proof of victory and is compensation for the labor and dangers to which they were exposed in battle. Please note:

(1.) God the Father rewards Christ with great glory for His services and sufferings: “I will set Him among the great, I will exalt Him highly, I will give Him the name that is above every name.” Great riches are also designated for Him: “He will divide the spoils, and will have an abundance of graces and consolations to reward all His faithful warriors.”

(2) Christ will come to glory through victory. He attacked the strong armed man, dispossessed him and divided the spoils. He has overcome principalities and powers, sin and Satan, death and hell, the world and the flesh; all this is the strong man whom He disarmed and deprived of prey.

(3.) A great part of the glory with which Christ was rewarded, and the spoil which he divided, was the great number of willing, faithful, and devoted subjects who would be brought to him, for some read, "I will give him many, and he shall receive many as spoil." God will give the nations for his inheritance and the ends of the earth for his possession (Ps. 2:8). He will possess from sea to sea. The grace of God will work in many, and they will give themselves to Him to guide them, teach them, and save them, and thereby He will consider Himself honored, enriched, and richly rewarded for His sufferings and all that He has done.

(4.) What God has ordained for the Redeemer, He will surely take possession of: "I will set it apart for Him"; and then immediately follows: “He will divide despite the opposition that is set against Him, for once Christ has completed the work committed to Him, God will reward Him as He was promised, for He is faithful and able to do it.

(5.) The spoil that God will allocate to Christ, He will divide (the same word is used), distribute among His followers, for when He took captivity captive, He accepted gifts for people in order to be able to give them gifts, for, as He Himself said and did (Acts 20:35), He considered it more blessed and honorable to give than to receive. Christ has won the victory for us, and through Him we are more than conquerors. He divided the spoils, the fruits of his victory, to all who belonged to Him; let us therefore place our lot among them.

“Chapter 53, a direct continuation of Is.52:13-15:) is divided in content into three parts, of which the first (1–8a.) contains the prophet’s extensive speech about the suffering of the Servant and the redemptive meaning of suffering, the second (9 –10) the speech of the same person about the great reward awaiting the Divine Sufferer, and in the third (11–12) the words of the Almighty Ruler of the world about the suffering and glorification of the Child of the Lord, confirming the inspired speeches of the prophet” (I. Grigoriev “cited works.” 207 Art.).

By the strength and depth of prophetic insight, by the brightness and liveliness of the images given here, by the amazing accuracy of various historical details, and finally, by the deep penetration into the inner meaning of the greatest mysteries - incarnation and redemption, the prophecy of Chapter 53. has no equal in the entire Old Testament and is rightly recognized as the “climax” of all Old Testament prophecy.

“This is the center of the wondrous book of consolations (chap. 40–54), and at the same time the very focus, the highest and deepest point of all Old Testament prophecy” (Delitsch, v. II, 353).

1–3. Prophecy about the appearance of the Messiah in the “form of a servant.” 4–6. The reason and purpose of such extreme Divine condescension to people is the mystery of incarnation and redemption. 7–9. Amazing details from the history of the Savior’s suffering, His death on the cross and burial. 10–11. Revealing the inner meaning of the great Calvary sacrifice. 12. The final moment of atonement is God’s solemn glorification of the Innocent Sufferer.

Isa.53:1. [Lord!] who believed what was heard from us, and to whom was the arm of the Lord revealed?

"(God)! who believed what we heard, and to whom was the arm of the Lord revealed?” This verse is a general introduction to the speech of chapter 53, which identifies the speaker, the subject of the speech, and its addressees. In view of the fact that the installation of all this is extremely important for the correct understanding of this chapter, and yet there is disagreement among commentators on this matter, let us dwell on clarifying this in some detail. The majority of medieval rabbinical and modern rationalist exegetes, not wanting to recognize the messianic meaning of this chapter, are of the opinion that the speaker here is the prophet Isaiah; but the subject of his speech is not the Messiah, but the Jewish people in general, or, more precisely, the period of their difficult, political existence (“the tribulation of the days of the Messiah”), and the listener, reproached by the prophet, turns out to be the entire unfaithful pagan world, oppressing the chosen people of God. But if such an attempt to give the speeches of the prophet Isaiah “About the Messiah” a collective meaning was not successful before (Is. 49: 3, 5-7), then here its repetition has even less justification for itself, since from the entire analysis of 53 ch. it is clear that it is talking about an individual person, and not about the personification of a community (see especially “the man of sorrows” (3) “we have all gone astray... The Lord laid on Him the sins of all” (6) “He.. ... suffered voluntarily" (7) "for the crimes of My people he suffered execution" (8) "he committed no sin and there was no lie in His mouth" (9), etc.). It is not for nothing that even such a free-thinking exeget as Duhm says the following regarding the issue raised: “The Messiah is interpreted here, as far as possible, even more individually than in the other songs, and the interpretation of His personality in the sense of the actual or “true” people of Israel is here entirely impossible (vollends unmögich – “Das Buch Jesaia” – 365 s. Gothingen 1892). And along with this hypothesis, another one falls as well, as connected with it, that the exclusive listeners to whom this accusatory speech of the prophet was addressed were representatives of the pagan world, who oppressed the people of Israel. From criticizing a false opinion, let us move on to clarifying and justifying the correct one, expressed although very apodictically, but, unfortunately, without sufficient evidence.

“There is no doubt that the speaker here is the prophet Isaiah himself, the unbelievers or doubters are Jews, and the listeners are Jews and pagans” (I. Grigoriev, p. 207).

The correctness of the view just outlined is confirmed, first of all, by analyzing the context of speech. A whole series of previous speeches by the prophet Isaiah (48–50) contained threatening denunciations of the Jewish people for their “unbelief” in the meek Servant of the Lord, that is, in the Messiah. They contained appeals to the entire host of Israel and to its worst part, separately. In particular, the last, chapter 52, contained an appeal to the best part - to the spiritual Zion, to which the coming of the great Good News was announced and the joyful calling of the messengers about the coming salvation and peace (7-8). But, obviously, all these joyful news did not reach the ears of those to whom they were primarily intended: and the voice of the Evangelist and his guards for the vast majority of the Israeli people was “the voice of one crying in the wilderness,” since it could not have nutritious fruit on this rough, rocky soil. It is to this unbelieving majority of Israel that the prophet Isaiah now appeals with his prophetic word, wanting, on the one hand, to smash the false messianic ideas of the Jews and prepare them for the humble appearance of a meek and saving Messiah, on the other hand, he made his final appeal to the unbelieving masses this once chosen people and take away from them every pretext for possible self-justification.

We find clear confirmation of this view, first of all, in the same prophet Isaiah, who repeatedly and in no less strong expressions similar to those in Chapter 53 reproached the Jews of his time. So, back in chapter 6. in the story about the very embassy of the prophet Isaiah by the Lord, we read, among other things, the following: “go and tell this people; You will hear with your ears and not understand, and you will look with your eyes and not see. For the heart of this people is hardened, and their ears are hard of hearing, and they have closed their eyes, lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and turn, that I may heal them” (Isaiah 6:9-10). .

Or again: “You saw a lot, and did not notice; His ears were open, but he did not hear” (Is. 42:20; Compare Is. 28:9-15; Is. 29:10-15; Is. 30:9-11; Is. 43:23). Finally, the last shadow of doubt should disappear in the light of the New Testament comments on this chapter. Thus, in the Gospel of John, the passages we have just cited from the prophet Isaiah, as well as the beginning of chapter 53, are directly cited as a denunciation of the unbelief of the Jews: “He (Jesus Christ) performed so many miracles before them, and they did not believe in Him, that the word might be fulfilled.” Isaiah the prophet: “Lord, who believed what was heard from us? and to whom was the arm of the Lord revealed?” (John 12:37-41). In exactly the same way, the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Romans, starting chapter 53. in direct connection with the previous speech about the preaching of the Good News among Israel (Is. 52), he further says: “but not everyone obeyed the Good News. For Isaiah says: “Lord, who believed what was heard from us?” (Rom. 10v.)

A number of minor questions remain. Why, for example, does the prophet speak of himself in the plural? Obviously, because he speaks here not only on his own behalf, but also on behalf of the entire host of Old Testament prophets who announced the Messiah. A parallel to this is seen at the beginning of Chapter 40, where the Divine command to comfort the people of Israel is given not to Isaiah alone, but to many prophets (Is. 40:1), Under “heard from us” (“our hearing” LXX and glories) here , it is most correct to understand the special prophetic revelation about the Messiah and His kingdom (Isa.21:10; Isa.28:9; Jer.49:14; Obd.1, etc.). Hence, in a general sense, it can be understood as all the Deities, signs and wonders given to admonish Israel. In particular, here by “the opening of the arm of the Lord,” judging by the context (Is. 52:10), one should understand the miraculous revelation of the power and glory of God in the church of Christ. If the prophet says that this muscle has already “opened” for some, then, of course, not in the sense of the actual onset of this era, but in the sense of faith in it, subjective inner conviction in its future onset

Isa.53:2. For He rose up before Him as an offspring and as a sprout from dry ground; There is no form or greatness in Him; and we saw Him, and there was no appearance in Him that would attract us to Him.

Verses 2–3 describe the extremely humble, meek, and even humiliated appearance and corresponding social position of the Messiah. With all this, the prophet obviously goes straight to meet the most important and most destructive prejudice of the Jews about the menacingly majestic appearance of the Messiah they expected and his role as a victorious, earthly king-conqueror,

“For He went up before Him.” The immediate grammatical meaning of the speech apparently suggests that the relationship of the Messiah to the Lord, that is, of God the Father to God the Son, is revealed here. This is exactly how this passage is understood by many of the ancient and modern exegetes (Vitrin, Schmidt, Hoffmann, Delitzsch, Doom, Bishop Peter, Vlastov, (The pulp. Comm. and many others). But with this understanding it becomes quite unnatural logical connection of thoughts: before the Face of God the Father rises, and even in the most pitiful and humble form, He who from all eternity “has been in the bosom of the Father” (John 1:18) and for whom, of course, no prophetic warnings made sense about the appearance of the Messiah who was about to appear.But the latter was extremely important and necessary for people, especially for the erring Jews, who had formed an extremely wrong idea about this.

“It is therefore better to relate the suffix (“before Him”) to the subject of the interrogative sentence of the first verse, that is, to the individual personality of the prophet and the collective personality of the people of Israel.” (I. Grigoriev, p. 209. see, also Comm. St. Petersburg prof. 813 p.).

“Like an offspring and like a sprout from dry ground.” Instead of the first definition, “offspring,” LXX and our Slavic have “like a youth.” Eur. the word - jonach - allows for both of these translations: in relation to a person, it indicates a “baby”, and when applied to plants - to a “young, succulent shoot”. It is impossible not to notice that both of these comparisons are quite often found in various prophets, including the prophet Isaiah himself, although the latter (“branch”) apparently predominates (Is. 7:14-16; Is. 9:6; Isa.11:1; Job.14:7; Job.15:30; Jer.23:5; Ezek.17:4, 22; Zech.6, etc.)

“Like a sprout from a dry land.” Instead of “thirsty,” Aquilla translated “impassable,” notes Blessed Jerome: “to show the advantage of virginity, that without any human seed He came from a land that was previously “impassable” (also John Chrysostom ). With all the comparisons given, especially the last one, the prophet sufficiently prepared the minds of his listeners for what he then spoke about directly, without any images or similarities. The best parallel to this comparison is provided by the prophet Ezekiel (Ezekiel 17:23).

“There is neither appearance nor majesty in Him... that would attract us to Him.” Here, in simple and clear words, is the essence of the entire prophetic image of the appearance of the meek and humble Son of God, who appeared in the form of a servant. Aquilla translated: “He has neither form nor splendor.” And Symmachus is even more detailed: “He has neither form nor dignity for us to recognize Him, nor greatness (υεωρια) for us to desire Him. “The Servant of the Lord” in His appearance to people does not have the appearance and external environment that would be desirable for them or which they expected when He appeared, according to their natural reasoning; for, says Saint Cyril of Alexandria, “he did not have the appearance and glory befitting of God” (Exodus 19:16-20; Exodus 20:19); but he “made himself of no reputation, taking the form of a servant, becoming in the likeness of men, and becoming in appearance like a man” (Phil. 2 – See a Com. St. Petersburg prof. 814). These words, however, cannot be understood in the sense that the Savior’s appearance was so pitiful and wretched that he seemed to repel himself. On the contrary, all Christian antiquity testifies to the outstanding spiritual beauty of the Savior’s Face. They simply mean that the meek heavenly Teacher did not have that proud, arrogant appearance, that nobility by birth and that pomp in lifestyle with which the Jews, in their false ideas about the Messiah, had already surrounded Him in advance.

Isa.53:3. He was despised and belittled before men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with pain, and we turned our faces away from Him; He was despised, and we thought nothing of Him.

“He was despised and despised before men.” The content of the third verse further strengthens the idea of ​​the second: it said that the Messiah does not have any special merits and does not stand out in any way from among ordinary mortals. Here we add that if He stands out in any way, it is only in a negative, and not a positive way: He is worse and more contemptible than all others; How can He, after this, claim the role of the Messiah? The prophet Isaiah had already spoken about the contempt with which the majority of Jews and pagans would greet the Messiah (see Is. 49:7). And indeed, by His birth in the den, by His origin from Nazareth, by His constant friendly treatment of publicans and sinners; During His earthly life, the Messiah constantly gave reasons to the blind leaders of the Jewish people to speak of Him with contempt and hostility (Matt. 15:2, 12; Luke 19:7).

“And humbled before people,” or as in the Slavs. "more than all the sons of men." By “sons of men,” based on the biblical usage (Is. 2:9; Ps. 142:4), many are inclined to understand here the “noble representatives” of the Jewish people, especially their lawyers and Pharisees, these most fierce enemies of the Lord. Symmachus translates this with the word ελαχιστος - “the least of men”, and Jerome - novissimus - “the youngest of all”. And these last two translations, apparently, most successfully convey the idea of ​​​​the text, the task of which is to point out the extremely low, degraded social position of the Messiah, Who, coming from the lower class and dealing more with the common people, was constantly met with insultingly cold and arrogantly contemptuous attitude towards oneself from the noble, rich and influential official leaders of the people.

"Man of Sorrows" From Hebrew – isch maciboth – means: “a husband or a man of labors, sorrows, sorrows” (Ex. 3:7). An additional synonym for this definition is the one that follows it and has experienced illness. This is either a general definition of human nature, the natural destiny of which is sorrow and illness, or even a more specific indication of sinful human nature, since exhausting work, various illnesses and sorrows entered human nature as the immediate consequences of the Fall (Gen. 3:16 -19).

Blessed Jerome also adheres to the latter interpretation, who says that this text “points to the true human body and to the true human soul of the One who, knowing to bear infirmities, overcame all of them with Divinity” (Blessed Jerome). Here, therefore, the entire depth of the mystery of the incarnation is covertly indicated: God, having appeared in the flesh, took upon Himself our fallen nature in order to purify, exalt and glorify it with His atoning death, as the Apostle Paul perfectly explained, saying: “for we have not a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but who has been tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15).

“And we hid our face from no one.” Aquilla and Blessed Jerome convey this somewhat differently and as if His face was hidden, accordingly, the latter interprets this passage in the sense that the Lord deliberately hid, or did not reveal, did not demonstrate His Divine Omnipotence, in order to humbly bear what He had voluntarily accepted the burden of human sin. The consequence of this, of course, was that people “turned away” from Him, that is, they did not recognize Him as the Messiah and even mocked Him when He presented Himself as the real Messiah. Many of the interpreters see a prototype of this trait in the story of the long-suffering Job: “those who know me are alien to me. My loved ones have abandoned me, and my acquaintances have forgotten me” (Job 19:13-14); or: “He made me a byword to the people and a laughing stock to them” (Job 17:6). The suffering Messiah appears removed from human society, on a par with lepers. This is already the extreme degree of possible public humiliation of a person, when the community singles him out as an unworthy member.

Isa.53:4. But He took upon Himself our infirmities and bore our illnesses; and we thought that He was smitten, punished and humiliated by God.

From 4 to 6 tbsp. the prophet gives the key to unraveling such an amazing and inexplicable phenomenon for the majority of Old Testament humanity as the suffering and humiliation of the Messiah. From the story of righteous Job, we know well that the idea of ​​innocent suffering did not fit positively into the minds of the Old Testament sages: if someone suffered, then he, therefore, was a sinner; here, the usual logic of that time, which the Jews, of course, would apply to the suffering Messiah, about whom the prophet speaks here, legitimately seeing an internal contradiction in the words of the prophet: if the one you are talking about is the Messiah, then He should not suffer ( because He must be innocent); if He suffers, then this is no longer the Messiah. The Prophet Isaiah resolves this apparent contradiction here, revealing that although the Messiah will suffer, not for His personal guilt, but for our common sins, He will appear as an Innocent Sufferer, which is why His suffering will have such exceptional, cleansing and redemptive power.

For a better understanding of both this verse and the entire section under consideration (4-6), the interpretation of the 4th art. you should start with the second half, where the starting point of the speech is given.

