Isaiah 53:7"He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth.".
About two years ago I was watching a History Channel 2006 documentary entitled, "
Hitler's Holocaust". This documentary contains several interviews of Nazis from that era in order to allow the viewers into the mindset of the Nazis. One particular interview caught my eyes and ears more than any other. It was a former lieutenant of the German Military Police who was responsible for supervising the lines of Jews awaiting their turn to enter the gas chambers. As I was hearing this Nazi speak I was caught up into what Isaiah 53:7 states. I immediately went to get pen and paper and began the process of starting and stopping the taped video so I could write down each sentence and word according to the English subtitles of his German statement, and this is what he said:
“They were always very quite, I never heard the cry. I never heard railing. Although they were being pushed forward by the Germans, this was usually without shouting. There was such a deathly silence over everything that it was very oppressive.” - Peter V.D. Osten-Sacken Lieutenants German Military Police.
It is noteworthy that this speaker like the ones speaking in Isaiah 53:7 is a Gentile, and not just any Gentile, but one who was among Israel's most notorious persecutors - an actual Nazi. What he is not, is a religious Jewish rabbi confessing his faults for not recognizing what the Gentile had persecuted him to believe for two thousand years, that Jesus was his messiah. So with that in mind, let's compare this Nazi's statement along with the scripture of Isaiah 53"7 back to back and see just how close they actually relate to each other.
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"He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth." “They were always very quite, I never heard the cry. I never heard railing. Although they were being pushed forward by the Germans, this was usually without shouting. There was such a deathly silence over everything that it was very oppressive.”
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The text of Isaiah 53 is completely allegorical. However, because the Holocaust was so extraordinary in the history mankind, many things in the text that are allegorical almost becomes literal. The reality of Jews being transported on "
cattle cars" to places like Treblinka and Auschwitz where their heads (including women) were shaven, and lines were formed (many of them naked) to await their slaughter via gas chamber or crematorium, seems almost to fulfill the text in a literal sense of
"sheep before her shearers" and
"lambs being 'brought' to the slaughter". This fact becomes even more extraordinary when David's statement concerning his Jewish people is added:
"Yea, for thy sake are we killed all the day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter" -
Psalms 44:22.
Isaiah 53:8
"He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living...".
When you take the KJV translators preconceived notion of influence from out of the verse, one ends up with an English translation sounding something like this:
"(Seeing) him being released from captivity and from judgment, who could have imagined this generation? For he was cut off from out of the land of the living and was afflicted due to my people's sin." .
One of the greatest end-time events that gets a lot a air-time so to speak in the Hebrew scripture is the promised return of Jews to the land of their fathers - Israel. The return of the exiles, Israel becoming righteous before the Gentile world while keeping (doing) the Law of Moses, the messiah, and the messianic age are all connected together as one single fulfillment
(see Ezekiel 34:13 / Ezekiel 36:24 / *Ezekiel 37:21-28 / Isaiah 11:12 / Isaiah 43:6).
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In verse 8 the Gentiles begin to marvel over the Jewish return to Israel (as many non-Christian Gentiles already have) -
http://www.geraldschroeder.com/age.html They marvel because of two reasons. One, they realize that there is a spiritual reason as to why after all that they have done to the nation of Israel it wasn't enough to bring him to an end, and that their desired to blot out his name forever (
see Psalms 83: 4) was spiritually evil. Two, the return to the land is so great that the Gentiles begin to understand that such a return could not have been possible without God being on Israel's side (
See Ezekiel 36: 33-36). Israel becoming a state in 1948 was the beginning and not the conclusion of a world-wide Jewish return to Israel. There is something in the form of "return" even far more greater in the near future.
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Of the two things verse 8 mentions, one being the servant being taken from captivity and two, the servant being cut-off from the land of the living, are both connected together in persecution of the servant, and not as two separate events unrelated to each other. Being cut off from the "land of the living" was to be "cut off" from the land of Israel (see Deuteronomy 30:19-20 / Ezekiel 37:11-12). This "cutting off from the land of the living" occurred in 586 BCE and and again in 70 CE that resulted in Israel's long Diaspora. The Jews also have also been historically "cut off" from Gentile "lands of living" such as Spain-1492, Germany-1939, and not to mention Gaza (which is again was Jewish land) 2005.
