The Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53 - Verses 10-12 (Part 4)

The Gentiles confessions concerning Israel start at Isaiah 52:13 and end at Isaiah 53:9. Christian and Jewish views of Isaiah 53 both see verse 10 as starting a new pattern that is non-confessing while still maintaining the context concerning the servant. Verse 10 begins with the relationship between God and the servant.

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"Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief..." - Isaiah 53:10
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Why would it please the Lord to bruise/crush his servant and make him ill? And why does God wish to cause ill on the servant who seemed so righteous and victimized during the confession verses? These questions are answered in the following words of the text, but one needs to understand God's dichotomy of judgment concerning Israel and the Gentile nations to better understand the following words within the text.

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Israel has been, and always will be, God's chosen people and nation. But that fact doesn't mean that as a whole Israel has been a righteous nation. So when verse 10 begins to address the relationship between God and Israel, a thing called sin emerges that must be dealt with. This is where God's dichotomy of judgment comes in. God allows the Gentile nations to persecute the Jewish nation as God's army (see Habakkuk 1:6). Notice that the context though changed from a confession to a statement of fact is still staying with an overall pattern of Gentile persecution of Israel. However, when the Gentile nations overstep their commission in punishing Israel, God's anger then becomes directed at the Gentile nations for their persecution on His chosen people. It kind of runs something like this:
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A. God allows Hitler to rise in Germany in order to persecute the "reformed" German Jews for assimilating and totally rejecting their prophets by declaring Berlin as their Jerusalem.

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B. The Holocaust forces destroy one-third of the "enlightened" assimilated European Jews and force the rest into the land of their forefathers - Israel.
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C. Hitler goes to hell, Germany is destroyed, the State of Israel is born among the modern nations as an ultimate rebuke to Hitler overstepping his commission that God allowed so He could be glorified in His chosen people.

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I know what I just wrote is not politically correct but is it biblical? Of course it is. I wouldn't wrote it if it hadn't been.

"...Thus saith the Lord of Host; I am jealous for Jerusalem and for Zion with a great jealousy. And I am very angry with the nations that are at ease, for I was wroth a little, and they helped to do harm." Therefore thus saith the LORD; I am returned to Jerusalem with mercies: my house shall be built in it, saith the LORD of hosts, and a line shall be stretched forth upon Jerusalem.- Zachariah 1:15 (also see Isaiah 40:2)

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Now the next line will be even clearer, that is when we straighten it out with the original Hebrew of course:

"...when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand." - Isaiah 53:10

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One thing the KJV totally and I believe willfully leaves out of the text is the Hebrew word that is spelled, aleph-mem pronounced "eem" meaning "if". If the word "if" was left in the Christian translation it would seem to make it less messianic, therefore, the translators substituted the word "if" for "when". This was done even though the Hebrew word "when" / "as" is spelled with the letter "caph" in front of a word or is spelled "caph-aleph-shen-raysh".

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However, if the text of Isaiah 53 is talking about Israel, this prophecy, as so many other prophesies do, can easily be referring back to the Torah and its mentioning of the nation of Israel. Deuteronomy chapters 28-30 specifies blessings and curesing based upon Israel's choices that they make toward their God and His commandments. This is why the word "if" is so important in the Isaiah 53 text, because a choice has to be made. Now with that, notice the direct comparisons""if he places (acknowledges) guilt his soul shall see seed (progeny). -Isaiah 53:10

"And thou shalt return (by acknowledging guilt) and obey the the voice of the Lord, and do His commandments which I command thee this day, And the Lord thy God will make thee plenteous in every work of thine hand, in the fruit of thy body....If (there's that word again) thou shall hearnen unto the voice of the Lord the God, to keep His commandments and His statues which are written in this book of the Law... - Deuteronomy 30:8-10

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The Hebrew word for "seed" is "zerah" and it literally means "semen" or "physical offspring". What "zerah" never means is "spiritual metaphoric children".1 Therefore, if Isaiah 53 is only talking about Jesus, what's he doing having physical children? Most Christians (as well as myself) has a big problem with the Da Vinci Codes and their number one factor for having a problem with the Da Vinci Codes is that Jesus' deity comes into question if he has normal relations with a mortal woman. But being blessed in having normal relations with mortal women is the very context of Isaiah 53:10 (see Isaiah 59:20-21 for a comparison).