We thought that He was smitten, punished and humiliated by God. The Prophet here connects himself with the believing Jews and, as if on their behalf, speaks about their former error and repentance for it. The essence of the error of the Jews, according to their own consciousness, was that they, seeing the Messiah enduring terrible suffering and the shame of humiliation, thought that He was a great sinner if God punished him so much. The Hebrew verb indicating this punishment - nega - hints mainly at leprosy (Lev. 13: 3, 9, 20; Num. 12: 9-10; 2 Kings 15: 5; etc.), which according to with context (3 tbsp.). And from the history of the Savior’s suffering on the cross, we actually know that many already saw in the very fact of His shameful death proof of His imposture and Divine punishment for this (Matthew 27:43). The well-known Gospel exclamation of the Divine Sufferer speaks about the same thing: “Either, Or! Lama Savakhthani? that is: My God, My God! Why have you forsaken me? (Matthew 27:46). In the same way, the Gospels note that at the very foot of the cross there were those who already believed in the Crucified One, such as, for example, one of the thieves crucified with him and the Roman centurion (Luke 23:40-43, 47).

But He took upon Himself our infirmities and bore our illnesses... We thought that God was sending suffering to the Messiah for His sins; but no, we were cruelly mistaken: it turns out that He Himself voluntarily bore our weaknesses and our illnesses. Based on the content of the dogma of atonement, many exegetes are inclined to understand by “infirmities” and “diseases” exclusively spiritual infirmities, that is, the “sins” of people, but Heb. the terms makib and holi are not used to denote the concept of “sin”. Therefore, it is much more correct to interpret these definitions in their direct, literal sense, since “infirmities” and “sicknesses,” as a consequence of the Fall, are the best indication of the cause that produces them. At the same time, one cannot help but see here a correspondence with the content of verse 3 (“a man of sorrows and acquainted with pain”), which, in general, describes the humiliated state of the Messiah, which is revealed here.

Isa.53:5. But He was wounded for our sins and tormented for our iniquities; punishment of our world was in Him, and by His stripes we are healed.

“But He was wounded for our sins and tormented for our iniquities.” There is a repetition and more detailed disclosure of the thought just expressed about the real meaning of the suffering of the Messiah. This is the clearest and most powerful prediction about the suffering on the cross and the death of the Savior, the significance of which was recognized for a long time even by the ancient rabbinic tradition. (See examples from the Midrash in the commentary of St. Petersburg prof. 818–819 pp.), Thus, Rabbi Joseph the Galilean answered the question: “Which, in your opinion, is the greater measure - the measure of goodness or the measure of vengeance?” answers: “The measure of goodness is greater, and the measure of vengeance is less.” But the King Messiah humbled himself and humbled himself for the criminals, as they say: but He was wounded for our sins... How much greater is His merit for all generations, as it is written: and the Lord laid on Him the sins of all.” The verb is “ulcerated” or “wounded” Heb. halal - indicates, in general, physical suffering, in particular, specifically piercing with a spear (Ezek. 32:25). This refers to the well-known gospel detail about the perforation of the Savior’s rib.

“We are tormented for our iniquities,” the yoke, as some translate it, “crushed,” instead of “tormented.” Here, therefore, they emphasize another moment of suffering - the grave mental torment of the Divine Sufferer, which He foresaw even the day before, in the Garden of Gethsemane, and experienced with all its acuteness at the very moment of suffering on the cross (Matt. 26:37-38; Matt. 27:46; cf. Ps.21:17; Ps.87:4-8, 15-18).

“The chastisement of our peace was upon Him.”

“Punishment – ​​musar – can be understood in two senses: legal and pedagogical. LXX and Vulg. understood in the latter why: παιδεια ειρηνης ημων, disciplina pacis nostrae. But the context of the speech allows us to combine both meanings: the punishment of the Youth of the Lord, on the one hand, was retribution before God’s justice for the sins of mankind, that is, it had a legal nature, it was roena mulcta; on the other hand, having killed the sin living in human nature (Rom. 6:6), it made it possible for people to be brought to the Heavenly Father (Eph. 2:18), thus it also had pedagogical significance.” (Com. St. Petersburg prof. 819).

Consequently, it was a real punishment, but one through which peace (reconciliation) with God was achieved for us, which was once broken by the Fall. Why did the prophet Isaiah have every reason to call the Messiah earlier “the prince of peace” (Is. 9:6).

“And by His stripes we were healed” or, as in the Slavic translation, “by His stripes we were healed.” This prophecy represents amazing accuracy regarding the most important moment of the Messiah’s redemptive ministry, His death on the cross, when the precious blood of the Lord flowing from the pierced hands and feet healed humanity from the mortal diseases of sin. The Apostle Peter expresses himself in almost the same way when he writes: “He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, so that we, having been delivered from sins, might live for righteousness: by His stripes you were healed” (1 Pet. 2:24; See Grigoriev - 215). The whole power of this healing lies in the fact that here not only is the external wound of sin healed, but it is also killed, its internal root is torn out - “having pacified through Him, through the Blood of His Cross, both earthly and heavenly?” (Col 1.20)

Isa.53:6. We have all gone astray, like sheep; we have turned every one to his own way: and the Lord laid on Him the sins of us all.

“We all go astray, like sheep, each of us has turned to his own way.” The beginning of the verse (“all of us”) testifies to the expansion of the scope of prophetic speech: here the prophet no longer speaks on behalf of the converted Jews, not even on behalf of the people of Israel in general, but on behalf of all humanity, on behalf of all the descendants of the fallen ancestors. This is one of the best, poetic depictions of the universality of sinful corruption in the human race and its complete religious and moral unprincipledness, looseness and decline. It should also be noted that the very fact of contrasting our common sinfulness (“all of us,” therefore, the so-called Old Testament righteous people, and the prophet himself) with the sinlessness of the Messiah, decisively rebels against any attempt to identify the personality of this Slave with any of the representatives sinful humanity. The image of a flock without a shepherd, taken here for comparison, is one of the favorites in both the Old and New Testaments (Num. 27:17; 2 Chron. 18:16; Matt. 9:36; John 10:11-16 and etc.). He speaks not so much about the maliciousness of error as about the confusion and helplessness of those who are lost, which is especially applied to the pagan world, which, according to the testimony of the Apostle Paul, intensely sought God, but could not find Him (Rom. 1 ch.).

“And the Lord laid the sins of us all on Him,” or, as in Slavic: “and the Lord gave up His sin for ours.” The above words are directed against the very essence of Jewish error. The Jews thought that if someone suffers, it means that the Lord punished him, or “committed” him to disaster for his own sins. The Prophet here says: yes, the Messiah is also subject to Divine punishment, the Lord “hands over” Him to suffer; but the whole depth of the difference lies in the fact that these sufferings will be retribution not for His personal guilt, but for “the sins of us all.” “The Lord gave Him up for our sins, so that He would bear in our place what we, due to our weakness of strength, could not bear,” Blessed Jerome explains this perfectly. It is not difficult to see that the expression of this verse is based on an image taken from the details of the religious ceremonies on the day of atonement - namely, the symbolic action of the high priest placing the sins of all Israel on the head of the Scapegoat (Lev. 16:21-22). Both the main idea of ​​​​this verse and the images contained in it are beautifully revealed in the New Testament Scriptures, especially in the Apostle Paul, who, for example, says about Jesus Christ that “he who knew no sin made for us sacrifice for sin, that in Him we might be made the righteousness of God.” (2 Cor. 5:21).

Isa.53:7. He was tortured, but He suffered voluntarily and did not open His mouth; like a sheep He was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb before its shearers is silent, so He did not open His mouth.

From 7th to 9th century inclusively there is a special speech about the suffering, death and burial of the meek Servant of the Lord, His humble Son, that is, the suffering Messiah.

“He was tortured, but he suffered voluntarily.” A repetition of the old thought (4-6), but with some new addition - namely, with a clearer indication of the voluntary nature of the Messiah's redemptive suffering. The general nature of the Messiah’s suffering is here indicated by one word - “he was tortured”, in Slavic - “he was embittered.” “To be angry” means, in fact, to be the object of someone’s anger, to endure oppression and experience suffering. “As slave drivers torment poor animals (Ex. 3:7), as hard-hearted people mock those who fall into their hands (Is. 3:12; Is. 58:3), so cruelly and mercilessly evil tormentors torture the innocent The Servant of the Lord" (I. Grigoriev. 218).

“But he suffered voluntarily and did not open his mouth.” Here the prophet Isaiah for the first time speaks with such certainty about the voluntary nature of the redemptive suffering of the Messiah, which is where their saving power lay. True, he came across hints of this before, for example, in the place where he, describing the meek image of the Servant of the Lord, says about him that “He will not cry out or raise his voice and will not allow Him to be heard in the streets. He will not break a bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax” (Is. 42:2-3); or even more covertly in another place: “The Lord God opened My ear, and I did not resist” (Is. 50:5). But not to mention the fact that the meaning of these texts is rather secretive; they speak more either about the general nature of the teachings and life of the Messiah, or about His complete obedience to the will of the Heavenly Father. The passage we are considering clearly and definitely says that the sufferings of the Messiah were not only passive, but active in nature, they were not only submissive submission to someone else’s will, but at the same time a living expression of His own will, an act of the highest personal self-sacrifice.

The second half of this verse - “as a sheep was led to the slaughter, and as a lamb is silent before its shearers, so He opens not His mouth” - is an excellent illustration of the thought just expressed - about the voluntary character and silent enduring of the Messiah of all terrible and committed suffering undeserved by Him. The very image was taken by the prophet from everyday life; but he, apparently, is not devoid of a transformative character, since he also alludes either to the Passover lamb, or to the sacrificial lamb, which was usually tied before the slaughter, and he endured all this patiently and meekly. Both sacrifices had a transformative meaning in relation to the great Calvary sacrifice (1 Cor. 5:7; John 1:29; Rev. 5:6, 12). This image is almost literally found again in the prophet Jeremiah (Jer. 11:19): “And I am like a meek lamb led to the slaughter.” Regarding the fulfillment of the prophecies of this verse, almost all commentators agree to see in it a surprisingly accurate picture of the mockery and mockery of the Innocent Sufferer, which He meekly and patiently endured during the biased high priestly trial of Him (Matt. 26: 62-63, 67-68; Matthew 27:12-14; Mark 15:3-5; Luke 23:9; John 19:9-10). The same touching moment was noted by the Apostle Peter in the following words: “Although He was slandered, He did not slander each other; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but handed it over to the Just Judge” (1 Pet. 2:23). In the prophet Isaiah himself, the closest parallel to this verse is a place already known to us: “I gave My back to the smiters, and My cheeks to those who smite; I did not hide My face from mockery and spitting.” (Isa.50:6). Finally, we cannot remain silent about the fact that it was this passage from the prophet Isaiah that served as a grateful theme for the clarification speech of the Apostle Philip, which he addressed to the nobleman of the Ethiopian queen, Kondakia, and ended with the latter’s baptism (Acts 8:28-35).

Isa.53:8. He was taken from bonds and judgment; but who will explain His generation? for He is cut off from the land of the living; for the crimes of my people I suffered execution.

“He was taken from bondage and judgment.” In the interpretation of this place, Blessed Jerome says: “from distress and from judgment he was taken,” or LXX translated - “in humiliation His judgment was taken,” meaning that after adversity and judgment He ascended to the Father victorious, or that the Judge of all did not find a fair trial, “but the Messiah was condemned without any guilt due to the indignation of the Jews and with the consent of Pilate” (Blessed Jerome - Interpretation of Chapter 53 of Isaiah).

Saint Cyril of Alexandria also explains this passage in accordance with him: therefore, truly “in humility His judgment will be taken”: for after He seemed to them submissive and very embarrassed, they hastily pronounced a decision and judgment regarding Him. This is exactly what some of the judges do, who care little about accuracy and truth, but judge more by personality, but not by facts” (see in the commentary of St. Petersburg prof. 821).

Consequently, according to the meaning of the patristic exegesis, it turns out that the above words of the prophet speak of the absence of a correct trial of the Messiah, thanks to the abuses that His biased judges allowed themselves, taking advantage of His meekness and humility. The validity of this interpretation is the commentary of St. Petersburg. professors is also confirmed by philological analysis of the text.

“If the Heb. - oseg - to be understood in accordance with the use of the root of this word, the verb aseag, - in various places of Holy Scripture (cf. 1 Kings 18:44; 2 Kings 4:24; Job 4:2; Job 12:15), then it should means: “detention”, and in conjunction with mischpath - “court” - “detention of the sentence”, “defense”. Thus, the meaning of the expression - meocer umimmischpat lucciah - is: “The Servant of the Lord was deprived of protection and correct judgment.” As the history of the trial of Christ the Savior shows, indeed, when it was carried out, the main conditions of correct legal proceedings according to the criminal law in force among the Jews were not fulfilled. The delay required by this right regarding the execution of the death sentence and the permission for anyone who could say something in favor of the condemned person to say this during the execution of the death sentence on Christ the Savior had no application" (Comment. St. Petersburg Prof., p. 821 –822).

This understanding of this passage is apparently confirmed by its New Testament parallel: “in His humiliation His judgment was perfected” (Acts 8:33), that is, the unrighteous judgment of the Lord occurred in adaptation to the cramped position in which He found Himself.

“But who will explain His generation?” “This is perhaps the most difficult passage to interpret in all of Chapter 53. What is unclear here, first of all, is the contrast between the new thought and the previous one (“but”); The very subject of speech is also mysterious - the “genus” that is spoken of here; finally, the connection of this place with the previous and subsequent context is completely unclear. The greatest difficulty is in defining the main concept - the “kind” of the Messiah, which no one can explain. There are many different assumptions to explain it. Their diversity - according to the correct observation of learned commentators - is determined by the difference in understanding of Hebrew. the word – dor – “genus”, which has two main meanings: rotation in time and rotation in space, so that according to the first meaning, specific concepts are developed from it: period of life, genus, generation (present contemporaries, past ancestors, future - descendants) , and according to the second: the dwelling of a person, his spirit, that is, the body, his ancestors, that is, the tomb” (Comm. St. Petersburg prof. 822).

Doom frankly admits that “out of many possible translations it is difficult to choose the right one” (schwer wählen). The majority of exegetes, led by the patristic ones (Blessed Jerome, St. Cyril of Alexandria, St. John Chrysostom, etc.) adhere to the first interpretation, that is, they explain the word - dor in the sense of rotation in time, origin, generation, posterity.

Some of the holy fathers and some of the newest exegetes (Stier and Nailsbach) interpret the word dor in the sense of “offspring,” understood, of course, in a spiritual sense, that is, “a race or generation of the children of God” (See more about this in I Grigoriev, who himself prefers this interpretation pp. 220–221). Others explain the word dor as a definition of the “life” or, more precisely, the “lifespan” of the Messiah, which was all a complete misunderstanding in the eyes of the majority of Jews (Luther, Witring, Urwick).

Finally, most of the newest exegetes see here an indication of the generation contemporary with Jesus Christ, that is, of His “contemporaries,” for the vast majority of whom everything that happened to Him was completely incomprehensible (Rosenmüller, Gesenius, Reuss, Giesbrecht, Delitzsch, Diljann, Vlastov and others).

The second group of exegetes, which adheres to the interpretation of the root cxx in the sense of indicating a place, is much smaller in number, but it also has authoritative names in its midst. So, Knobel belongs to it, who rather fantastically sees in the word dor an indication of the “grave” of the Messiah, which no one knows. Duhm gives a more general sense to the word dor, as a reference to "place" in general. Finally, the authors of the commentary St. Petersburg. The academies see here a more specific indication of the most pure “body” of the Savior, as the place of the dwelling of His spirit (See 823 p.). This multitude and variety of opinions alone speaks volumes about the controversial nature of the issue and the uncertainty of its solution.

Not without reason, the author of one of the newest commentaries on the book. the Prophet Isaiah, after a detailed analysis of all the given interpretations, hopelessly notes that “not one of these interpretations is satisfactory” (Condamin). From here, he, like some other exegetes, even had a guess, not without wit: whether we have in this example some accidental damage to the text; Shouldn’t we replace the word doro, which is unclear here, with the legal term deboro, which is completely appropriate in a speech about judgment, which means “cause, guilt” (2 Chron. 19:6)? And then this whole verse is interpreted easily and clearly: “Have you deprived Him of righteous Judgment? But which of you knows the reason for this, who can name His guilt, worthy of such a terrible sentence" (Condamin Le Livre d "lsaie, 321 pp. Paris 1905). If, at all costs, one adheres to the existing text (dor) , then the most consistent with the context of the speech will be its interpretation in the sense of the Divine “origin” of the Messiah, which was hidden from the eyes of His tormentors (“Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34).

“Who will speak about His generation? About the glorious properties of His nature, when He was taken into prison and to trial, delivered to death? Who can think or believe in the glory of His race, seeing such His humiliation? Here (as in the entire chapter) the visible humiliation and hidden glory of the Messiah are contrasted with His Divine nature, or the glorification of human nature through suffering,” says the author of one of the best dissertations in the book. the prophet Isaiah, who, in support of his view, makes successful references to many New Testament passages (John 19:9; Mark 14:61-62), as well as to the testimony of Justin the Philosopher (Jer. Thaddeus, “The Unity of the Book of Isaiah,” pp. 212–213, note of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra 1901).

