The prophecy in Isaiah 53 is Israel; not the Messiah.

It is an honour. I will be going verse by verse and explaining the suffering servant of Isaiah 53. Good luck. In efforts to understand who the "servant" is, we need to look at the other servant songs of Isaiah. “You are My servant, O Israel” (41:8) “You are My servant, Israel” (49:3) see also Isaiah 44:1, 44:2, 44:21, 45:4, 48:20 It is clear that everywhere else in the servant songs, the servant is referring to Israel. How can you then take one chapter and apply it to Jesus? Through the Hebrew language, the Jewish people are referred to as a singular pronoun. We need to understand who is speaking. In verses 1-10, the prophecy is being told in a perspective of the world leaders. Let us now go line by line. vs 1: In this opening verse, the world leaders are in shock at the coming of Messiah and the salvation of Israel. "Who would believe what we have heard! " "The arm of G-d" refers to a redemption of the Jewish people from persecution. Vs 2: Isaiah uses an imagery of a tree struggling to grow in a dry earth. It is a metaphor for the Jewish struggle in exile. A young sapling in dry ground appears that it will die. The Jews were ALWAYS a small nation, at times as small as 2 million people. In this verse, Isaiah describes the miraculous return from exile, like a sapling that sprouts from this dry ground. This idea also appears in Isaiah 60:21, Ezekiel 19:13, Hosea 14:6-7, Amos 9:15 etc. Vs 3: The servant is being described as "despised and rejected" which is contrary to Jesus' popularity. It is evidence of a long line of oppression. While Jesus died a criminals death, Isaiah is describing someone with a LONG time of neglect and rejection. Vs 4: Throughout the centuries of Israel’s exile, many nations persecuted the Jews on the pretense that it was God’s way of “punishing” the “accursed” Jews for having stubbornly rejected the new religions. In these verses, until the end of the chapter, the nations confess how they used the Jewish people as scapegoats, not for the “noble” reasons they had long claimed. Indeed, the nations selfishly persecuted the Jews as a distraction from their own corrupt regimes: “Surely our suffering he did bear, and our pains he carried. .. ” (53:4) Vs 5: This verse describes how the humbled world leaders confess that Jewish suffering occurred as a direct result of “our iniquities” – i. e. , depraved Jew-hatred, rather than, as previously claimed, the stubborn blindness of the Jews. The verse does not say, “He was wounded for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities,” which could convey the vicarious suffering ascribed to Jesus. Rather, the proper translation is: “He was wounded because of our transgressions, and crushed because of our iniquities. ” This conveys that the Servant suffered as a result of the sinfulness of others – not the opposite as Christians contend – that the Servant suffered to atone for the sins of others. Indeed, the Christian idea directly contradicts the basic teaching that God promises forgiveness to all who sincerely return to Him; thus there is no need for the Messiah to atone for others (Isaiah 55:6-7, Jeremiah 36:3, Ezekiel chapters 18 and 33, Hoseah 14:1-3, Jonah 3:6-10, Proverbs 16:6, Daniel 4:27, 2-Chronicles 7:14). Vs 6: The nations realize that their lack of proper leadership (“shepherd”) caused them to treat the Jews with disdain. They further acknowledge how punishments that should have befallen the nations were averted through Israel’s suffering. Vs 7: In various contexts, the Bible uses the imagery of “sheep led to the slaughter” specifically in reference to the Jewish people. For example: "You give us as sheep to be eaten and have scattered us among the nations. .. we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered" (Psalms 44:12, 23). This verse prophesizes the many hardships – both physical torment and economic exploitation – that the Jews endured in exile. Ironically, this prophecy refers in part to the 11th century Crusaders who "persecuted and afflicted” the Jews in the name of Jesus. In our time, while Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe were "led to the slaughter," they still remained like a "lamb that is silent before her shearers" – without complaints against God. Vs 8: The phrase, "land of the living” (Eretz HaChaim) refers specifically to the Land of Israel. Thus this verse, “He was removed from the land of the living,” does not mean that the servant was killed, but rather was exiled from the Land of Israel. This verse again describes the world’s surprise at witnessing the Jewish return to the Promised Land. "Who could have imagined” that the nation we tortured now prospers? World leaders offer a stunning confession: “Because of my people’s sin, they [the Jews] were afflicted. ” Here the text makes absolutely clear that the oppressed Servant is a collective nation, not a single individual. This is where knowledge of biblical Hebrew is absolutely crucial. At the end of the verse, the Hebrew word for “they were” (lamoh – לָמוֹ) always refers to a group, never to an individual. (see for example, Psalms 99:7) Vs 9: Throught the history, Jews were given the choice to "convert or die. " Yet as this verse describes, there was "no deceit in his mouth"-the loyal Jews refused to accept a pagan deity as their god. They chose to die rather than profane G-d's Holy Name, thus they "submitted to the grave"-i. e. chose to die than to renounce their faith. As a result, they were denied proper burial "to the grave as evil people. " Vs 10: "God desired to oppress” the Jewish people, in order to inspire them to return to Torah observance. If the Jews would only "acknowledge guilt," they would see their "offspring and live long days. " This refers to the Messianic era when all Jews will return to Torah observance. This verse emphasizes that the Servant is to be rewarded with long life and many children. This verse could not possibly refer to Jesus who, according to the New Testament, died young and childless. (Furthermore, if Jesus was alleged to be the immortal Son of God, it is absurd to apply the concept of “living long days. ”) Although missionaries may claim that the “offspring” refers to spiritual descendants, this is based on a distortion and mistranslation. In this verse, the Hebrew word for "offspring" (zera) always refers to physical descendants (see Genesis 12:7, 15:2-4, 15:13, 46:6; Exodus 28:43). A different word, banim generally translated as "sons," is used to refer to spiritual descendants (see Deut. 14:1). Vs 11: This verse describes how God’s Servant “will cause the masses to be righteous” – not as some mistranslate, “he will justify the many. " The Jewish mission is to serve as a "light to the nations," leading the world to righteousness through knowledge of the one true God. The Jews will accomplish this both by example (Deut. 4:5-8; Zechariah 8:23) and by instructing the nations in God's Law (Isaiah 2:3-4; Micah 4:2-3). As it says: “The world will become full of the knowledge of God, as water covers the sea” (Isaiah 11:9). Vs 12: This verse speaks of how the Jews always pray for the welfare of the nations they are exiled into (see Jeremiah 29:7). The verse continues to explain that the Jewish people, who righteously bore the sins of the world and yet remained faithful to God, will be rewarded. Regarding the above passage, some have claimed that the "suffering servant" cannot be Israel, since Israel has sins. Yet this is a fallacy, since we know that no human being – not even Moses – is completely free of sin. Yet Moses was considered “righteous,” which takes into account not only one's good deeds, but also one's repentance after sin. If Jesus is God, these ideas have no meaning. Immediately following this promise of reward for the Jews’ suffering (53:10-12), chapter 54 clearly speaks of the redemption which awaits the Jewish people. This point is acknowledged by many Christian commentaries. ==Conclusion==With an open mind, you clearly see how this referrs to the Jewish nation.