...he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. - Isaiah 53:10

Again, we must go back to Deuteronomy 30 as we did with the first part of the verse concerning the servant's seed to get conformation as to whom Isaiah's prophecy is refering concerning the servant's days being prolonged:

"That thou mayest love the Lord thy God, and that thou mayest obey His voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him: for He is thy life, and the length of thy days..." -Deuteronomy 30:20 (also see Deuteronomy 5:16 / 6:2)

Now, the question now as to what the text doesn't say. It doesn't say that the servant will cut-off (meaning a shortened life) as in Daniel 9:26 - a scripture Christians relate to Jesus. Psalms 90:10 proclaims a normal man's life is 70-80 years yet Jesus lived not even half of that before his death. Also, something prolonged doesn't mean forever and ever as Christians try to imply when challenged with this. As in Deuteronomy 6:2 (letting the scriptures interpeeate themselves as to their meaning) a prolonged life still refers to one that will eventually come to an end. Even Isaiah's own depiction of righteous Israel seemingly has an end of very "prolonged" days. See Isaiah 65:20-23

"He shall see of the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied..." - Isaiah 53:11

Staying with the context of Gentile presecution upon Israel and Israel's now acceptence of it because he knows that it pleased God to get his servant Israel to repent and have their days prolonged (as well as the Gentile recognition of their presecuting sin) he will be satisfied with the "travail of his soul".

"with his knowledge my servant will vindicate the righteous before many..." Isaiah 53:11

Notice again what it doesn't say. It doesn't say the righteous are to be justified / vindicated through faith in messianic shed blood. However, the "knowledge" that the Jewish nation obtains is vital to the world as to the Gentile nations seeking righteousness:2

"Keep therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these statues, and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people." - Deuteronomy 4:6

"The secret things belong unto the Lord our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law" - Deuteronomy 29:29 (also see Deuteronomy 30:11-14)

Fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction. - Proverbs 1:7
Also, the making of many righteous occurs at the End of Days when the Gentiles realize their spiritual mistakes and recognize Israel for her knowledge.
"And it shall come to pass, that as ye were a curse among the heathen, O house of Judah, and house of Israel; so will I save you, and ye shall be a blessing..." - Zechariah 8:13
"And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the LORD'S house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us (with spiritual knowledge) of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem." - Isaiah 2:2-3
Notice: all nations go to meet the specified God of Jacob (Israel) to what is holy territory in Judaism -Zion, to learn the righteous paths the Torah (Law) from which is the holiest place in Judaism - Jerusalem.
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They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea. - Isaiah 11:9
"Then thou shalt see, and flow together, and thine heart shall fear, and be enlarged; because the abundance of the sea shall be converted unto thee, the forces of the Gentiles shall come unto thee." -Isaiah 60:5
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"...their iniquities he shall carry - Isaiah 53:11

This is a repeat on verse 6 but stressing the fact that it is because of the knowledge that the servant obtains whereby fear of the Lord begins, the servant will be burdened with Gentile iniquity. It is through this great knowledge (Deuteronomy 4:6) that I as well as many other Gentiles have sought righteousness / justification even before the End of Days with the one true God of Israel.

"Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death..." - Isaiah 53:12

In staying with the entire context of all prior eleven verses, notice that the "pouring out of the servant's soul unto death" is directly connected with receiving vast booty (as a conquering nation does after it defeats another nation) among the great and mighty nations. In other words, because the Gentile nations have unjustly taken Israel as a criminal to the edge of death, Israel who is least among the nations (Deuteronomy 7:7) will therefore be given portions as to what the great Gentile nations have acquired. The question then arises, "what does the death as Jesus have to do with booty"?

"...and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors." - Isaiah 53:12

Again, we cannot separate these words with the rest of the entire context. The servant who receives great booty among the great is the same servant who is numbered with transgressors and bares the sin of those who falsely numbered him as such. The Crusades, Inquisitions, Pogroms, Mein Kamph, the Koran, and the Hamas covenant all have one thing in common besides being responsible for murdering Jews. They all have numbered the Jewish people (therefore the Jewish nation) among the tranagressors! In fact, being numbered among the transgressors has been the main cause behind Jewish persecution and murder throughout all of Jewish history.

Notes:
1. When challenged as to the "only" meaning of word "zerah" the best a learned messianic Jew could give me is Malachi 2:15. At first glance one might see a reference of a "godly seed" as in a metaphoric meaning, but when the context is read it becomes plain to see that the "zerah" was to be "physically produced" by a man and women who are spiritually one. The "wife" (the bearer of the seed) is mentioned both in verse 14 (prior verse) and after the "zerah" in verse 15 is mentioned.

2. If Hitler and the Nazis were even remotely Torah observant the entire Holocaust nor the war and death that Axis of Evil waged would have never occurred. However, because they had rejected all of the Jewish Torah, the Holocaust and all the death and destruction that followed it did happen. The same principle can be said for Al-Queda today.