So, in conclusion of everything, we come to the conclusion that in the words of the prophet - “Who will explain His generation?” - I give a hidden contrast between the humiliating appearance and poor, humble earthly origin of the Messiah (2–3 v.) with His real, heavenly greatness, His eternal birth from the Father and His Divine dignity. Obviously, these words burst out of the prophet’s chest as a “sort of” lyrical sigh of a believing soul, deeply struck by such a sharp discrepancy between this fact (the life and teaching of the Messiah and his human assessment (death on the cross for this).

“For He is cut off from the land of the living; For the transgressions of My people I suffered execution.” We consider the best interpretation of these words to be understanding them in the sense of an answer to the previous question; and first a concise and figurative answer is given, and then it is explained. To the question asked above - “Who can explain His generation?” - the prophet himself answers: “no one, for this is proven not only in word, but also in deed: throughout the entire earthly life of the Savior, the vast majority of the Jews treated Him with contempt and arrogance, and therefore did not understand Him at all. It revealed the same complete thoughtlessness at the most decisive moment, at the end of the earthly ministry of Jesus Christ, thereby causing this unreasonable crowd, led by their blind leaders, to bring Him to death on the cross. It is this last thought that is primarily emphasized by the expression standing here - “Torn away from the land of the living” - even more clearly translated in LXX and in Slavonic “as if His belly was lifted from the earth,” indicating death, in general, and violent, in in particular.

Further words of the text - “For the crimes of My people I suffered execution” - provide a repetition and explanation of the previous thought - about the death of the Messiah on the cross. This parallelism of thoughts, which we so often encounter in the prophet Isaiah (as well as in many other biblical authors) is a necessary tribute to the laws of Jewish poetry, in the poetic meter of which most of his inspired speeches are written and, in particular, the greatest poem we are considering (Isa. .52:13; Isa.53).

In its thought, this phrase is very close to the content of the fifth verse, but with the slight difference that it more sharply emphasizes all the black ingratitude and all the extreme criminality of the Jewish people: that people who were the chosen one of God (“his people”) and for whose crime, first of all, Christ suffered, it was he who was the active executor of the death penalty against Him, strenuously seeking it, even against the wishes of the Roman government (Pontius Pilate).

Isa.53:9. He was assigned a grave with the evildoers, but He was buried with a rich man, because He committed no sin, and no lie was in His mouth.

“He was assigned a grave with evildoers, but He was buried with a rich man.” Both the reading itself and the understanding of this passage have many different versions, almost leading to the opposite. We think that preference should be given to the one that does not contradict philology and is most consistent with the context of speech. Having spoken in the previous verses about the suffering (7) and death (8) of the Messiah, the prophet now successively moves on to talk about His burial. Here he gives a strong, artistic antithesis - the wicked plans of the Jews, on the one hand, and the Divine glorification of the Messiah, on the other. Knowing no bounds, the anger of the enemies of the Messiah was ready to pursue Him even after death: this was expressed in the fact that He, as an executed religious and political criminal, was also prepared for a shameful burial.

Maimonides, for example, writes that “those punished by death were not buried with their ancestors; two places were reserved for them: one for those stoned and burned, the other for those beheaded and hanged.” Josephus also testifies: “he who blasphemed was stoned, hanged for a day and buried without any honor.” Something similar, only probably with even greater humiliation, was prepared by the Jewish authorities for the Innocent Messiah they killed. But God’s providence was pleased to prevent this shame, and the fact of the burial of the Messiah, instead of a means of new humiliation, became the beginning of His glorification. Here one cannot see a prophetic allusion to that well-known historical fact, how a rich resident of Arimathea comes to Pilate and asks him for the most pure Body and buries it with great honors (Matt. 27:57; Luke 23:50-52). Consequently, there is no need to contrive to reinterpret the direct and clear meaning of the words “evil” (wicked, evildoer) and “rich” (noble, possessing material wealth), as many rationalistic exegetes do, reinterpreting the concept of “rich” also in a negative sense. The whole force of this comparison obviously lies in the contrast between the shameful burial of a villain and the honorable funeral of a noble and respected person.

The end of verse 9, “for He committed no sin, neither was there any lying in His mouth,” gives a beautiful breakdown of the above fact. In the eyes of a devout Jew, the honorable burial of Christ could seem to be a deviation from the law, according to which all criminals were deprived of not only an honorable, but even an ordinary burial. With the Messiah, the opposite will be done, and this is because, as the prophet explains, that He is not a villain or a criminal at all, but the One true and sinless... These words also decisively refute all suspicions and slander against the Messiah, that since He suffered, then , therefore, was sinful. The Prophet above has already repeatedly said that if the Messenger of God really suffered, it was only for the sins of others (5); here he says even more directly that he had no sins of his own, not only in deed, but even in word. In this respect, the Messiah stands out sharply from the society of all people, among whom there is not a single alien sin (Is. 64:6; Ps. 35:5-6). It is not without reason that both He Himself and His disciples pointed out this feature of the Divine dignity of the Savior of the world with particular force (John 8:46; 1 Pet. 2:22; 2 Cor. 5.21, etc.).

Isa.53:10. But the Lord was pleased to strike Him, and He gave Him over to torture; when His soul brings a sacrifice of propitiation, He will see long-lasting offspring, and the will of the Lord will be successfully fulfilled by His hand.

Art. 10–11, representing, as it were, the final conclusion from this entire chapter, reveal to us the inner, deepest meaning of the Messiah’s suffering on the cross and its saving fruits.

“But it pleased the Lord to smite Him.” Again, a clear answer to the main bewilderment of the Jews - about the death of an innocent sufferer. According to the false Jewish understanding, innocent suffering does not exist, since God would never allow it. Exposing this error regarding the Messiah, the prophet says that in this case we have an exception, that the suffering and death of this Innocent One did not occur contrary to the will of His Heavenly Father, but in complete agreement with it (Acts 2:23; Phil. 2:6 -7; Col.1:19-20). In the Slavic, both in the LXX and in the Slavic translation, this thought is expressed somewhat differently and, perhaps, even more clearly: “The Lord wants to cleanse Him from the ulcer.” Most commentators on this text connect it directly with the end of verse 6, which says that the Lord laid on Him the sins of all people. It was this severity of universal worldly sin that constituted that disease, or “ulcer,” for the salvation of which the Messiah had to make an atoning sacrifice in the form of death on the cross. Nailing to the cross, the ulcer of world sin, has lost its power and has given the opportunity for spiritual and moral recovery to all who partake of this gracious source of healing, as was beautifully explained above: “the punishment of our world was in Him, and by His stripes we were healed.” (5 items). This is precisely the deepest secret of redemption: that the Innocent One suffers for the guilty in order to reveal to them the source of justification.

“When will His soul offer a sacrifice of propitiation.” In LXX, instead of the words sacrifice of propitiation, there is περι ᾿αμαρτιας, which is famous. translated - “About sin”. Used in euros In the text, the term - asam - according to the Hebraists, should literally be translated with the words: guilt offering, which comes closer to the sacrifice of propitiation. The nature and ritual of this sacrifice is discussed in detail in the book. Leviticus (Lev.5:1-19; Lev.7:1-9).

“The main idea of ​​sacrifice - asam - is satisfactio, or satisfaction of violated rights (in the broad sense of the concept). The idea of ​​satisfaction here is created by the requirement of divine justice, and the idea of ​​redemption follows from the fact of punishment, inseparable from crime.” (I. Grigoriev - 228 notes).

Here, therefore, a very important additional touch is given that the atoning death of the Messiah also had a propitiatory character in relation to the highest Divine Truth: “Mercy and truth meet, justice and peace kiss each other” (Ps. 84v.).

“He will see a long-lasting descendant, and the will of the Lord will be done prosperously by His hand.” When the Lord Jesus Christ completes His great redemptive mission and thereby gives sufficient satisfaction to the Truth of God, then with all this He will again open to us the opportunity to receive many and rich benefits from the heavenly Father. To express the last thought, the prophet uses an image that is most understandable and sympathetic to the Old Testament Jew. And for him, as we know, one of the highest blessings was numerous and long-lasting offspring, which is why all patriarchal promises are primarily focused on this very point (Gen. 13:16; Gen. 15:5; Gen. 17: 5-6 ; Gen.22:17; Gen.28, etc.).

In relation to the Messiah, this promise has its own special meaning - it points not to carnal, but to spiritual offspring, that is, to those future confessors of Christianity, about whom the Evangelist John the Theologian writes that the Lord “has given the power to become children of God, who are not from blood, neither of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but were born of God” (John 1:12-13). The Psalmist speaks no less expressively about Him in one of the messianic psalms: “the offspring... will serve Him, and will be called the Lord forever” (Ps. 21:31). Finally, the prophet Isaiah has already spoken more than once about the same “spiritual Zion”, “born of God” and its worldwide spread (Is.54:1, 5, 17; Is.49:21; Is.44:28; Is.42:1, 3, 6; Is.45, etc.). The Messiah himself will “see” this long-lived seed and will, in relation to it, be its constant leader and conductor of the Divine will. And since it was already said above about the death and burial of the Son of God, it is clear that here implicitly His glorious resurrection from the dead and royal seat at the right hand of God the Father. And these are all features of the Messiah that cannot be unconditionally applied to anyone other than the Son of God. It should be noted that the words of the text: “He will see a long-lasting offspring” are literally translated from Hebrew somewhat differently, more in accordance with our commentary: He will see the seed, he will live long (Jer. Thaddeus - 214),

Isa.53:11. He will look at the feat of His soul with contentment; through the knowledge of Him, He, the Righteous One, My Servant, will justify many and bear their sins on Himself.

“He will look upon the struggle of His soul with contentment.” In the LXX and in Slavic, the beginning of this verse is read completely differently: “And the Lord wants to take away the disease from His soul with His hand, to show Him the light.” To explain such a significant discrepancy, some Hebraists find that our Russian translation is not accurate enough and what is more correct from the Hebrew it should be translated as follows: “having been freed from labor” (Gesenius), or “due to the labor (feat) of His soul, He will see contentment” (Jer Thaddeus). With this translation, the connection between the Russian text and the Slavic one becomes closer and clearer: both, obviously, say the same thing, namely that for the Messiah, after the painful moment of temporary humiliation, eternal contentment will come, that is, complete and high moral satisfaction.

The difference is that the Russian text covers the matter from the subjective side (talking about the internal well-being of the Messiah, and the Slavic text – from the objective side (indicating the external source of His justification and glorification). However, both translations fully correspond to the context of the speech, where just before this also spoke of reward for the deed of the Messiah (Art. 10).

“Through the knowledge of Him He, My Righteous Servant, will justify many.” By “knowledge” (Heb. daet), or “mind” (Greek επιγνωσις), here we mean the closest, direct knowledge of God in general (“The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has revealed” (John 1 :18), as well as penetration into the depths of the mystery of the Divine economy about the salvation of the human race (Matt. 11:27; John 10, etc.) The idea that the Son of the Lord did the will of the Father who sent Him voluntarily, willingly and with full consciousness of it meaning and power, was repeatedly revealed in different images by the prophet Isaiah before, especially in the image of an obedient and attentive disciple (Is. 50: 4-5). “He... will justify many.” It does not say all, but only many , just as before: “So He will make many nations astonished” (Is. 52:15). Obviously, because although the possibility of justification and salvation through sharing in the fruits of the atoning death of the Lord is now open to everyone who will take advantage of by no means everyone, but only those who have ardent faith and a free inner attraction to Divine grace (Rom. 5:19). It is worthy of special note that God Himself here calls His Son Righteous, which eliminates the last possibility of doubt about the personal righteousness of the Suffering One. Messiah, which, as we know, most of all confused the Jews about Him.

Judas the traitor confesses about Him: “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood” (Matthew 27:4), and Pilate’s wife says: “Do not do anything to that Just One” (Matthew 27:19). It should be noted that He is justified not so that from the unjust he becomes righteous... the righteous is justified... so that what He was will be revealed to everyone,” says Blessed Jerome, commenting on this verse.

Isa.53:12. Therefore, I will give Him a portion among the great, and He will share the spoils with the strong, because He gave His soul to death and was counted among the evildoers, while He bore the sin of many and became an intercessor for the criminals.

Represents a solemn conclusion to the entire 53 chapters. To give it greater solemnity and power, the speaker here is the Lord Himself, crowning His faithful Son with a rich reward, as the conqueror of His enemies and the exact executor of His Divine will.

“Therefore I will give Him a portion among the great, and with the mighty He will divide the spoil.” Here, according to the laws of Jewish metrics, the same thought about the victorious reward of the Messiah is repeated twice. “The innocently suffering slave, in terms of the final results of his activity, is compared with powerful rulers, or, as the further expression shows, with the world-wide conquerors of kingdoms. At the same time, the minds of the readers of the prophecies of Isaiah, esp. Chapters 35–46, Cyrus the Persian should have been presented, of course” (I. Grigoriev - 232).

One cannot help but compare with this the end of the previous chapter 52, which also spoke of the silent, reverent amazement of the kings at the greatness of the work of the Messiah (Art. 15). This very image of comparative comparison with earthly kings and their kingdoms gives the idea of ​​the triumphant Messiah, as also a king standing at the head of a special spiritual kingdom, that is, the Church of Christ, which in theory should be the implementation of the “kingdom of God on earth.” There is, however, another, philologically even more accurate translation of the phrase: I will give Him many as an inheritance, and the mighty will be divided as spoils. people, and the Messiah will rule over the kings themselves.

“Because He gave His soul to death... He bore the sin of many and became an intercessor for criminals.” Here again, under the sanction of Divine authority, the essence of the atoning sacrifice which was the cause of the above reward is revealed. He “betrayed, or as Bishop Peter translated, “shed” His soul to death,” seeing in this a hint of execution on the cross.

“This metaphorical expression is taken from animals, which, being slain for sacrifice, shed along with the blood the soul contained in the blood (Gen. 9:4; Lev. 17:11). The Savior also says about Himself that He came to give His life as a ransom for many” (John 10:11, 18 - Bishop Peter). The last expression and became an intercessor for criminals especially clearly emphasizes the meaning of the propitiatory sacrifice of an innocent sufferer for sinful humanity. At the same time, this is perhaps the clearest of the Old Testament passages indicating the “Intercessor” of the New Testament.

“And he was numbered among the villains.” According to the testimony of the evangelists Mark and Luke, the Lord Himself, hanging on the cross, attributed this prophecy to himself (Mark 15:27; Luke 22:37), obviously, or in a general sense - to determine His shameful execution, or even more privately, to indicate His crucifixion “among two thieves” (Matt. 27:44).

The great prophetic speech we have considered (Is. 52:13; Is. 53), being in close connection with the previous messianic sections of the book. the prophet Isaiah (Is.42:1-4; Is.49:1-6; Is.50:4-9), is the crown and completion of all of them, where the personality of first the suffering and then the glorified Son of God appears with all certainty and by force. In 53 ch. - according to the fair opinion of learned commentators - the prophetic contemplation of the prophet Isaiah reaches its zenith. Here, suffering and condemnation to death, death itself, burial and glorification of Christ the Savior are depicted with such clarity that if there is one somewhere, then it is in the prophecy of this chapter that the prophet Isaiah, according to the word of Blessed Jerome, is magis evangelista (“more of an evangelist”) "), quam propheta ("than a prophet") - St. Petersburg. professor.

In view of the special clarity and certainty of the messianic nature of the prophecies of chapter 53, there was and is, of course, no shortage of attempts at negative exegesis on the part of rationalist criticism. However, the clear meaning of the prophecy, its relationship with others and the deep antiquity of references to it in Jewish and Christian literature almost did not allow critics to use their favorite technique - to deny the authenticity of the origin of this prophecy. Only a relatively very few of the little-known Protestant critics (Schian Kosters etc.) dared to do this, who met unanimous resistance even among their own like-minded people (See the special monograph by E. Sellin “Studien zur Erstehungsgeschichte der judischen Gemeinde” Der Knecnt Gottes bei Deuterojesaia”) .

In modern times, in defense of the authenticity of this prophecy, in addition to all previous arguments, a new one has been put forward, which enjoys great weight among learned researchers of Jewish texts. It is based on a detailed analysis of the text of the entire speech under consideration (Is. 52:13 - Is. 53), as a result of which it is revealed that this entire speech is one poem (prophetic song), which, according to the laws of Jewish versification, naturally falls into the following five verses: Isa.52:13-15:) (1st stanza), Isa.53:1-3:) (2nd stanza), Isa.53:4-6:) (3rd stanza), Isa.53: 7-9:) (4th stanza), Isa.53:10-12:) (5th stanza), of which two symmetrical stanzas at the beginning, one intermediate in the middle, and again two symmetrical ones at the end.

“But once the division of the poem into stanzas and the symmetry of the stanzas has been established, the authenticity of this section and its relation to the Messiah become an indisputable fact” (A. Condamin Qp. cit. 323 and 331 p.) The impossibility of denying the speeches of the prophet Isaiah about the “Messiah” turned all efforts rationalistic criticism in search of any possibility of their reinterpretation.

The initiative in this sense belongs to the medieval Jewish rabbis, who were pained to recognize the messianic meaning behind this prophecy (chapter 53) and thereby see in it the strongest denunciation of their unbelief. And now the learned Jewish rabbi, Aben Ezra († 1150), is almost the first to come forward with the theory of the so-called “collective” understanding of the personality of the Messiah, seeing here an image of the suffering of the entire people of Israel. The hypothesis of Aben Ezra was supported by rabbis Rashi and Kimchi, and among the newest ones, Gitzi, Reuss, Helbrecht, Budde, Marty, Rowe, Eichhorn, Koster, and others adhere to it.