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Therefore, what verse 8 reveals is in fact the Diaspora (a very significant part of Jewish history - if a Gentile can even imagine important Jewish history actually being contained in the Hebrew Bible). This Diaspora was caused by the Gentiles that forced Jewish exiles into Gentile foreign lands where they were held captive from entering into the land of their fathers. But verse 8 hints of the massive return to the land (a return to "the land of the living") and the confessing Gentiles who now see in a spiritual perspective what they have historically done to the Jews.
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"...for the transgression of my people was he stricken."
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In part 1 of this blog we saw how an original singular pronoun was translated in the plural in Isaiah 52:4. Here in Isaiah 53:8 it is a plural masculine pronoun that is translated in the masculine singular by the King James translators. The Hebrew word "la-mo" (spelled: lamed-mem-vav) that is found here in verse 8 is a poetic expression of "la-hem" meaning "to them". It is a word that the King James translators had no problem at all with translating "lamo" as the pural pronoun "them" in all the other places throughout the Hebrew scriptures including the book of Isaiah (see Isaiah 16:4, 23:1, 30:5, 44:7, 48:21).
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So the question then becomes, why here in Isaiah 53, does the King James translators find it necessary to translate "lamo" as the singular pronoun "him"? Maybe because they needed to read the Gentile messiah-Jesus into the verse? The Hebrew reading of this portion is: "My people's sin (rebellion) had struck them".
Examples: The Inquisition and Holocaust rebellion against the God of Israel, struck the Jews!
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Isaiah 53:9
"And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death..."
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Following the flow of the context, "the servant" didn't "make" anything as the KJV might seem to be suggesting, because the servant was forced into it. The opening line of verse 9 is easier understood as, "he submitted [Hebrew root: na-ton 'gave'] himself to his grave among (along beside) the wicked." The following words, "and with the rich in his death" doesn't mean that the servant is buried in a rich man's tomb as the New Testament indicates (St. Matthew 27:57-60). That would make the flow of the context of a servant being persecuted to not make any sense. How is a innocent victim being buried in a rich man's tomb denote any derogation when derogation of the innocent servant is the theme of the entire context? I'm sorry, but to me the Gospel writer(s) of Matthew had to come up with a filler to fulfill this portion within the prophecy text, and Jesus being placed in a rich man's tomb was the best that they could come up with in using a history concerning only one man.
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The Hebrew is a little tricky here with its usage of the "Definite Direct Objects" but it's better translated and understood as: "He gave / submitted (himself) to his grave and the rich (gave / submitted) in their deaths.1
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The switching of a plural for the singular happens yet again here in verse 9. This time it is a plural possessive noun that is translated in the singular.
Hebrew Lesson:
In Hebrew, the root verb or noun is first given with the pronoun-suffix attached at the end of the word. To indicate that a possessive noun is plural in connection with the pronoun, the letter “yod” is placed in between the noun and the pronoun. Its use is like the plural-making “s” in English coming at the end of a noun. The word “bamotav” in the text is spelled, “bet-mem-tav-yod-vav”. The letter bet meaning, “in, by, of, on”. The letters mem-tav mean “death“. The letter yod changes “death” to “deaths” and the letter vav is the singular-male pronoun. The correct Hebrew translation is “his deaths".2 Therefore, if the original text reads "deaths" in verse 9, how does the one man death of Jesus fit into the text when it's "deaths" that the text is talking about?
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Getting back to the "wealth" portion of the text, the Jews are the only people who are stereo-typed as a race with wealth. The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion is largely based on this notion. Even the oil-rich Arabs are not stereo-typed for their wealth by race but only because of the "oil-rich" land in the Middle Est they happen to live on. I live in a state that has a Jewish population of about 6,ooo. Yet, even with such a low population the antisemtic mindset is still here. There are two incidents in recent past that I witnesses personally. In my training class at work a fellow co-worker asked the instructor whose last name was Goldstrum if he was Jewish because according to him, the word "gold" appears mostly in Jewish names. And one antisemite ask me in a Social Security office when seeing a Jewish man wearing a kippah (religious head covering) sitting at the service window, "What's he doing filing for social security, I thought they already had all the money?"
