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Messianic Prophecies

Isaiah 53:5

This passage comes from the wider catalog — a broader, more lightly curated list than the core set. Both readings are shown as peers; GEBible takes no side.

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Isaiah 53:5

But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought our peace was on him; and by his wounds we are healed.

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Who has believed our message? To whom has Yahweh’s arm been revealed?

For he grew up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground. He has no good looks or majesty. When we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.

He was despised and rejected by men, a man of suffering and acquainted with disease. He was despised as one from whom men hide their face; and we didn’t respect him.

Surely he has borne our sickness and carried our suffering; yet we considered him plagued, struck by God, and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought our peace was on him; and by his wounds we are healed.

All we like sheep have gone astray. Everyone has turned to his own way; and Yahweh has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed, yet when he was afflicted he didn’t open his mouth. As a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and as a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he didn’t open his mouth.

He was taken away by oppression and judgment. As for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living and stricken for the disobedience of my people?

They made his grave with the wicked, and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.

Yet it pleased Yahweh to bruise him. He has caused him to suffer. When you make his soul an offering for sin, he will see his offspring. He will prolong his days and Yahweh’s pleasure will prosper in his hand.

The counter-reading

How this passage is read within its own context.

The critical reading situates Isaiah 53:5 in its exilic setting and asks whose suffering the poem describes. On this reading the Servant is often identified with corporate Israel, and the confessing "we" are the nations recognizing that Israel suffered unjustly, not for its own sins but under the nations' violence. The vicarious-suffering concept is present on either reading; what differs is the identity of the sufferer and the beneficiary. Critics add that the New Testament passages allude to Servant theology rather than quoting this verse, so the individual, atoning sense is drawn from later christological reflection rather than from Isaiah's own argument.

The fulfillment reading

How this passage is read as pointing to the Messiah.

The messianic-fulfillment reading takes Isaiah 53:5 as the theological center of the fourth Servant Song, describing an individual who suffers vicariously so that others are made whole. On this reading the Servant bears a punishment he did not earn, and his wounds effect healing for those whose transgressions caused them. The New Testament applies this pattern to Jesus, with 2 Corinthians 5:21 presenting him as the sinless one made sin on others' behalf and Hebrews 2:9 presenting him as tasting death for everyone. Read this way the verse is foundational for substitutionary-atonement theology: one innocent party bears the guilt of many.

How the New Testament uses this passage

Each entry names how the New Testament author draws on the passage — a direct quotation, an allusion, an echo, or a typological reading. An echo or an allusion is not the same as a prediction; the label says which is which.

  • 2Cor. 5:21 Allusion

    Neither 2 Cor 5:21 nor Heb 2:9 quotes Isa 53:5 with a citation formula; both draw on Servant substitution language allusively (the verbatim quotation of this verse is 1 Pet 2:24).

  • Heb. 2:9 Allusion

    Neither 2 Cor 5:21 nor Heb 2:9 quotes Isa 53:5 with a citation formula; both draw on Servant substitution language allusively (the verbatim quotation of this verse is 1 Pet 2:24).