One version of this hypothesis is close to it, another, which means by “Messiah” not historical Israel in general, but an abstract, ideal Israel, as it should have been, according to its calling (Blesk, Ewald, etc.). The same group of “collectivistic” hypotheses includes two more, of which one sees in the suffering Messenger of God an indication of the suffering of the Old Testament righteous (Paulus, Maurer, Knobel, Koln, etc.), and the other - “the institution of the Old Testament prophets” (Gesenius, De. Bemme, Umbreit, Schenkel, Hofmann, etc.). But the inconsistency and arbitrariness of all these “collectivist” reinterpretations is clear from the analysis of the text, and we have already said enough about it in its place. The hopelessness of such a view is apparently quite clearly recognized by the most negative criticism, which is increasingly beginning to leave the soil of the “collectivistic” understanding and move to the soil of the “individualistic” interpretation of the personality of the Messiah. But here we encounter, perhaps, an even greater difference of opinion: some attribute this prophecy to Jeremiah (Rabbi Saadia, Grotius, Seidel), others - to King Josiah (Rabbi Abarbanel, Augusti), others - to the good man. King Hezekiah (Bardney, Koninberg), fourth - to the prophet Isaiah himself (Steidlin), fifth - to some outstanding martyr from the era of King Manasseh (Ewald), others to David, Zerubbabel, the martyr Eleazar, etc., etc. n. This multiplicity and contradictory nature of the above opinions alone reveals their groundlessness and arbitrariness better than any criticism.

“In chapters Is.52–Is.53:) “The Messenger of God” is so clearly depicted as a real Person that to see here a simple personification of an ideal righteous man would mean to give the place some kind of abstract and distant meaning instead of the direct and immediately presented one, - moreover without sufficient grounds in the context and with many insoluble difficulties” (Jer Thaddeus, Works cited 284–285).

In contrast to the inconsistency and instability of rationalistic hypotheses, the Orthodox Christian understanding of this speech, in addition to its analysis and context, has a number of strong external evidence for itself. This, first of all, includes numerous and powerful quotations from the Talmud and Midrash, leaving no doubt about their view of the messianic character of Chapter 53. (See excerpts from them in I. Grigoriev, “Cited works.” 197–198). Then, numerous patristic interpretations are directly adjacent here, starting with Justin the Martyr and Irenaeus of Lyons and ending with John Chrysostom, Jerome and Augustine (See ibid. 197-202). Finally, it is not without serious significance that such a view is shared not only by all orthodox exegetes, among whom there are many people with major names (Hensler, Michaelis, Gefernich, Stier, Tolkzh, Gengstenberg, Reinke, Delitzsch, Knabenbauer), but also by very many freethinkers , Protestant theologians (Dillmaln, Doom, Davidson, Driver G. A. Smith, Kirkpatrick, Skinner, etc.). Even those scientists who defend a “collectivistic” understanding of the Messiah, and they sometimes agree to recognize the literal, historical meaning, also have a representative messianic one.

“The work and mission of Christ, as Teacher, Prophet, Example and Sacrifice, unites all that Israel was only partially and imperfectly” (Driver).

“Everything that is depicted here under the guise of the pious part of Israel, or the holy martyr, the Christian Church had the right to find the realization of all this in the person of Jesus Christ” (G. A. Smith).

Even Renan found here “hints, as if taken in anticipation of Jesus.” And the author of one of the newest popularly negative translated books directly calls the author of this speech “The Great Anonymous” and puts him on a par with the New Testament evangelists (Senderland “The Holy Books of the Old and New Testaments” 1907) After all this, it is not surprising that orthodox exegesis recognizes this the prophecy is the greatest and, I am ready to consider it as if written at the foot of Golgotha. (F. Delich).

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In the days of the New Testament, when revival came to Jerusalem, an angel spoke to the Apostle Philip. He ordered him to go to the Gaza desert, where Philip met an Ethiopian nobleman riding in a chariot. This man was reading aloud from the book of Isaiah, so Philip asked this nobleman, “Do you understand what you are reading?” (Acts 8:30).

Obviously, this nobleman stopped at some one passage of Scripture that he could not understand. This passage was Isaiah 53:9-11:

“He was assigned a grave with evildoers, but He was buried with a rich man, because He committed no sin, and no lie was found in His mouth. But the Lord was pleased to strike Him, and He gave Him over to torture; when His soul brings a sacrifice of propitiation, He will see long-lasting offspring, and the will of the Lord will be successfully fulfilled by His hand. He will look at the feat of His soul with contentment.”

Up to this point this nobleman must have read Isaiah's prophecy with joy and inspiration. It spoke of the coming Man who would come and destroy death, wipe away every tear and take away reproach from His people. He will make the blind see, He will release the tormented and free the people from bonds and shackles. Finally, this Man will redeem the people for Himself, leading them along a path hitherto unknown to them, and He will be a covenant to this people, a covenant leading them to sources of living water.

According to Isaiah, this Man who will come will have the government on His shoulder, and He will establish an everlasting Kingdom that will have no end. Kings will honor Him, and the nobles of the world will rise to worship Him. He will be a light for the nations, bringing salvation to the ends of the earth. And He will be the eternal Savior.

Imagine the joy of this Ethiopian when he read all these amazing words. Obviously, this nobleman had a thirst for God, otherwise he would not have bothered to read the Scriptures. And then Isaiah’s prophecy spoke of the coming of the King of Eternity. With each new revelation about this, the thoughts of this nobleman more and more often returned to the same thing: “who is this amazing Man?”

All the time reading about the glory and greatness of this Man who is coming, he suddenly stumbles upon some strange and incomprehensible words in the text of Isaiah:

“But who will explain His generation? for He is cut off from the land of the living…” (53:8).

“In His humiliation His judgment was completed. But who will explain His generation? for His life will be taken up from the earth” (Acts 8:33).

Finally, he comes to a verse that seems to contradict everything he just said:

“He will see a long-lasting descendant, and the will of the Lord will prosper through his hand” (Isaiah 53:10).

It was all so incomprehensible, it didn’t fit in with one another. The Ethiopian turned to Philip and asked:

“He said: How can I understand unless someone instructs me?” (Acts 8:31).

And that was the problem for him: “how can a dead person see his offspring? And how can he prolong his days on this earth? Isaiah says this Man will be rejected, killed and buried. How then can He successfully do the will of His Father? And how then will His race be explained to the world?”

Here it will be useful to understand what is meant by this question: “Who will explain His generation?” (Acts 8:33). The Greek word used here in its original meaning meant: “to announce, to be a channel for transmitting information about some act.” In other words: “Who will tell about this Man and His deeds? Who will show the world all that He has been up to? Who will keep a living memory of Him?”

At this moment, Philip began to open the eyes of the Ethiopian. First, “Philip opened his mouth and began at this scripture and preached the gospel to him about Jesus” (Acts 8:35). Philip explained to the nobleman: “The Man you are reading about has already come. His name is Jesus of Nazareth and He is this Messiah.”

Further, Philip explained to him the 11th verse of the 53rd chapter of Isaiah: “He will look upon the struggle of His soul with contentment.” Philip told the nobleman, in essence, this: “Christ’s feat was the crucifixion. It was then that He was rejected and buried. But the Father raised Him from the dead, and now He is alive and in glory. Anyone who confesses His name and believes in Him becomes His child. Truly, Christ's seed lives in every nation, and this is how His life is prolonged - through the Holy Spirit living in His children. And you too can become His child.”

What incredible news for the ears of the Ethiopian! It is not surprising that he jumped out of the chariot with such zeal and was immediately baptized. “He answered and said: I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And he ordered the chariot to stop, and both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water; and baptized him” (Acts 8:37-38).
The question for us is: How is the life of Christ prolonged in our generation?

I have to ask myself, “how am I prolonging the life of Christ? Is my life a complete expression of who He is? Am I really a channel through which the life of Jesus flows out? Does my life reveal the truth that He is alive and active today?” To answer these questions, I must also ask myself this question: “Do I take the prophecy of Isaiah 53 seriously? Can I honestly say about myself that I am Christ's seed and that He is satisfied with what He sees in me?

When we talk about prolonging the life of Christ, we mean the stream of His life that flows into us. How do we maintain this flow so that the testimony of Jesus spreads through us?

Let's open Proverbs 4:23:

“Keep your heart above all else, for from it are the springs of life.”

I preach a lot about the need to pray, fast, and study the Scriptures. I also pray to God for an even greater thirst to seek Him, an even closer fellowship with Him, an even greater attraction to Jesus. However, Proverbs tells us that we must go even further, even deeper, than this. This verse speaks about the heart, about those hidden, secret sources in our heart that determine the flow of life that comes out of us.

You see, even if I pray longer, fast more often, and read the Bible more diligently, my mind can still remain defiled. There may still be obstacles in my heart that prevent the free flow of Christ's life within me. And I can become defiled to such an extent that I will block almost this entire flow of life, so that only a small trickle will come out. And then I will no longer be able to prolong His life, “explain His generation.”

Jesus tells us clearly what defiles a person:

“It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a man, but what comes out of the mouth that defiles a person” (Matthew 15:10-11).

What is it that comes out of the heart? What are these paths that defile first our inner man, and then our entire being?

The Bible points to three sources: defiled lips, defiled ears, and defiled eyes. As servants of God, we cannot allow anything to hinder the flow of Christ's life in us. If I am His seed, chosen by Him to “make clear His generation,” to be a conduit of His resurrected life through my walk, my actions, then I must rule my heart and my actions by checking His Word. And if any part of my inner man, whether it be my lips, ears, or eyes, is defiled, my outer life and testimony will be hindered.

1. Defiled lips

Let us return again to the 53rd chapter of Isaiah to read again about who Christ is and what He represents. In this chapter it is said about Him: “...there was no deceit in His mouth” (53:9).

How do we demonstrate Christ in this particular manifestation of the heart? This issue is given attention in both Testaments. James warns the church: “And the tongue is fire, the embellishment of unrighteousness; The tongue is in such a position between our members that it defiles the whole body and sets the circle of life on fire, being itself set on fire by hell” (James 3:6).

We find a similar warning in Isaiah: “Then you will call, and the Lord will hear; you will cry out, and He will say: “Here I am!” When you remove the yoke from among you, you will stop raising your finger and speaking offensively” (58:9). The Hebrew word translated here as “offensive” means rudeness, disrespect, disrespect.

Isaiah makes a stunning statement. In fact, the only reason we pray, fast, and study God's Word is to be heard in heaven. However, the Lord adds a big “if” to this. He states, “If you want Me to hear you on high, you must watch what comes from your heart. Yes, I will hear you if you stop pointing fingers at others, if you stop talking disrespectfully about them.”

In God's eyes, we commit a great sin when we speak about someone in a way that tarnishes his reputation. The book of Proverbs tells us, “A good name is better than great wealth, and a good reputation is better than silver and gold” (22:1). Good fame is a treasure that takes a long time to build. And yet I can very quickly destroy someone's treasure with a single accusing word coming out of my mouth.

I don't think we would dare steal someone's gold watch or rob their bank account. And yet, God clearly tells us that slandering someone’s name is tantamount to the grossest robbery. And we can do it in the most skillful way: simply by pointing a reprehensible finger at someone, questioning his (her) human qualities and further passing on any gossip about this person. Essentially, the three most damning words we can utter are: “Have you heard...?” Even what is implied by this question already robs a person, depriving him of something very valuable. And it defiles our own lips.

Many in the house of God make light of what His Word says on this subject. Psalm 49 speaks in detail about both the sin of defilement of the mouth and its consequences:

“You open your mouth to slander, and your tongue weaves deceit; you sit and speak against your brother, you slander your mother’s son; you did this, and I was silent; you thought that I was the same as you. I will expose you and bring your sins before your eyes. Understand this, you who forget God, lest I take away, and there will be no deliverer. Whoever sacrifices praise honors Me, and whoever watches his way, I will show him the salvation of God” (Psalm 49:19-23).

So why do we do this? Why don't we fear and honor the Word of God that speaks like this about this? Why do we throw words around so easily when talking about others? Why do we continue to pronounce words without thinking about their meaning, without controlling our tongue? This psalm tells us why: “you thought that I was just like you.”

Simply put, we think of God as being just like us. We twist and customize His Word to justify our own tendency to judge others. And we completely ignore the truth that God, first of all, looks at the hidden, deeper sources in the human heart.

And here, in Psalm 49, the Lord tells us: “I will rebuke you, because I want you to put this part of your heart in order. You must see your defilement the way I see it: as sin and evil, as something that poses a serious danger to your soul.”

As a servant of God, I want the life of Christ to flow forth through my preaching. And as a husband, as a father and grandfather, I want it to flow through me in abundant streams onto my family. This means that the source of Christ’s life in me should not be polluted. I cannot allow any poison to be in my source, or for anything to block its free flow within me.

However, this has to be a conscious decision on my part. I must continually cry out to the Holy Spirit: “Lord, rebuke me every time I defile myself.” David made this decision for himself. He wrote: “My lips do not depart from my thoughts.” (Literally translated from English, this passage reads: “I have planned (i.e., decided for myself) that my lips will not sin.”) (Psalm 16:3 ). “Put a guard, O Lord, over my lips, and guard the doors of my lips” (140:3).

You may ask, “Is it really possible to control your tongue, to decide not to sin with your lips?” David responds with the following testimony:

“I said, I will take heed to my ways, lest I sin with my tongue; I will bridle my mouth as long as the wicked is before me” (38:2).

In essence, he is saying: “Whenever I mount a horse, I need to put a bridle over its mouth. And just as I do this with my horse, I must do this with my tongue.”

2. Desecrated ears

How do I explain the race of Jesus in this manifestation of the heart? How do I prolong His life when it comes to keeping my ears from defilement?

And again Isaiah sets Christ as an example for us:

“The Lord God has given Me the tongue of the wise, that I might be able to strengthen with words the one who is weary; every morning He awakens, awakens My ear, so that I may listen like the disciples. The Lord God opened My ear, and I did not resist, I did not turn back” (Isaiah 50:4-5).

Notice the last verse: Jesus was awakened every morning by the Holy Spirit. And the Spirit trained His ear to hear the Word from His Father. When Christ testifies: “And I did not resist, I did not step back,” then He says: “When I was on earth, I was taught everything that I should say, do and hear. And I never backed down or turned away from this.” According to Paul, Jesus learned obedience by suffering, so now He says, “Everything the Father told Me to do, I did it. I accepted His Word, no matter what the consequences.”

Beloved, I need this kind of spiritual awakening call every day. I need to be reminded by the Holy Spirit: “David, close your ears to all slander, gossip and dirt. Keep yourself from defilement."

Even Jesus' disciples had their ears polluted. One day He said to them, “Put these words in your ears: The Son of Man will be delivered into the hands of men” (Luke 9:44). By this He told them: “Be very careful, because I am now going to tell you a very important revelation. I will be crucified. So, put this deep in your ears. This is what you need to know."

Jesus had never been more persistent with His disciples. He had never said this before: “Put this in your ears. If you have ever listened to what I said to you, listen now.” How did they react to this? Scripture says, “But they did not understand the word” (9:45). Why couldn't they listen to what their Teacher told them? Because their ears were polluted by selfishness. Immediately after this we read: “The thought came to them: which of them would be greater?” (9:46).

Here is clear evidence that defiled ears are unable to perceive the depths of the revelations of the Word of God. These people were unable to hear the voice of Jesus, even when He stood before them in the flesh, speaking simple words to them. And even more than that, Scripture tells us that: “it was hidden from them, so that they did not comprehend it” (9:45). I wonder if the disciples would have behaved differently at the crucifixion if they had been able to hear Jesus then? Would they have escaped as they did? Or maybe they would have reacted to this differently?

The fact is that anyone who is immersed in his own interests does not notice this himself. And even if he had noticed, he would not have admitted it. This is why the disciples could not hear what Jesus was saying to them. They were so caught up in themselves, so busy with their own glory, that they could not hear the voice of Christ or any other servant of God.

I did not realize how guilty I was of this terrible sin until my recent trip to the British Isles. My son Gary and I were driven by a local pastor to another service. He politely asked us how our services were going. However, when I tried to answer, he interrupted me and began to talk about how he conducts his services. This happened several times: each time he interrupted me with stories of how he “surpassed” me by gathering more people to his services and visiting more countries than I did.

Finally, I was so annoyed that I just shut up and decided to let him talk. At one point Gary and I looked at each other; I rolled my eyes, indicating that this was already unbearable. I thought: “what a braggart!” You just can’t stop him!”

Then I felt a nudge from the Holy Spirit. He whispered to me: “Think about why you are so angry, David. The whole reason is that this person does not listen to you; you wanted to talk yourself. And now, as you listen to his stories, you are eager to show off your own ministry. You could just stop talking, but you have a boastful spirit in your heart.”

But what's worse is that I defiled my lips. Notice that I didn't say anything terrible about this man. In fact, I didn't say a single word about him. However, with just one movement of my eyes I had already slandered him in the eyes of my son.