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The Jews do have a long history of having a high rate of success in finance. A large part of this history of was due to Gentile persecution. In Muslims lands is was forbidden for Muslims to handle gold whereby the Jews in Muslims lands became very skillful in the art of crafting gold, and money-leading was one of the few things the Jews in Christian Europe were allowed to do. The Jews became so good at managing money they were actually called upon to go to certain areas to rescue the local economies. And I'm of the opinion that our USA has been going downhill financially ever since a Jew named Alan Greenspan retired.
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The Webster Dictionary defines "usury" as the following: 1. the act or practice of lending money at a rate of interest that is excessive or unlawfully high. 2. the workings of the Jewish people during the Medieval period.
Just kidding. Webster doesn't say that. But see, you had "logical reason" to believe Webster could in fact (though insensitive) say something to that effect about the Jews. If any other race on earth was given with that same description you would have known right off I wasn't repeating Webster.
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The fact is however, the Holocaust is a great indicator of Gentile history towards the Jews. Many things that happened in the Holocaust had already taken place in the Spanish Inquisitions, such as purity of blood decrees, the wearing of yellow badges, Jewish ghettos, and of course, massive Jewish murder. The Jews were a wealthy people in Germany, Poland, and in every location across Europe. So when Hitler revolted against the World War I Treaty of Versailles the Jewish wealth was targeted. Jewish homes, property, jewelry, and even the gold in their teeth was striped from them before they were sent away in banishment or to the Nazi death camps stationed throughout Europe.
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The Christian Crusades, Inquisitions, Pogroms, and Mohammad's Arabian raids were no different to the Jewish communities that were subject to them. Everywhere the Jews have been persecuted it has always been their wealth that was taken from them and never their religion.
It was Jewish booty and slaves that built such places as the Roman Coliseum and stolen Jewish wealth during the Dark and Middle Ages that financed the Vatican.
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It has been Jewish wealth being stripped from them and distributed to the Gentile persecuting powers that fulfills the scripture, "He gave / submitted (himself) to his grave and the rich (gave / submitted) in their deaths."3
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There is something very spiritually symbolic that occurred at Brunnlitz that the ending part of "Schindler's List" - the movie brought to our attention. A gold filling is taken from out of one of the prisoner's mouth and made into a gold ring that states the Talmudic saying, "He who saves a single soul , saves the world entire". For a Jewish Holocaust victim to freely give his personal gold (even from his own mouth) to a righteous Gentile with Hebrew words of life inscribed on it for the Jewish lives he saved by his "List" was in fact the ultimate rebuke to the unrighteous Gentiles who took Jewish gold by murder that would forever represent Jewish death.
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What is ironic, the Gentiles never saw themselves in the same light as they saw the Jews as evil, rich, and conspiring, once they had illegally obtained the wealth of the Jews. This is why the "wealth portion" of the text is mentioned at all - the Gentiles who once viewed the Jews (as they do now) as owning all the banks and Wall Street for the purpose of an evil "Protocol" will see themselves as unrighteous slayers of this wealthy people and that their own illegal wealth condemns them in the same way that they historically condemned the Jews.
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Isaiah 53:9 (continued)
"...because he had done no violence..."
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"Violence" as in crime-violence, is not a Jewish characteristic. Different sects within Judaism such as the Orthodox and Reform are miles apart in how they each express their Judaism, but they don't murder each other in the name of their God like the Christian sects of East and West, and Catholic and Protestant have done in their past. The Islamic sects of Sunnis and Shiites are in the process of killing each other everyday and have been since the murder of Husayn ibn Ali in 680 CE. The Jews not only didn't murder each other over doctrine but neither have they sought to conquer Gentile lands outside their own "promised land". Modern Israel has fought many wars but has yet to initiate one or even threaten war outside of a defensive military mindset. Israel's military armed forces are known as IDF - Israel "Defense" Force".
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It is not a coincidence that the Hebrew word for violence (or crime) used in this ancient text is spelled "chet-mem-samech" pronounced "hamas" when a terrorist group by the same name is the closest to the peaceful (in-gathered) Israelis, and are the most "violent-cultured" people in all the earth!