I can talk about holiness as much as I want, I can expose the sins of society, I can preach about the New Testament victory. But if I allow my ears to be polluted - if I do not listen to what another person is saying to me, focusing only on my own interests, if I cannot listen to him with respect - then the life of Christ is not prolonged by me. Then I no longer lead the kind of life that pleases my Lord.

3. Desecrated eyes

And again we return to Isaiah's prophecy about Christ. This passage talks about Jesus having clean, undefiled eyes:

“And he will be filled with the fear of the Lord, and will not judge by the sight of his eyes, nor decide matters by the hearing of his ears” (Isaiah 11:3)

The literal translation of this passage is: “He will not judge by what He sees before His eyes; neither will He judge by what is brought to His ears.” Simply put, Christ will not judge a person by the way he looks at him or by what He hears about him.

Beloved, God is touching the very root of the problem here. Of course, we know that pornography pollutes the eyes, as do most movies and TV shows. We can even compile a whole catalog of what defiles the eyes. However, here we are talking about a deeper, hidden manifestation of the heart that needs to be dealt with. I mean "condemnation in thoughts."

I ask you: why do we not consider it a serious sin that we judge others in our thoughts? It often happens that when we meet someone, we immediately “size them up.” We only need to take a few glances at a person and exchange just a few words for us to think that we can give an accurate assessment of this person. And we immediately judge his character, content with the minimum that we saw and heard from him.

I can't tell you how often I've done this when meeting people. I meet someone and I think, “My spirit is not giving me any good testimony about this person. Now, he can't even look me straight in the eye. “I don’t know everything, of course, but something is clearly wrong with this man.” And I trust my internal assessments as if they were infallible.

Worse, our quick judgments about people are often tainted by the unkind comments of others. Some disrespectful word said about another will stick in our brain, and it colors all our thoughts about someone we have not even seen yet. Then, when we meet this person, this terrible word that we heard about him immediately comes to our mind, and we evaluate, “measure” this person in accordance with what we were told about him.

While on tour in the UK, a well-intentioned pastor took me aside and whispered, “At your next service you will meet a very rich man. I must warn you: he thinks he owns the church because he has donated so much money. For this reason, he has already driven many good people out of the church.”

And I allowed myself to be polluted by this word, so that when I met this rich man, I could hardly give him time. I didn't give him any chance because I had already judged him by accepting what I heard about him.

I repented of this. But over the years I have committed this sin so many times over and over again! I secretly condemned thousands of men and women with the opinions I formed about them instantly.

At times, I even refused or interrupted communication with people because of such hasty opinions about them.

I allowed my physical eyes to obscure my spiritual vision. And it polluted my eyes. Jesus warns about this very sin:

“Do not judge by outward appearances, but judge with righteous judgment” (John 7:24).

I recently met a minister whom I had known for many years. Previously, every time after meeting this person, I was simply bursting, and I told my wife about him: “this man is so superficial, so boastful. I don’t even know how God could ever bless him.” Then I met the same person after the Holy Spirit opened my eyes about mentally judging others. This time the Holy Spirit told me: “love him. Be calm and listen to him. Then pray with him.”

I obeyed. I loved him, listened to him, and then took his hand and prayed with him. And as soon as we parted, something strange happened to me: I was suddenly overcome by grief. Fear crept through my body, the fear of realizing how badly I had treated this man all these years. I saw the extreme sinfulness of my sin of defilement.

David calls:

“Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my rock and my Savior!” (Psalm 18:15).

The Apostle Paul adds this admonition:

“Let all bitterness and rage and anger and shouting and slander, along with all malice, be put away from you; but be kind to one another, compassionate, forgive one another, just as God in Christ forgave you... Let no rotten word come out of your mouth, but only what is good for edification in the faith, so that it may bring grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God” (Ephesians 4:31-32,29-30).

Dear Saint! Of the readers of this message, there is not a single person who would be so holy as to neglect it and not begin to change. As for me personally, I feel God's sorrow over all those times in my life when I have unjustly judged people, consciously or unconsciously. I encourage you to cry out to God, as my heart is crying out now:

“Oh, Lord! Why wasn't I ready to hear about this sooner? Why haven't I ended this before? I want to proclaim Your Gospel, making Your family known to the world. I ask You, Jesus, forgive me. Cleanse my defiled lips, my defiled ears, my defiled eyes, and give me a renewed heart. I want nothing to prevent my life from being a full manifestation of Who You are.”

May the Lord hear our cry and hasten to change us. He will give us the strength to put away all slander, slander and condemnation in our thoughts. And then we will be more capable of extending the days of our Lord. Amen!

The prophecy of Isaiah is the clearest description the Hebrew Scriptures offer of the identity of the Messiah. Rabbis since the mid-11th century have argued that this passage applies to the entire Jewish people, but the dominant rabbinic position for centuries has been that this chapter speaks of the Messiah. Why did the shift occur? Therefore, the person described by the prophet Isaiah completely fits the description of Yeshua.

I counted about forty predictions in Isaiah 53, and Yeshua fulfilled them all!

The Messiah is a King, not a Suffering Servant, right?

This is what I heard when I first believed. When it came to Isaiah 53, there was a party line among the Orthodox Jews I spoke with: “The Messiah will come to reign, not to be crucified!” I said party line, for an honest reading of this passage simply cannot lead to any other conclusion than the recognition of the fact that it speaks of the Messiah.

Finally, partially orthodox circles admitted this - however, they made a mistake in choosing a person. Some of the followers of the late, former Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, believe that he is the fulfillment of Isaiah 53; that he is the suffering servant and the Messiah. And some of his most devoted and ardent disciples are still awaiting his resurrection from the dead, as promised in Isaiah 53:11. This is the first time that representatives of the Hasidic movement have recognized the obvious - the 53rd chapter of Isaiah describes the Jewish Messiah.

Stop reading from the New Testament!

When I read Isaiah 53 to a Jewish colleague almost twenty years ago, he shouted: “Stop reading from the New Testament!”. He was stunned to learn that Isaiah spoke these words about a Jewish man 700 years before Yeshua was born.

Many years ago, in the days of slow telephone Internet, I had a mail correspondence with a Jew. He argued that Isaiah 53 is not talking about the Messiah, but about the Jewish people, as mentioned above. The following paragraphs are my response to him. I never got an answer from him...

Why Isaiah 53 Can't Speak About Israel

I understand that at first glance, someone might think that the chapter is talking about Israel. However, upon closer examination it becomes clear - it is impossible for this chapter to speak of the people of Israel as a whole.

Why can't it be Israel?

1. Starting with the verse Isaiah 52:9, the prophet writes: “Rejoice, sing together, O ruins of Jerusalem, for the Lord has comforted His people, He has redeemed Jerusalem.” Who has been redeemed by the Lord? Jerusalem. Jerusalem is not the redeemer, but redeemed.

2. Isaiah 53:5 reads: “But He was wounded for our sins and tormented for our iniquities; the punishment of our peace [was] upon Him, and by His stripes we were healed.” It is clear that he is referring to a group of people receiving peace through the suffering of one. “...and the Lord laid on him the sins of us all." Again this "on him"— he takes upon himself the sin of the group.

1) Israel's role according to the Scriptures is to be a blessed people if they obey:

And all these blessings will come to you and be fulfilled if you listen to the voice of the Lord your God. Blessed are you in the city and blessed in the field. Blessed is the fruit of your womb, and the fruit of your land, and the fruit of your livestock, and the fruit of your oxen, and the fruit of your sheep. Blessed are your barns and your storehouses. Blessed are you when you enter and blessed are you when you go out. (Deut.28:2-6)

But the same chapter teaches that Israel will suffer greatly, not for the sins of others, but for their own, if they do not completely obey the Torah:

If you do not listen to the voice of the Lord your God and do not try to fulfill all His commandments and His statutes that I command you today, then all these curses will come upon you and overtake you. You [will be] cursed in the city and you [will be] cursed in the field. Cursed be your barns and your storerooms. Cursed be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your land, the fruit of your oxen and the fruit of your sheep. You will be cursed when you enter and cursed when you go out. The Lord will send upon you a curse, confusion and misfortune in every work of your hands that you will do, until you are destroyed - and you will soon perish for your evil deeds, because you have forsaken Me. The Lord will send a pestilence upon you until He destroys you from the land where you are going to possess it. The Lord will strike you with stunting, fever, fever, inflammation, drought, scorching wind and rust, and they will pursue you until you perish. (Deut.28:15-22)

2) Israel was called to be a light to the nations, but not to suffer for the nations. Nowhere in the Torah does it say that Israel will redeem the nations through her suffering. What other Scriptures support this theory? Before Rashi (1040-1105), the dominant rabbinic interpretation was that it was about the Messiah, not about people. And there is strong evidence that he himself accepted this view later - he initially believed that the Messiah was meant.

3. The most powerful evidence is quite obvious. "We have sinned!" - say the prophets Daniel and Isaiah (Isaiah 42:24, Daniel 9:5). And the one who endures suffering in Isaiah 53 is innocent:

...for He committed no sin, and no lie was found in His mouth. (Isa.53:9)

...My righteous servant will justify many... (Isa.53:11)

In order for the Lord to “lay on Him the sins of us all,” He had to be blameless. That is why in the book of Leviticus the Almighty says that He will never accept a lamb that has a blemish or defect (Leviticus 1:3).

So the question is - “Was Israel blameless in the sight of the Lord?” Let's look at what Isaiah says elsewhere:

Listen, O heavens, and listen, O earth, because the Lord says: I raised and exalted sons, and they rebelled against Me. An ox knows its owner, and a donkey its master's manger; but Israel does not know [Me], My people do not understand. Alas, a sinful people, a people burdened with iniquities, a tribe of evildoers, sons of destruction! They forsook the Lord, despised the Holy One of Israel, and turned back. (Isa.1:2-4)

How can a people “burdened with iniquities” suffer for the nations and become a “victim of propitiation”? (verse 10)

A few verses later, Isaiah explains why our people have suffered so much, but it is not because of the sins of other nations. “What else should we hit you with, if you continue your stubbornness? The whole head is full of ulcers, and the whole heart is withered. From the sole of his foot to the crown of his head there is no healthy place: ulcers, spots, festering wounds, uncleansed and unbandaged and not softened with oil.” (Isa.1:5,6) Implied - “Shuv (repent) so that your suffering will end!”

But your iniquities have created a separation between you and your God, and your sins have turned His face away from you, so as not to hear. For your hands are defiled with blood and your fingers with iniquity; your mouth speaks lies, your tongue utters lies. (Isa.59:2,3)

Instead of saying, “Your righteous sufferings have become a sacrifice for the nations,” he says, “Your iniquities have created a separation between you and your God.”

Please don't misunderstand me. I love Israel. I am Jewish. I consider Israel to be one of the most humane nations on earth, compared to other nations. However, this does not make us innocent.

4. Verse 8 seems to indicate that the suffering person is suffering for the sins of Israel.

...for the crimes of my people I suffered execution (Isa.53:8)

“My people” and “He” cannot be one person. Otherwise it would read like this: “For the crimes of My people, My people suffered execution.” This makes no sense, since they would suffer for their own sins, and Isaiah 53 says that “My righteous servant” suffers for the sins of others. “He” is the Messiah, Yeshua, who died for the sins of Israel.

Why I Believe Yeshua Fulfilled This Prophecy

He was despised and belittled before men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with pain, and we turned our faces away from Him; He was despised, and we thought nothing of Him. (Isa.53:3)

Yeshua was rejected by our people. Yes, tens of thousands of Jews followed Him, but the religious leaders and most Israelis rejected Him.

But He was wounded for our sins and tormented for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace [was] upon Him, and by His stripes we were healed. (Isa.53:5)

Yeshua was pierced (pierced) when He was hung on the cross. How clear is this!? And we believe that “by His stripes we are healed.”

He was tortured, but He suffered voluntarily and did not open His mouth; like a sheep He was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb before its shearers is silent, so He did not open His mouth. (Isa.53:7)

Although He could defend Himself (Matthew 26:53), He willingly laid down His life. He never tried to escape his death sentence.

He was assigned a coffin with villains (Isa.53:9)

Crucifixion was a form of execution for criminals.

...but He was buried with a rich man (Isa.53:9)

Joseph of Arimathea was a rich man, a Pharisee, who gave his tomb to Yeshua (Matthew 27:57-59)

He will see the offspring (Isa.53:10)

More than a billion people today claim to follow this Jew.

...lasting... He will look at the feat of His soul with contentment (Isa.53:10,11)

Yeshua rose from the dead and more than 500 people witnessed it. Ten of His first disciples were martyred, believing that He had risen from the dead. Why should anyone allow themselves to be killed for something they know is a lie?

…The righteous One, My Servant, will justify many and bear their sins on Himself (Isa.53:11)

The New Testament records that this man was believed to have died for the redemption of the Jewish people. Yeshua's cousin, the Jewish prophet John, prophesied when he saw Yeshua: “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.”(John 1:29)

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Therefore, I will give Him a portion among the great, and He will share the spoils with the strong, because He gave His soul to death and was counted among the evildoers, while He bore the sin of many and became an intercessor for the criminals. (Isa.53:12)

As it is written, Yeshua was “counted among the evildoers” because He was crucified between a thief and a murderer. Plain and simple, He was a righteous man who bore the sin of the world and willingly gave His life.

Finally: If it were not for the fact that Yeshua was very similar to this man, would any scholar hesitate to immediately conclude that this passage is talking about the Messiah? Of course not. Isaiah, 700 years before Yeshua, described in detail this Jew depicted in the New Testament - Yeshua.

Who is the prophet talking about? “Zion will be saved by justice, and her converted sons by righteousness.”?.“And they will beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation will not raise sword against nation, and they will no longer learn to fight.” “Then the wolf will live with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the kid; and the calf, and the young lion, and the ox will be together, and a little child will lead them.” “And they will rejoice over Jerusalem and be glad over My people; and the voice of weeping and the voice of crying will no longer be heard in it.”
Famous words. They have been thoroughly replicated by the press. Wanting to show off their erudition, journalists use them appropriately and inappropriately in their reports and articles. Many people know that these words belong to the prophet Isaiah. But few people thought about what the Jewish prophet was talking about more than two and a half thousand years ago. Inspired by God, passionate, uncompromising Isaiah denounced human vices in his sermons. He fearlessly told all people the truth about them, not even sparing kings. God was giving Isaiah visions of the future. His living, vivid prophecies predicted events that were about to happen in human history. Rightfully called a great prophet, Isaiah left a tremendous legacy, which was included in one of the books of Holy Scripture. The sixty-six chapters of the book of the prophet Isaiah, located in the Neveim (Prophets) section of the Tanakh, reveal very important details in God's plan of salvation. A study of the book shows that some of the prophecies recorded in it came true with amazing accuracy. Although there are sometimes disputes about this. They have been especially fierce for many centuries around the prophecies sounding in the 53rd chapter of the book of Isaiah between those who see in them a description of the suffering of the Savior of the world and those who vehemently reject it.
For thousands of years, Rabbinic Judaism deliberately led the Jewish people away from a correct understanding of the Scriptures. The religious leaders of Israel, for many not entirely sincere reasons, took away from the people the key to their understanding. Perverting the eternal Divine truth, many “sages” wanted to adapt it to their momentary, temporary goals. And to this day they themselves do not want to enter the Kingdom of God and hinder those who enter.
Didn’t God speak about them in hoary antiquity through the mouth of the prophet: “The ox knows his owner, and the donkey his master’s manger; but Israel does not know Me, the people do not understand Me"?
יָדַע שׁוֹר קֹנֵהוּ, וַחֲמוֹר אֵבוּס בְּעָלָיו; יִשְׂרָאֵל לֹא יָדַע, עַמִּי לֹא הִתְבּוֹנָן"? "
Let's try to unbiasedly, objectively read the 53rd chapter of Isaiah's prophecy and together answer the question that the Minister of Finance of Candace (Ethiopia) asked about it two thousand years ago: “Who is the prophet saying this about?”
הִנֵּה יַשְׂכִּיל, עַבְדִּי; יָרוּם וְנִשָּׂא וְגָבַהּ, מְאֹד. כַּאֲשֶׁר שָׁמְמוּ עָלֶיךָ רַבִּים, כֵּן-מִשְׁחַת מֵאִיש מַרְאֵהוּ; וְתֹאֲרוֹ, מִבְּנֵי אָדָם. כֵּן יַזֶּה גּוֹיִם רַבִּים, עָלָיו יִקְפְּצוּ מְלָכִים פִּיהֶם: כִּי אֲשֶׁר לֹא-סֻפַּר לָהֶם, רָאוּ, וַאֲשֶׁר לֹא-שָׁמְעוּ, הִתְבּוֹנָנוּ.
מִי הֶאֱמִין, לִשְׁמֻעָתֵנוּ; וּזְרוֹעַ יְהוָה, עַל-מִי נִגְלָתָה. וַיַּעַל כַּיּוֹנֵק לְפָנָיו, וְכַשֹּׁרֶשׁ מֵאֶרֶץ צִיָּה--לֹא-תֹאַר לוֹ, וְלֹא הָדָר; וְנִרְאֵהוּ וְלֹא-מַרְאֶה, וְנֶחְמְדֵהוּ. נִבְזֶה וַחֲדַל אִישִׁים, אִישׁ מַכְאֹבוֹת וִידוּעַ חֹלִי; וּכְמַסְתֵּר פָּנִים מִמֶּנּוּ, נִבְזֶה וְלֹא חֲשַׁבְנֻהוּ. אָכֵן חֳלָיֵנוּ הוּא נָשָׂא, וּמַכְאֹבֵינוּ סְבָלָם; וַאֲנַחְנוּ חֲשַׁבְנֻהוּ, נָגוּעַ מֻכֵּה אֱלֹהִים וּמְעֻנֶּה. וְהוּא מְחֹלָל מִפְּשָׁעֵנוּ, מְדֻכָּא מֵעֲו‍ֹנֹתֵינוּ; מוּסַר שְׁלוֹמֵנוּ עָלָיו, וּבַחֲבֻרָתוֹ נִרְפָּא-לָנוּ. כֻּלָּנוּ כַּצֹּאן תָּעִינוּ, אִישׁ לְדַרְכּוֹ פָּנִינוּ; וַיהוָה הִפְגִּיעַ בּוֹ, אֵת עֲו‍ֹן כֻּלָּנוּ. נִגַּשׂ וְהוּא נַעֲנֶה, וְלֹא יִפְתַּח-פִּיו, כַּשֶּׂה לַטֶּבַח יוּבָל, וּכְרָחֵל לִפְנֵי גֹזְזֶיהָ נֶאֱלָמָה; וְלֹא יִפְתַּח, פִּיו. מֵעֹצֶר וּמִמִּשְׁפָּט לֻקָּח, וְאֶת-דּוֹרוֹ מִי יְשׂוֹחֵחַ: כִּי נִגְזַר מֵאֶרֶץ חַיִּים, מִפֶּשַׁע עַמִּי נֶגַע לָמוֹ. וַיִּתֵּן אֶת-רְשָׁעִים קִבְרוֹ, וְאֶת-עָשִׁיר בְּמֹתָיו; עַל לֹא-חָמָס עָשָׂה, וְלֹא מִרְמָה בְּפִיו. וַיהוָה חָפֵץ דַּכְּאוֹ, הֶחֱלִי--אִם-תָּשִׂים אָשָׁם נַפְשׁוֹ, יִרְאֶה זֶרַע יַאֲרִיךְ יָמִים; וְחֵפֶץ יְהוָה, בְּיָדוֹ יִצְלָח. מֵעֲמַל נַפְשׁוֹ, יִרְאֶה יִשְׂבָּע-בְּדַעְתּוֹ יַצְדִּיק צַדִּיק עַבְדִּי, לָרַבִּים; וַעֲו‍ֹנֹתָם, הוּא יִסְבֹּל. לָכֵן אֲחַלֶּק-לוֹ בָרַבִּים, וְאֶת-עֲצוּמִים יְחַלֵּק שָׁלָל, תַּחַת אֲשֶׁר הֶעֱרָה לַמָּוֶת נַפְשׁוֹ, וְאֶת-פֹּשְׁעִים נִמְנָה; וְהוּא חֵטְא-רַבִּים נָשָׂא, וְלַפֹּשְׁעִים יַפְגִּיעַ.
ישעיה /נ"ב ,י"ג-ט"ו/ / נ"ג ,א"-י"ב/
As many were amazed, [looking] at You, so much was His face more disfigured than any man, and His appearance more than the sons of men. So He will make many nations astonished; the kings will shut their mouths before Him, for they will see what was not told to them, and they will know what they have not heard. Who believed what they heard from us, and to whom was the arm of the Lord revealed? For He rose up before Him as an offspring and as a sprout from dry ground; There is no form or greatness in Him; and we saw Him, and there was no appearance in Him that would attract us to Him. He was despised and belittled before men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with pain, and we turned our faces away from Him; He was despised, and we thought nothing of Him. But He took upon Himself our infirmities and bore our illnesses; and we thought [that] He was smitten, punished and humiliated by God. But He was wounded for our sins and tormented for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace [was] upon Him, and by His stripes we were healed. We have all gone astray, like sheep; we have turned every one to his own way: and the Lord laid on Him the sins of us all. He was tortured, but He suffered voluntarily and did not open His mouth; like a sheep He was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb before its shearers is silent, so He did not open His mouth. He was taken from bonds and judgment; but who will explain His generation? for He is cut off from the land of the living; for the crimes of my people I suffered execution. He was assigned a grave with the evildoers, but He was buried with a rich man, because He committed no sin, and no lie was in His mouth. But the Lord was pleased to strike Him, and He gave Him over to torture; when His soul brings a sacrifice of propitiation, He will see long-lasting offspring, and the will of the Lord will be successfully fulfilled by His hand. He will look at the feat of His soul with contentment; through the knowledge of Him, He, the Righteous One, My Servant, will justify many and bear their sins on Himself. Therefore, I will give Him a portion among the great, and He will share the spoils with the strong, because He gave His soul to death and was counted among the evildoers, while He bore the sin of many and became an intercessor for the criminals.
Isaiah 52:14-15; 53:1-12
Atonement - is it necessary?
The redemption of humanity from the slavery of sin, which God saw in Yeshua HaMashiach / “Jesus Christ” - Greek / as the prophet Isaiah speaks about it in chapter 53, turns out to be beyond our ordinary understanding.
The thought of the need to atone for sin is always present in the conscience, if it has not yet been completely burned. But it is impossible for a person to agree that the Son of God can suffer for him.
It should be noted that the rabbis of antiquity, while differing on very little, recognized the absolute necessity of atonement. And this common point of view for them was precisely based on the above-mentioned chapter, referring to which they explained the content of the very concept of “redemption.” The fact that everything described in chapter 53 is focused on the Person of HaMashiach /Messiah/ did not raise any doubts in their minds.
In a later period, among interpreters of rabbinical Judaism, a statement arose and continues to exist to this day that in the 53rd chapter the prophet does not speak at all about HaMashiach /Messiah/, and everything said refers to the captive daughter of Zion.
The purpose of this innovation is to prove that Isaiah is speaking about the people of Israel, and, therefore, this text cannot refer to Yeshua of Nazareth.
Dear reader!
Deciding where the truth lies in the conflict that exists around the main character of Chapter 53 is important not by determining whether someone is right. Your eternal destiny depends on the correct understanding of this chapter.
At the very beginning, we note that the whole meaning of the 53rd chapter of the prophet Isaiah lies in the description of the redemption of sinners. This is obvious to anyone reading without a preconceived opinion. Modern interpreters of rabbinic Judaism, who reject the concept of atonement that the prophet clearly speaks of, claim that this is, they say, a “Christian interpretation.” But they contradict the general meaning of the Holy Scriptures, all ancient rabbinic literature and the opinion of many scholars who claim that the Person described in this chapter is none other than the rejected and suffering HaMashiach /Christ/.
Moreover, they contradict themselves by denying the need for atonement, which they say became meaningless with the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD. At the same time, they claim that this chapter speaks of the people of Israel suffering to atone for the sins of pagan peoples.
There is not a single page in the Torah, Prophets, Psalms on which we would not find mention of things inextricably linked with the concept of redemption. The Torah, describing the fall of man in the Garden of Eden, gives us an indication of the need for atonement. The acceptance and rejection of gifts brought to the Lord by Abel and Cain, the sacrifice of Noah, etc., echo the same thing. The law given by God to Moshe/Moses/ affirms the need for atonement for sins through sacrifices. If you delete all the rulings on sacrifices from the Torah, at best, only a few pages will remain from the Torah.
If we ignore the doctrine of the atonement, what will be the purpose of the tribe of Levi, to whom is entrusted the worship? In the absence of the concept of atonement, what does the dress and service of the high priest mean?
What will be the essence of the “Holy of Holies” in the Temple and the entry of the High Priest there once a year on Yom Kippur with the blood of animals /Leviticus 16/?
What is the meaning then of all the commandments of the Torah that require those who have sinned to offer sacrifices for their sins? So, the denial by current rabbinic Judaism of the need for atonement for sins by blood sacrifice is nothing more than a denial of the Torah and the commandments of God. The concept of redemption should be especially close to the Jewish people. Any other teaching must be considered as Cain's religion. Although he knew that God only accepts blood sacrifice, he tried to foist the fruits of the earth onto God. But God rejected them, and Abel’s gift was accepted because it was in accordance with God’s will. The teachers of modern Judaism do not recognize the principle of atonement for the guilty through the innocent victim. In other words, they do not want to accept the responsibility of one for many, arguing that this does not correspond to God's justice. The groundlessness of such a statement is obvious. First of all, it should be taken into account that a person does not have the right to talk about God's justice. The human concept of justice is always relative, since mortal people can talk about it only in relation to their own kind. The Creator stands above everything that exists, and only He serves as a measure of the everyday problems of His creation. And there is no such competent court in the world that could pronounce a verdict on the justice and injustice of what we call God's providence.
The principle of atonement for the sins of the guilty through the sacrifice of the innocent is found at every step in the Old and New Testaments. After all, the meaning of the sacrifice established by God through Moses, which we read about in the Torah, is precisely that God shows mercy to the sinner, and not justice. For this reason, an innocent being is sacrificed for a sinner. From the point of view of our everyday concepts of justice, it is difficult to reconcile with the slaughter of an unresponsive animal for the sake of the conscious sin of a person who has reason and hope for an afterlife. Why, one might ask, should an animal that is not involved in human sins die? Is it really for the sake of saving a person who fully deserves to die?
From the point of view of justice, this is, of course, wrong, but we want to make a distinction between God's justice, on the basis of which every sin is punished by death on the day of judgment, and God's mercy, which does not justify the criminal, but has mercy on him.
In Scripture we also see examples of how others, who were not involved in the evil committed by that person, suffer for the guilt of one.
Countless people continue to pay with their lives today for Adam's original sin. The history of the flood in the days of Noah and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah once again convinces us of this. The parents sinned, and the consequences of their sins destroyed the children. The same is evidenced by the act of Ahab, for whose sin 36 people paid. The whole nation was responsible for one. /Joshua 4:5/
וַיַּכּוּ מֵהֶם אַנְשֵׁי הָעַי, כִּשְׁלֹשִׁים וְשִׁשָּׁה אִישׁ, וַיִּרְדְּפוּם לִפְנֵי הַשַּׁעַר עַד-הַשְּׁבָרִים, וַיַּכּוּם בַּמּוֹרָד; וַיִּמַּס לְבַב-הָעָם, וַיְהִי לְמָיִם.
/יהושע ז" ,ה"/
Get to the heart of the story of David and Bathsheba, Uriah's wife. The grave sin of the psalmist king was atoned for by the death of an innocent child / 2 Samuel 12:13 - 15 /. / /שמואל ב" י"ב, י"ג-ט"ו
We find a similar example in the same book /2 Samuel 21:1 - 14/./ שמואל ב" כ"א, א"-י"ד/
Here we see that, firstly, the Israelites were punished with hunger for a sin that was not committed by them. Secondly, the complete atonement for sin was not the death of the sinner himself, but the death of seven people of his offspring. This and many other examples in the Old Testament leave no doubt that the New Testament teaching on atonement is fully consistent with the foundations of the Torah, Prophets and Scriptures and does not contradict them.
וְאִישׁ אִישׁ מִבֵּית יִשְׂרָאֵל, וּמִן-הַגֵּר הַגָּר בְּתוֹכָם, אֲשֶׁר יֹאכַל, כָּל-דָּם--וְנָתַתִּי פָנַי, בַּנֶּפֶשׁ הָאֹכֶלֶת אֶת-הַדָּם, וְהִכְרַתִּי אֹתָהּ, מִקֶּרֶב עַמָּהּ. כִּי נֶפֶשׁ הַבָּשָׂר, בַּדָּם הִוא, וַאֲנִי נְתַתִּיו לָכֶם עַל-הַמִּזְבֵּחַ, לְכַפֵּר עַל-נַפְשֹׁתֵיכֶם: כִּי-הַדָּם הוּא, בַּנֶּפֶשׁ יְכַפֵּר. עַל-כֵּן אָמַרְתִּי לִבְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל, כָּל-נֶפֶשׁ מִכֶּם לֹא-תֹאכַל דָּם; וְהַגֵּר הַגָּר בְּתוֹכְכֶם, לֹא-יֹאכַל דָּם.
/ויקרא אחרי מות י"ז, י"-י"ב/
If anyone from the house of Israel or from the strangers who live among you eats any blood, then I will set My face against the soul of him who eats the blood, and I will cut him off from among his people, for the life of the body is in the blood, and I He appointed it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for this blood makes atonement for the soul; Therefore I said to the children of Israel, “Not one soul among you shall eat blood, nor shall the stranger who dwells among you eat blood.” Leviticus 17:10 -12
So, based on the Torah, the Prophets and the Scriptures, we have proven that God accepts the sacrifice of an innocent being in exchange for the life of a sinner. We also want to draw attention to the unfoundedness of the judgments of modern rabbinic Judaism regarding the incompatibility of human sacrifice with the concept of God's justice.
We, Messianic Jews ((יהודים משיחים, affirm that God was pleased to atone for the sins of all mankind through the death of the Messiah Jesus. Confirmation of this is in the 53rd chapter of the prophet Isaiah. Opponents of the New Testament cannot prove in any way that we are mistaken.
That's right, God forbade the Israelites from sacrificing their children to idols. But the prohibition does not contradict the fact that God Himself determined the death of the Righteous One to atone for the sins of the guilty.
Interpreters of Rabbinic Judaism accept as an irrefutable truth that God is not pleased with human sacrifice. This truth, it must be assumed, was not known to either Abraham or Isaac, otherwise the first would not have stretched out his hand on his son, and the second would not have voluntarily ascended the altar. Abraham heard a voice saying:
וַיֹּאמֶר קַח-נָא אֶת-בִּנְךָ אֶת-יְחִידְךָ אֲשֶׁר-אָהַבְתָּ, אֶת-יִצְחָק, וְלֶךְ-לְךָ, אֶל-אֶרֶץ הַמֹּרִיָּה; וְהַעֲלֵהוּ שָׁם, לְעֹלָה, עַל אַחַד הֶהָרִים, אֲשֶׁר אֹמַר אֵלֶיךָ. / בראשית כ"ב, ב"/
“Take your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac; and go to the land of Moriah and there offer him as a burnt offering on one of the mountains about which I will tell you.” (Gen. 22:2), must have thought that this was not the voice of God, since He rejects human sacrifices. The same thought must have occurred to Isaac. Meanwhile, both humbly submitted to God's command, firmly believing that human sacrifice in this case was pleasing to Him. If Abraham’s faith had not dried up in the hearts of the Israelis, then they could have understood the whole meaning of the atonement for sins with the blood of the Son of God Yeshua HaMashiach /Jesus the Messiah/.
If the doctrine of the atonement were something new and not consistent with Biblical Judaism, then we certainly would not be surprised at the Jewish people's rejection of the atonement wrought by Jesus the Messiah. But echoes of ancient traditions are still present in various sources used by modern rabbinic Judaism. For example, in prayer books. The daily prayers contained in them lament the impossibility of sacrifices in the Temple, and bring petitions that the Lord would quickly restore them in our days. The morning prayer says: “Lord of the world! When the Temple existed, a person sinned, made a sacrifice and received forgiveness; now, for our sins, we have neither a Temple, nor an altar, nor a sacrifice, nor a priest to bring us atonement; may our words be redemption and may our lips replace sacrifices.”
In the evening prayer said on the day of fasting, we find a passage that directly points to an awareness of the need for atonement: “Thy will be done, that the reduction of my fat and blood today may be equal to the fat laid on the altar before You, and favor me.”
The belief in redemption is so close to the heart of Israel that in many countries of the diaspora, Jews slaughter a rooster or hen to commemorate the sacrifice. (Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim ערוך,אורח חיים שולחן).
Also in Siddur Ahavat Shalom morning prayer, Tefilat Shachar, Seder Hakorbanut, sacrificial rite p.15:
עמוד 15: סדור אהבת שלום,תפלת השחר,סדר הקרבנות
יהי רצון מלפניך יי אלהינו ואלהי אבותינו שתרחם עלינו ותמחל לנו על כל חטאתינו ותכפר לנו את כל עונותינו ותסלח לכל פשעינו ותבנה בית מקדש במהרה בימינו ונקריב לפניך קרבן התמיד שיכפר בעדנו כמו שכתבת עלינו בתורתך על ידי משה עבדך מפי כבודך כאמור:
“May it be Your will, Lord our God and God of our fathers, to have mercy on us, to forgive all sins, to forgive all crimes and to forgive all our actions. Recreate immediately, in our days, a sacred temple, so that we offer You a “continuing sacrifice” for our purification, as You prescribed for us in Your Law through Your servant Moses, as spoken by the mouth of Your Majesty.”
No matter how strange and contradictory it may sound, religious Jews believe that the death of people serves as atonement on a par with sacrifices.
Rashi /Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki/, commenting on the story of Miriam /Moses’s sister/, poses the question: “Why is the chapter about her death placed after the chapter about the red heifer, whose ashes are used for purification?”
And he himself answers his own question: “for the death of the righteous cleanses like sacrifices.”
It should be borne in mind that here Rashi speaks not only on his own behalf, but refers to the opinion of the Talmud and other luminaries of Israeli Talmudic thought. In the treatise of the Babylonian Talmud, Moed Katan (//עמוד 25 (תלמוד בבלי, מסכת מועד קטן /on page 25/) we read: “Why is it said about the death of Aaron (Moses’ brother) next to the description of the priestly clothing?
In order to explain that the death of the righteous, like the priestly clothing, serves as atonement."
It is impossible to comprehend how a Jew, who knows all the above passages from prayer books, the Talmud and other sources, can reject the need for blood atonement.
What should we think of a man who weeps over the disappearance of sacrifices and at the same time denies the need for atonement? When does he tell the truth? Who is he cheating on - God or man? If fasting and sacrifices of our lips are sufficient for God, and this has replaced blood sacrifices, then the question arises: why offer hypocritical prayers for the restoration of sacrifices.
Who is the prophet talking about? - Opinion of Rabbinic Judaism. The founder of the interpretation of the 53rd chapter of the book of the prophet Isaiah, who presented the people of Israel as its main character, was Rashi. And although the rabbis before him were of the general opinion that the parsha spoke about the suffering of the Messiah - the son of Joseph, Rashi's falsification was picked up by rabbinic Judaism, and became its official point of view to this day. Rashi and his followers argue that chapter 53 speaks of the suffering of the Jewish people for the redemption of the Gentiles/goyim/, and not of the suffering HaMashiach/Christ/ for the redemption of sinners.
Teachers of modern Judaism claim that there is a conflict between them and the Messianic Jews in the interpretation of Isaiah 53, because, according to them, the Messianic Jewish point of view is “Christian” while the “traditional opinion” of Judaism adheres to the interpretation that Chapter 53 says about the suffering of Israel.
But one cannot ask for better evidence establishing the correctness of the teachings of Messianic Jews than sources in Jewish literature itself. And above we have already noted the amazing phenomenon that the Jewish people, led by rabbis who deny the need for the atonement of a sinner with innocent blood, in a very real way, deliberately ignores the foundations of true Biblical Judaism, heard today in daily prayers and read in Talmudic commentaries. It really is: “they hear with their own ears, but do not understand.”