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Ponder this:
The most commonly known Hebrew word in the West is, "Shalom"4 of which I don't have to tell you what it means.
The most commonly known Arabic word in the West is, "Jihad" of which I also don't have to tell you what it means.
Now, notice the opposite meanings that each culture is based upon!
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Isaiah 53:9 (continued)
"...neither was any deceit in his mouth."
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Judaism is the only monotheistic religion that simply tells you what it is all about from the get-go. The reason simply being, Judaism doesn't seek new converts to join in with the religion. They actually discourage (but not prohibit) Gentile conversion into the religion. A Gentile can be righteous outside of Judaism by blessing the God of Israel (Numbers 24:5,9 / Micah 6:8). Judaism has no reason to sugar-coat nor threaten with hellfire in order to fill the pews and tithe boxes.
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Deceit can be found in the mouths in Islamic tactics of al-takiah deception. An Imam-spokesman from C.A.I.R. (Council on American-Islamic Relations) for example, stating on national television that "Jihad only means an inner spiritual struggle" or "the Koran states there is no compulsion in religion, and therefore, Islam is a religion of peace." is a lying deception for the sake of the religion itself! The religion is a religion of war and terrorism whose prophet and founder was a murdering child-marrying (molesting) warlord!
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Deceit and sugar-coating (a form of deceit) can be found in "Christian training cards" on how to "witness" to the Jews. A typical training card can read something like this:
"Don't say, "New Testament" say, 'New Covenant".
"Don't say, 'Jesus' say, 'Yashuah."
"Don't say, 'cross' say, 'torture rack."
"Don't say, 'born-again' say, 'completed Jew".5
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From the early Catholic Church taking money from the widow and the poor to pray a dead loved one out of purgatory, to the modern televangelists taking money from the widows and poor for "that special miracle" the Church has been full of spiritual deceit. On the other hand, I don't recall ever hearing of the rabbis demanding money for "Synagogue contribution" to pray someone out of hell, nor have I heard of them selling "holy water" for the people's healing needs. Neither have the Jews charged a fee of around twelve bucks to resolve other Jews from all their sins including adultery, robbery, and murder, otherwise known as "Indulgence"6 to help fund their Synagogue.
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I believe Paul was sincere and more righteous than most of Christendom that followed him, but even he didn't much care if a little deceit helped promote the faith.
"What then? notwithstanding, every way, whether in pretense, or in truth, Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice." - Philippians 1:18
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It also must be noticed that it is the Gentiles of whom the Hebrew scriptures view as the "inheritors of lies" all the way until the End of Days.
"the Gentiles shall come unto thee from the ends of the earth, and shall say, Surely our fathers have inherited lies, vanity, and things wherein there is no profit." - Jeremiah 16:19
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The Jews however are to be God's witnesses (see Isaiah 43:10-12, Isaiah 44:8,) and as such they must speak righteous truth without any deceit as the Gentile confession proclaims in Isaiah 53:9. The book of Zephaniah reinforces this issue using the same wording "deceit in his mouth" as we find in Isaiah 53:9, making it easier to know who Isaiah 53;9 is talking about.
"The remnant of Israel shall not do iniquity, nor speak lies; neither shall a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth: for they shall feed and lie down, and none shall make them afraid." - Zephaniah 3:13
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Notes:1. The King James translators played upon the Definite Direct Object indicator "
et" (a word in Hebrew that has no comparison in English) as meaning "
with". For an explanation of this Definite Direct Object, see Yale University published "Biblical Hebrew: A Text and Workbook" by Bonnie Pedrotti, Vivki Hoffer, and Rebecca Abts Wright - Lesson 7 - page 31
2. To view the differences between the singlar and plural pronouns in their relationship to nouns see ibid page 216
3. Other places of scripture show the singular pronoun with a plural noun. >
Hosea 11:1,24. "Shalom" (peace) is offered in typical greetings,
"Mah Slalom chah?" -
"How is your peace" not "How are you doing?". "Solomon"(Shlomo in Hebrew) is a popular name that is derived from "shalom" (peace). Jerusalem - the Jewish spiritual capital literally means, "
city of peace".
5. Also see how deliberate lying-tracts were intended to save Jewsih souls >
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.