Who is the prophet talking about? - Opinion of Messianic Jews.
Any statement can be verified by carefully studying it from all sides. Let us ask ourselves the question: “Is the opinion of Rashi and his followers really the “traditional concept” of Judaism?”
The history of Judaism, recorded in the pages of various Jewish literature, proves the opposite to us.
The interpretation that sees Isaiah 53 as referring to the people of Israel is relatively recent. Besides this, there are other opinions about this chapter. Let's look at some of them. Rabbi Sadiya - Gaon, as Even - Ezra reports on his behalf, believes that chapter 53 speaks of the prophet Jeremiah. But this opinion has no supporters in religious circles.
Even more shaky is the point of view of Rabbi Abarbanel, who attributes the prophecy of Isaiah to the Jewish king Josiah.
והדרך השנית היא שנראה לי שנאמרה הנבואה הזאת כולה על יאשיהו מלך יהודה.
This interpretation does not require even the slightest serious objection, since the author himself admits that at the same time the prophecy rather refers to the people of Israel. Apparently, Abarbanel, in despair, was ready to reconcile himself with any opinion rather than admit that chapter 53 speaks of the Messiah. Otherwise, one would have to agree with the opinion that no one else in the history of mankind fits the description of the personality given by the prophet Isaiah as soon as Jesus the Messiah. Let us dwell on the most common opinion relating the prophecy of Isaiah to the people of Israel. He was especially zealously defended by the founder of the interpretation of Rashi himself - Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki / 1040 - 1105 AD/.
A follower of Rashi was David Kimchi/1160 - 1235 AD/
Let us try to contrast this teaching with our research in this chapter.
First, it should be noted that the characteristics of the personality described in chapter 53 do not in any way correspond to the characteristics of the people of Israel. The Prophet speaks of the suffering of the Servant of the Lord: “He was tortured for our sins, and we are tormented for our iniquities.”
Israel has never suffered for other nations. Through the fault of other peoples - yes, but never for others. Based on the testimony of the Torah and the Prophets, Israel has always suffered due to its sinfulness. But not because of the sinfulness of the goyim - pagans, as Rashi, Kimchi, Radak and others claim. Realizing the inconsistency of such an interpretation, Rashi and his followers are trying to put the words of the prophet into the mouths of other nations, who, they say, will imagine that suffering Israel suffered bear their sins.
זה שיאמרו האומות אכן חלינו הוא נשא והדומים לזה הוא דברי עצמם לא שישראל סבלו עון האומות אלא הם יחשבו זה בדעתם
This is a clear distortion of the words of the prophet, the meaning of which becomes even clearer when compared with verse 7, where it is written:

נִגַּשׂ וְהוּא נַעֲנֶה, וְלֹא יִפְתַּח-פִּיו, כַּשֶּׂה לַטֶּבַח יוּבָל, וּכְרָחֵל לִפְנֵי גֹזְזֶיהָ נֶאֱלָמָה; וְלֹא יִפְתַּח, פִּיו.
“He was tortured, but He suffered voluntarily and did not open His mouth; He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and like a lamb that is silent before its shearers, so He opened not His mouth.”
The pages of the history of Israel show that the Israelis have never been distinguished by such humility and non-resistance to evil. Take for example the Maccabean revolt. It is well known that the first seven centuries of the new era, which passed after the loss of political independence by the Israeli people, also represented a chain of indignation, unrest and bloody resistance. Revolt against the Romans, leading to the destruction of the Temple. Later, during the Bar Kochba Rebellion, Jerusalem was destroyed and Israel was taken into captivity for two thousand years. Uprisings in Chorin, Cyprus, Alexandria, Antioch, and Arabia. In the modern history of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, guerrilla warfare against Nazi Germany, defensive wars against Arab countries trying to strangle the young Jewish state. All these facts of history testify against the opinion of Rashi and his supporters, therefore the person described in chapter 53 does not fit Israel in any way. Israel never suffered voluntarily and never silently. Another proof of the incorrectness of the teachings of modern Judaism is that the prophet, describing the suffering of the Servant of the Lord, names the reason: “for the crimes of my people.”
It is appropriate to ask: “Whose people?” From the context it is clear that the people of the prophet. What people is the prophet himself from? If Rashi’s opinion is correct that the people of Israel sacrificially and voluntarily suffer for the pagans, then Isaiah was a pagan.
But the Prophet Isaiah the son of Amos was a Jew from among the Jews. So what happens? Israel suffers for the crimes of the people of the prophet Isaiah - Israel, i.e. for yourself? Complete absurdity
Verse 9 speaks of the death of the suffering Servant of the Lord: “He was assigned a grave with evildoers, but He was buried with a rich man.”
It is impossible for a prophet to say this about Israel. The people of Israel are still alive to this day, despite all the attempts of Satan, through the Judephobes, to destroy them. God promised Israel in the scriptures that He would keep them before Him forever.
Further in verses 10 and 11 it is said that after death the Servant of the Lord is resurrected from the dead: “he who died will see long-lasting offspring... he will look at the exploit of his soul with contentment.” A clear evidence of the resurrection is that the wounds of the suffering Servant of the Lord are healed. Many are justified by knowing Him.
The Jewish people have been suffering for three thousand years, and the pagan nations still continue to be “sick.” This is proven by the state of the world today: wars, economic and political problems, the decline of morals. There is no evidence that the nations can be justified because of the suffering of the Jewish people. On the contrary, they are even more guilty of their atrocities than ever, and especially in relation to the Jewish people.
Let us return to the question: “Is the opinion of current rabbinic Judaism traditional and correct?” Did all rabbis at all times really believe that the prophecies of the 53rd chapter of Isaiah speak of the people of Israel suffering for the sins of the pagans?
To answer this question, let us turn to the sources of Israeli literature, to books of polemical content. Even-Ezra, speaking about chapter 53, speaks out in principle against the opinion of Messianic Jews who claim that this chapter speaks of Jesus of Nazareth. However, he notices that
זאת פרשה קשה מאד אמרו בעלי פלוגתינו שהוא רמז לאלוהים ורבים פירשהו על משיח בעבור שאמרו קדמונינו ז"ל כי ביום שחרב בית המקדש נולד משיח והוא אסור בזיקים.
It's hard to understand the meaning of this chapter. Many authorities refer this chapter to the Messiah, believing that "on the day the Temple was destroyed, the Messiah was born bound in chains." It clearly indicates that the ancient Israelites believed in the birth of the “Messiah - the Sufferer” and based on this they interpreted chapter 53. This is partly recognized by Abarbanel, who said the following about this:
השאלה הראשונה הוא לדעת על מי נאמרה הנבואה הזאת כי הנה חכמי הנוצרים פרשוה על אותו האיש שתלו בירושלם בסוף בית שני שהיה לדעתם בן האלוה יתברך: שנתגשם בבטן העלמה כמו שמפורסם בדבריהם ואמנם יונתן בן עוזיאל תרגמה על משיח העתיד לבא וזהו גם כן דעת חכמים ז"ל בהרבה ממדרשותיהם.
“The first question that needs to be answered is: who is the prophet talking about, for the sages of the messianic teaching claim that this is talking about the One who was crucified in Jerusalem at the end of the existence of the second Temple. He, according to them, was born of a virgin. Yochanan Ben Uziel interpreted the same, saying that this chapter speaks of the Messiah who will appear in the future, and this is the opinion of all the wise men, in many interpretations.”
Abarbanel believes that Yohanan Ben Uziel interpreted Isaiah 53 as referring to the suffering Messiah. And even more than that, he agrees that this was the opinion of all the sages of Judaism, in many interpretations.
If we turn to another source of rabbinic literature - the Babylonian Talmud, completed at the beginning of the 6th century and recognized by the rabbis as the source of oral tradition, we will see that here, too, the 53rd chapter of Isaiah is attributed to the Messiah.
אמר רב לא אברי עלמא אלא לדור ושמואל אמר למשה ור" יוחנן אמר למשיח מה שמו דבי ר" שילא אמרי ינון שמו שנאמר עד כי יבא שילה דבי ר" ינאי אמרי ינון שמו שנאמר יהי שמו לעולם לפני שמש ינון שמו ר" חנינא אמרי חנינא שמו שנאמר אשר לא יתן לכם חנינא ויש אומרים מנחם בן חזקיה שמו שנאמר כי רחק ממנו מנחם משיב נפשי ורבנן אמרי חיוורתא רבי ר" שמו שנאמר אכן חליינו הוא נשא ומכאובינו סבלם ואנחנו חשבנוהו נגיע מוכה אלוהים ומעונה.
“Among the various judgments about the name of the Messiah, there is an opinion that the Messiah is called a leper, for it is said: “Truly He took upon Himself our infirmities and bore our diseases, but we thought that He was smitten, punished and humiliated by God.”
The chapter of Holy Scripture in the collection “Yalkut Shimeoni” is commented on in the same spirit.
הנה ישכיל עבדי זה מלך המשיח. ירום ונשא וגבה מאד. ירום מן אברהם שכתוב בו הרימותי ידי אל יי. ונשא ממשה שכתוב בו כי תאמר אלי שאהו בחיקך. וגבה ממלאכי השרת שנאמר וגביהם וגבה להם. וכן אומר מי אתה הר הגדול שהוא גדול מן האבות: והוא מחולל מפשעינו מדוכא מעונותינו מוסר שלומינו עליו ובחבורתו נרפא לנו.רב הונא בשם רבי אחא לשלשה חלקים נתחלקה היסורין אחד לדור ולאבות ואחד לדורו של המורה ואחד למלך המשיח.
“Behold, My Servant will prosper” - these words point to the King Messiah. “He will be exalted, glorified and exalted very high” These words in Yalkut Shimeoni are confirmed by references to the Holy Scriptures in the sense that He will be exalted above Abraham, will be glorified more than Moses and will be exalted above the angels. It goes on to say: “Who is like a great mountain, which is higher than the holy patriarchs.” The one about whom it is said: “He was wounded for our sins.” Here is the opinion of one scientist who claims that a third of all suffering is intended for the king Messiah.” This clearly shows the traditional opinion of ancient Judaism, which is that the Person in chapter 53 is the Messiah. And the rabbis place Him, this “sufferer who bore our illnesses” above the patriarchs, Moses and the angels.
It is curious that the book of Zohar, deeply revered by Talmudists, establishes a close connection between the prophecy of Isaiah and the Messiah. In the Zohar commentary on the books of Exodus, page 95, we read:
תבין ואמרין ליה למשיח בשעתא דאמרין ליה למשיח צערא דישראל בגלותהי ואינון חייבייא די בהו דלא מסתכלי למנדע למריהון ארים קלא יבכי על אינון חייביא רבהו הה"ר והוא מחולל מפשעינו מדוכא מעונותינו: תבין אינון נשמתין וקיימין באתרייהו: בגנתא דעדן אית היכלא הדא דאקרי היכלא דבני מבעין כדין משיח עאל בההו היכלה וקארי כל מ-עין כל כאבין כל יסוריהן דישראל ייתון: וכלהו אתיין עליה: ואלמלא דאיהו אקיל מעלייהו דישא ונטיל עליה לא היי בר נש ריכיל למסבל ייסוריהון דישא על עונשי דאורייתא הה"ד אכן חליינו הוא נשא ומכאבינו הוא סבלם.
“Souls, staying in this world and looking closely at the plight of captive Israel, return to paradise and report to the Messiah about all the suffering of the Israeli people and about the sinners encountered among them who did not know their Creator. And He cries and cries for these sinners, as the prophet Isaiah says: “He is wounded for our sins and tormented for our iniquities.”
We ask our readers to compare all the characteristics of the Messiah used in rabbinic literature with the person of Yeshua - Jesus, as He is presented in the New Testament, in the book of Hebrews:
“God, who spoke of old in many ways and in various ways to the fathers in the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us in the Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the worlds, being the radiance of glory and the image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, having made purification by himself. our sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, being as much superior to the angels as he inherited the most glorious name before them. For to which of the Angels did [God] ever say: You are My Son, today I have begotten You? And again: I will be His Father, and He will be My Son? Also, when he introduces the Firstborn into the universe, he says: and let all the Angels of God worship Him.”
Hebrews 1:1-6
“Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Jesus Christ, who is faithful to Him who appointed Him, just as Moses was in all His house. For He is worthy of all the more glory before Moses, the greater the honor in comparison with the house of the one who built it, for every house is built by someone; and the one who arranged everything [is] God. And Moses was faithful in all His house, as a minister, to bear witness to that which was to be declared; and Christ is like a Son in His house; “We are His house, if only we hold fast the boldness and the hope in which we boast.” Hebrews 3:1-6
Let us refer to another authoritative opinion of Rabbi Moshe Elsheikh, who lived in the 16th century.
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Yeshua is a slave by His human nature, which in no way diminishes His Divine nature. This is how the great Apostle Shaul/Paul/, a disciple of Rabbi Gamaliel, explains it in the New Testament in the Epistle to the Philippians, chapter 2, verses 4 - 8: “Let each one not take care of himself [only], but each one also of others. For let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus: He, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God; but he made himself of no reputation, taking the form of a servant, becoming in the likeness of men, and becoming in appearance like a man; He humbled himself, becoming obedient even to the point of death, even death on the cross.”
Second argument:
The words from the 52nd chapter of the prophet Isaiah, “Behold, My Servant will prosper, be exalted, exalted, and exalted,” cannot refer to Yeshua, who was condemned to death along with inferior and criminal people.
Answer:
The shame of execution is not proof that the Savior was not exalted and glorified. The Prophet, predicting His greatness, also speaks of the humiliation of the Messiah. Isaiah shows Him both “exalted and also despised and despised of men.” The Apostle Paul, in the same letter to the Philippians, explains that Yeshua was crowned with thorns before the crown of glory: “Therefore God also highly exalted Him and gave Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and Every tongue confessed that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Philippians 2:9-11
A person in his right mind cannot deny that this same Yeshua, who was betrayed to a shameful death 2000 years ago, is today the most exalted and popular personality in the whole world. There was, no, and there will not be a more famous Jew on the face of the earth than Yeshua Amashiach - Jesus Christ. He became an object of worship among ordinary people and the greatest of this world, both among Jews and pagans.
Third argument:
Yeshua had no children and therefore the words “He will see a long-lasting descendant” cannot refer to Him.
Answer:
The word “descendants” here carries an allegorical meaning, not a direct one. For example, in the Holy Scriptures the same allegorical expressions are often found - “son”, “child”, “firstborn”. The disciples of the prophets are called “children of the prophets” בני החכמים. The people of Israel are “the sons of Israel” and “the sons of the living God.” God Himself calls Ephraim “son” and “child,” as it is said in the book of the prophet Jeremiah: “Is not Ephraim my dear son, my beloved child?” /Jer.31:20/ Israel is called “son” and “firstborn”. Exodus 4:22
If all these expressions have an allegorical meaning, then why are people, supposedly reading the Holy Scriptures, surprised at this use of the word “descendants”?! The statement that only natural children should be recognized as descendants is not true. The words “offspring” and “family” are also used where we are talking about the children of a brother-in-law, i.e. not about your own children. It is enough, however, to point to the words of the prophet Malachi /2:15/ “offspring from God” /מלאכי ב", ט"ו/ זרע אלהים or to the expression found in the Psalms /Ps.21:31/ תהילים כ"ב, ל" א/ באלו הוא זרע אשר יעבדנו/ “my descendants will serve Him and will be called the Lord’s forever” to come to the conclusion that “descendants” do not always correspond to the concept of natural children. This opinion is shared by one of the greatest philosophers of the Israeli people, Maimonides, as well as Even Ezra.
They interpret this verse the same way we do, explaining that the word “offspring” refers to followers. So this argument is not valid either. And Jesus, indeed, has had more descendants for 2000 years than any great man of this world.
Fourth argument:
If Yeshua is God come in the flesh, who “made an intercessor for criminals,” to whom did He pray?
Answer:
He prayed to his Heavenly Father while nailed to the cross. He prays for his persecutors and now, sitting at the right hand of God the Father, He is our eternal Intercessor. Our brothers from the Jewish people lose sight of the fact that the Messiah, depicted by the prophets, includes two natures: human and divine. The Prophet Isaiah was the one to whom the revelation was given about the mystery of the incarnation of God. Read the verse in Isaiah 7:14:
לָכֵן יִתֵּן אֲדֹנָי הוּא, לָכֶם--אוֹת: הִנֵּה הָעַלְמָה, הָרָה וְיֹלֶדֶת בֵּן, וְקָרָאת שְׁמוֹ, עִמָּנוּ אֵל. /ישעיה ז", י"ד/

“The Lord Himself will give you a sign: behold, a virgin will be with child and give birth to a Son, and they will call His name Immanuel.” Also in chapter 9 verses 6 – 7:
כִּי-יֶלֶד יֻלַּד-לָנוּ, בֵּן נִתַּן-לָנוּ, וַתְּהִי הַמִּשְׂרָה, עַל-שִׁכְמוֹ; וַיִּקְרָא שְׁמוֹ פֶּלֶא יוֹעֵץ, אֵל גִּבּוֹר, אֲבִי-עַד, שַׂר-שָׁלוֹם. /ישעיה ט", ה"-ו"/
“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; the government is upon His shoulder, and His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. There will be no end to the increase of His government and peace on the throne of David and in his kingdom, so that He may establish it and strengthen it with judgment and righteousness from now on and forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.”
So, from the words of the prophet Isaiah, we see that the Messiah will not be just a man, but a Man Who is “God with us - Immanuel,” and although he will be born as a child, His birth will be supernatural, from a Virgin who did not know a husband, and titles, given to Him at birth can only refer to God: “Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” Thus, this argument is also unfounded. Examining it in the light of the scriptures, we find that the description of the Servant of the Lord in this chapter fits only Yeshua - our Lord and Savior. To him be glory forever and ever. Amen.
After all the explanations, we want to point out the indisputable evidence that the prophecy of Isaiah refers to the Messiah and, moreover, to Jesus the Messiah. The first evidence is the part of the Bible known as the New Testament, which confirms that in ch. 53 is about the Lord Yeshua.
In the Gospel of Matthew (8:16-17) we read: “When evening came, they brought many demon-possessed to Him (Jesus), and He cast out the spirits with a word and healed all the sick, so that what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled, who says: “He He took upon himself our infirmities and bore our illnesses.” Acts of the Apostles 8:32 says, “And the scripture that he read was this: “As a sheep is led to the slaughter, and as a lamb is silent before its shearers, so He opened not His mouth.” 1 Peter 2:24 says, “He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, that we, being freed from sins, might live unto righteousness; by His stripes we were healed.”
The testimonies of these children of Israel (Matthew, Paul, Peter and other authors of the books of the New Testament were Jews as well as Abraham, Moses, David and Isaiah) serve as irrefutable evidence of the strength and purity of our convictions. If some of our Jewish brothers do not agree with us, then they should support their view with more convincing arguments than one unfounded denial, which, as we believe, stems more from a bias of opinion in relation to Jesus than on any other for good reasons. Jesus said, “They have hated Me, and they have hated Me without cause.”
The next proof is a description of the earthly life of the Lord Yeshua HaMashiach, which coincides to the smallest detail with the prophecy of Isaiah. The size of the book is limiting and does not allow us to follow His entire life. Otherwise, the entire New Testament would have to be rewritten. Therefore, let us dwell on its central points. The first of these is birth. Truly, He was born as a tender sprout, full of grace, on the dry land of Pharisaic religiosity, where the “letter of the law” killed in man all the desire to know God and placed on him an unbearable burden of laws invented by people, which to this day no one has been able to fulfill, like written by the prophet Isaiah: “And the word of the Lord became unto them: commandment upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little, so that they will go and fall backward, and be broken, and fall into net, and they will be caught." (Isaiah 28:13)
Truly, with His birth the words of the prophet Isaiah were fulfilled.
וּפָנָה לְמָעְלָה. וְאֶל-אֶרֶץ, יַבִּיט; וְהִנֵּה צָרָה וַחֲשֵׁכָה מְעוּף צוּקָה, וַאֲפֵלָה מְנֻדָּח. כִּי לֹא מוּעָף, לַאֲשֶׁר מוּצָק לָהּ, כָּעֵת הָרִאשׁוֹן הֵקַל אַרְצָה זְבֻלוּן
וְאַרְצָה נַפְתָּלִי, וְהָאַחֲרוֹן הִכְבִּיד--דֶּרֶךְ הַיָּם עֵבֶר הַיַּרְדֵּן, גְּלִיל הַגּוֹיִם. הָעָם הַהֹלְכִים בַּחֹשֶׁךְ, רָאוּ אוֹר גָּדוֹל: יֹשְׁבֵי בְּאֶרֶץ צַלְמָוֶת, אוֹר נָגַהּ
עֲלֵיהֶם.הִרְבִּיתָ הַגּוֹי,לא הִגְדַּלְתָּ הַשִּׂמְחָה; שָׂמְחוּ לְפָנֶיךָ כְּשִׂמְחַת בַּקָּצִיר, כַּאֲשֶׁר יָגִילוּ בְּחַלְּקָם שָׁלָל.כִּי אֶת-עֹל סֻבֳּלוֹ, וְאֵת מַטֵּה שִׁכְמוֹ, שֵׁבֶט,
הַנֹּגֵשׂ בּוֹ-הַחִתֹּתָ, כְּיוֹם מִדְיָן. ישעיה / ח", כ"ב-כ"ג/ /ט", א"-ג"/
“And they will look up and look at the earth; and behold, grief and darkness, thick darkness, and they will be cast into darkness. But there will not always be darkness where it has now thickened. Formerly the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali were belittled; but what follows will exalt the seaside route, the Transjordanian country, the pagan Galilee. The people walking in darkness will see a great light; on those who live in the land of the shadow of death the light will shine. You will multiply the people, increase their joy. He will rejoice before You, as one rejoices during the harvest, as one rejoices when dividing the spoils. For the yoke that weighed him down, and the rod that struck him, and the reed of his oppressor, you will break in pieces, as in the day of Midian.” Isaiah 8:22; 9:1-4
God did not incarnate into the “form of man” in adulthood, but rather, as predicted by the prophet, “without form or majesty” into a helpless baby. Not in a royal palace, but in a stable, not among noble people, but among the poorest, and not in glory, but in contempt. For to this day the majority point their fingers at Him and shout: “Who is your father?” Truly, “He was despised and humbled before men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with pain, and we hid our face from Him.”
To this day, our people continue to fulfill the sad words of the prophet: “Who believed what they heard from us?” People continue to despise and turn their faces away from the greatest of the sons of Israel, who gave Himself to death for the salvation of their souls. Yes, He was wounded for our sins, and tormented for our iniquities.
Dear reader, think about which group of people you belong to? To those who treat Him with contempt and shout: “Crucify Him, crucify Him”? Or to those who, with pain in their souls, see in Him the Righteous One, suffering voluntarily, Who, like a sheep, was led to the slaughter and like a villain was nailed to the cross. To those who tearfully repent before God and accept this propitiation sacrifice in order to be numbered among His “descendants” and be justified and redeemed for eternal life in Yeshua.
For centuries, the best and most educated people have recognized Him as the Savior of the world and God incarnate. His contemporaries - the people of Israel - could not appreciate Him because of the ugliness of his appearance, for “His face is disfigured like no other.” Nevertheless, He drew many nations to Himself and brought them to the knowledge of the Lord God of Israel. What was not told to them about God's truth, they saw through Jesus. And what they had not heard, they knew and believed.
Another proof is the 8th verse of the 53rd chapter of the prophet Isaiah “He was taken from bonds and judgment”
When we study the New Testament, we understand how unfair the judgment carried out by the Sanhedrin on Yeshua was. The gospel of Matthew describes the day when Jesus was judged. “The chief priests and elders and the whole Sanhedrin sought false testimony against Jesus, in order to put Him to death, and found none; and, although many false witnesses came, they were not found. But finally two false witnesses came and said: He said: I can destroy the temple of God and build it in three days. And the high priest stood up and said to Him: [why] don’t you answer? What do they testify against You? Jesus was silent. And the high priest said to Him: I adjure You by the living God, tell us, Are You the Christ, the Son of God? Jesus says to him: You said; I even say to you: from now on you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven. Then the high priest tore his clothes and said: He is blaspheming! What more need do we need witnesses? Behold, now you have heard His blasphemy! what do you think? They answered and said: He is guilty of death. Then they spat in His face and strangled Him; others hit Him on the cheeks and said: Prophesy to us, Christ, who hit You? Matthew 26:59-68
Yeshua was convicted based on the false testimony of two people. The spiritual leaders of Israel deliberately violated the moral code of the Torah, although they had in the Law a model of maintaining the purity of legal proceedings, which made Israel a special people among all nations. The Sanhedrin, the highest religious court in Israel, consisting of 70 of the most learned lawyers, unjustly condemned a fellow Jew and handed him over to the hands of pagan justice. What a terrible sin these people committed, betraying an innocent soul to a shameful death at the hands of the pagans. The words of the prophet Isaiah have truly been fulfilled and continue to be fulfilled:
וָאֹמַר, הִנְנִי שְׁלָחֵנִי. וַיֹּאמֶר, לֵךְ וְאָמַרְתָּ לָעָם הַזֶּה: שִׁמְעוּ שָׁמוֹעַ וְאַל-תָּבִינוּ, וּרְאוּ רָאוֹ וְאַל-תֵּדָעוּ.הַשְׁמֵן לֵב-הָעָם הַזֶּה, וְאָזְנָיו הַכְבֵּד וְעֵינָיו
הָשַׁע: פֶּן-יִרְאֶה בְעֵינָיו וּבְאָזְנָיו יִשְׁמָע, וּלְבָבוֹ יָבִין וָשָׁב--וְרָפָא לוֹ. /ישעיה ו", ט"-י"/
“And He said: Go and tell this people: You will hear with your ears and will not understand, and with your eyes you will see and will not see. For the heart of this people is hardened, and their ears are hard of hearing, and they have closed their eyes, lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted, that I might heal them.”
How else can we understand people who read the 53rd chapter of Isaiah and do not see Jesus in it; truly, these people are blind and deaf. But some of the leaders of the people are guilty of an even deeper guilt than mere delusion. Their guilt lies in deliberately hiding this chapter from the people of Israel.
In the established order of Shabbat services in synagogues, there is a schedule for reading the Torah - Parashat Shavuah and the Prophets - Aftarah. Let us ask a simple question: “If the polemicists of rabbinic Judaism are absolutely sure that the 53rd chapter of the prophet Isaiah refers to the suffering people of Israel, and not to Jesus of Nazareth, then why is this wonderful chapter excluded from the weekly reading of the Aftarah?
For example: when reading הפטרת שפטים “Aftarat” “Shofetim” they read 51:12 – 23 through 52:1 – 12, then 52:13 – 15, and skip the entire 53rd chapter. In הפטרת כי תצא “Aftarat” “Ki – Titse” continues from chapter 54 and verse 1. Marvelous? Not to us, who accepted the Truth in the person of Jesus the Messiah, about whom Moses and the prophets prophesied. He is still despised and belittled before people, and today there are people who are ready to pass on Him the same judgment as they did 2000 years ago. The world greeted him with contempt: both Jews and Greeks. Great Rome fed the wild animals with Judeo-Christians. And yet, not a single mortal has achieved such high honor and glory as the name of Jesus has covered, despite the millions of false Christians who have tried to cover up their vile political and personal intrigues with the wonderful and bright name of Christ. Having overcome paganism, he became a stronghold of monotheism, a torch of the world, an inexhaustible source of morality.
Who the prophet is talking about is your decision.
Having finished with all the arguments of the apologist writers, we want to turn to the heart of each of you and ask you to take a more thoughtful approach to this issue, because your fate in eternity depends on it.
“Men of Israel! listen to these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man testified to you by God with powers and wonders and signs, which God did through Him among you, as you yourselves know, whom you took, according to the definite counsel and foreknowledge of God, and nailed him with the hands of the wicked, killed; but God raised Him up, breaking the bonds of death, because it was impossible for it to hold Him. For David says of Him: I saw the Lord always before me, for He is at my right hand, so that I should not be shaken. Therefore my heart rejoiced and my tongue was glad; even my flesh will rest in hope, for You will not leave my soul in hell and will not allow Your saint to see corruption. You have made me know the way of life, You will fill me with joy in Your presence. Men, brothers! let it be allowed to boldly tell you about the forefather David, that he died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Being a prophet and knowing that God promised him with an oath from the fruit of his loins to raise up Christ in the flesh and seat him on his throne, He first said about the resurrection of Christ that His soul was not left in hell, and His flesh did not see corruption. This Jesus God raised up, of which we are all witnesses. So He, having been exalted by the right hand of God and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, poured out what you now see and hear. For David did not ascend into heaven; but he himself says: The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at My right hand, until I make Your enemies Your footstool. Know therefore surely, all the house of Israel, that God hath made this Jesus, whom ye crucified, to be Lord and Christ. Hearing this, they were touched in their hearts and said to Peter and the other Apostles: What should we do, men and brethren? Peter said to them: Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins; and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." Acts of the Apostles 2:22-38
Dear brothers of the Jewish people, will you join those hundreds of thousands of Jews who accepted Yeshua as their Messiah and Savior and found forgiveness of sins, peace and the gift of eternal life? The majority of the Jewish people may not accept Jesus and continue to despise Him, but that does not define the truth of who He is. On the basis of the Holy Scriptures, it was the minority, not the majority, who determined the truth of the faith. For it is written in the book of the prophet Isaiah: “Even though the children of Israel were as many as the sand of the sea, only a remnant will be saved. For the Lord, the Lord of hosts, will bring about a certain destruction in all the earth.”
What is your relationship with Jesus?
If you feel hostility and despise Jesus, then the question we put before you will help you understand your feelings, analyze why you have such feelings, what causes them, whether they have a basis or are you just following the majority opinion, which means you have a preconceived opinion. This is what God teaches in the Torah, Exodus 23:1 – 2
לֹא תִשָּׂא, שֵׁמַע שָׁוְא; אַל-תָּשֶׁת יָדְךָ עִם-רָשָׁע, לִהְיֹת עֵד חָמָס. לֹא-תִהְיֶה אַחֲרֵי-רַבִּים, לְרָעֹת; וְלֹא-תַעֲנֶה עַל-רִב, לִנְטֹת אַחֲרֵי רַבִּים-לְהַטֹּת.
/שמות כ"ג, א"-ב"/
“Do not listen to empty rumors, do not give your hand to the wicked to be a witness of unrighteousness. Do not follow the majority to evil, and do not resolve disputes by departing from the truth for the majority." Yeshua said: "I am the Way and the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. I am the Bread of Life that came down from heaven; he who comes to Me will never go hungry, and he who believes in Me will never thirst. This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I should not destroy anything, but should raise it all up on the last day. He who believes in Me has eternal life and does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.”
Dear friend, will you turn from unbelief to faith, from darkness to light, from death to life? God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved you, even those who were dead, criminals under the law, can make you alive with the Messiah Jesus and raise you up with Him and seat you in heaven with the Messiah. For salvation is by God’s grace, which He showed us in Yeshua, in His death, and this is not from us, it is God’s gift: not by works, so that no one can boast. Take heed, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil and unfaithful heart, lest you depart from the living God. Now, when you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts, as in the time of murmuring. For some of those who heard the voice of God in the wilderness, who came out of Egypt with Moses, grumbled. And God was indignant with them for forty years. And the bones of them all remained in the desert. Not one of them entered His rest. So we see that they could not enter because of unbelief. He who at His first coming came as a suffering and humiliated Servant, at the second coming will appear as the King of kings and Lord of lords, in power and great glory, to those coming on the clouds of heaven, and every eye will see Him, and those who pierced Him will weep all the families of the earth are before Him. Amen
Yeshua said: “Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to reward everyone according to his deeds. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. Blessed are they who keep His commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life... I am the root and descendant of David, the bright and morning star. Both the Spirit and the Bride say: come! And let him who hears say: Come! Let him who is thirsty come, and let him who desires take the water of life freely. All things have been handed over to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father; and no one knows the Father except the Son, and to whom the Son wants to reveal it. Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls; For My yoke is easy and My burden is light"
So, dear reader, the choice is yours: continue to reject Him, or accept Him into your heart as Lord and Savior. Our prayer for all of you is that the eyes of your hearts will be opened and you will see light and grace in Yeshua HaMashiach, the Redeemer of Israel and all nations. To him be honor, praise and thanksgiving forever and ever. Amen!
Authors: Albert Israeli, Samuel Lichtman