Mark Tabata’s Weekday Devotionals
Monday August 10 2026
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Isaiah 53:1-12 (ERV)-Who really believed what we heard? Who saw in it the LORD’S great power? 2 He was always close to the Lord. He grew up like a young plant, like a root growing in dry ground. There was nothing special or impressive about the way he looked, nothing we could see that would cause us to like him. 3 People made fun of him, and even his friends left him. He was a man who suffered a lot of pain and sickness. We treated him like someone of no importance, like someone people will not even look at but turn away from in disgust. 4 The fact is, it was our suffering he took on himself; he bore our pain. But we thought that God was punishing him, that God was beating him for something he did. 5 But he was being punished for what we did. He was crushed because of our guilt. He took the punishment we deserved, and this brought us peace. We were healed because of his pain. 6 We had all wandered away like sheep. We had gone our own way. And yet the LORD put all our guilt on him. 7 He was treated badly, but he never protested. He said nothing, like a lamb being led away to be killed. He was like a sheep that makes no sound as its wool is being cut off. He never opened his mouth to defend himself. 8 He was taken away by force and judged unfairly. The people of his time did not even notice that he was killed. But he was put to death for the sins of his people. 9 He had done no wrong to anyone. He had never even told a lie. But he was buried among the wicked. His tomb was with the rich. 10 But the LORD was pleased with this humble servant who suffered such pain. Even after giving himself as an offering for sin, he will see his descendants and enjoy a long life. He will succeed in doing what the LORD wanted. 11 After his suffering he will see the light, and he will be satisfied with what he experienced. The Lord says, “My servant, who always does what is right, will make his people right with me; he will take away their sins. 12 For this reason, I will treat him as one of my great people. I will give him the rewards of one who wins in battle, and he will share them with his powerful ones. I will do this because he gave his life for the people. He was considered a criminal, but the truth is, he carried away the sins of many. Now he will stand before me and speak for those who have sinned.”
The 53rd chapter of Isaiah contains some of the most incredible prophecies of Jesus Christ in the entire Bible. Written some seven hundred years before Jesus was born into the world of man, this section of holy Scripture is one of four “Servant Songs” in the Book of Isaiah. These are found in Isaiah 42:1-9; 49:1-3; 50:4-11; and 52:13-53:12, and are mainly prophetic of the Messiah.
It is commonplace today to be told that the Servant Songs are not prophecies of the Christ, but are instead referring to the Jewish people as a nation. There is a small element of truth to this claim, in that sometimes the people of Israel collectively are being discussed in the Servant Songs.
For example:
Isaiah 41:8-But you, Israel, are My servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, The descendants of Abraham My friend.
Isaiah 43:10-You are My witnesses,” says the LORD, “And My servant whom I have chosen, That you may know and believe Me, And understand that I am He. Before Me there was no God formed, Nor shall there be after Me.
Notice how the word “servant” in these passages is applied to the people of Israel as a whole.
However, not all of the Servant Songs are referring to the Jewish people collectively. Several of them refer to a specific Person Who comes and saves the people of Israel collectively, as well as the Gentiles! He is thus set apart from the Jewish people!
In chapter 49 especially we see this One Individual who is out of the nation, and yet towering high above it, invested with the name and the mission to which the whole people was called in the first instance…That it is not of the nation of Israel that this prophecy speaks is clear, and manifest to every unbiased mind, since the One who is here thus dramatically introduced as proclaiming His own call and enduement for His office, and whom Jehovah addresses, is the One who is sent as the Redeemer of Israel, namely, “to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved of Israel,” i.e. not only to their land, but to their God. Here God says to him, “Thou art My servant, O Israel” (or, “Thou art Israel”). He is invested with the name of Israel because He, “as Israel’s inmost centre, as Israel’s highest head,” realizes the idea and carries out the mission to which the nation which had originally been called to the task of carrying out God’s saving purpose in relation to the world does not respond. Here, too, as in chapter 42:1-9, where the ideal personal Servant of Jehovah is contrasted with the nation whose failure and unfaithfulness is depicted in verses 18-25 of the same chapter, His mission extends, not only to Israel, whom He is to raise up and restore, and to whom He is to be, not only the mediator, but the very embodiment of “the covenant” which shall be everlastingly established between them and their God, but is to be the light also of the Gentiles, and God’s salvation unto the very ends of the earth. And as in chapters 42 and 49, so also in Isaiah 53 itself, “where the figure of the Servant of Jehovah unfolds its entire fullness of meaning,” He is clearly and definitely distinguished from the nation. Thus, for instance, we read in the 8th verse, “For the transgressions of my people was He stricken…..But, apart from the fact that in chapters 42:1-9, 49:1-7, 50:4-11, 53 (which begins 52:13), and 61, this ideal Servant stands out clearly distinguished from the nation, there are other conclusive reasons why the 53rd chapter in particular cannot be applied to Israel, for (1) the subject of the prophecy is an absolutely innocent sufferer who suffers for the guilt of others—one who has Himself “done no violence, nor can deceit be found in His mouth,” but is “stricken,” “smitten,” and “afflicted of God” for others. (2) He is a voluntary sufferer—one who willingly “pours out His own soul unto death.” (3) He is an unresisting sufferer—one who is “led as a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, He openeth not His mouth”; and (4) His sufferings end in death. Now, none of these points is found in the Jewish nation. Israel has been suffering, and is suffering as no other nation has suffered. Truly “under the whole heaven,” to use the words of Daniel, “hath not been done as hath been done upon Jerusalem” (9:12) and upon her people during the many centuries of their dispersion. I have elsewhere given a condensed summary of the terrible story of Israel’s sufferings since the destruction of the second Temple,7 and of the guilt incurred by the nations by their cruel conduct towards them, but Israel is not an innocent sufferer. Israel’s sorrows and sufferings are the direct consequence of his sin…..We need only contemplate the picture of Israel as a nation given in this Book of Isaiah itself to be convinced that it cannot be of it that the prophet speaks in chapter 53. Far from being itself absolutely innocent (as the Servant of Jehovah in Isaiah 53 is described as being) and suffering for the guilt of others, the prophet speaks of them as “a sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers,”9 whose iniquities have separated between them and their God, and whose sins have caused His face to be hid from them that He will not hear.…..It is perfectly true, therefore, that Isaiah speaks of the “entire nation as needing enlightening, redeeming, and reconciling to God,” and the godly remnant of it, far from being represented in these chapters as rendering satisfaction for others by their sufferings, “appears on the contrary a fainting flock which the Servant of Jehovah is to release, and refresh, and for whose justification He is to suffer and die. 13. (David Baron, The Servant of Jehovah: The Sufferings of the Messiah and the Glory That Should Follow, 34-40 (Kindle Edition): Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers)
It for these reasons that the Jewish rabbis long understood many of the Servant Songs (including Isaiah 53) to be prophecies of the Messiah Himself.
For more than 1700 years, the Jewish rabbis interpreted this passage almost unanimously as referring to the Messiah. This fact is thoroughly documented in S. R. Driver and Adolf Neubauer’s The Fifty-Third Chapter of Isaiah According to the Jewish Interpreters. (DrS.F 37-39) They quote numerous rabbis during this period who equated the servant of Isaiah 53 with the Messiah. Not until the twelfth century AD, no doubt under the suffering of Jews at the hands of the Crusaders, did any Jewish interpreter say that Isaiah 52: 13—53: 12 refers to the whole nation of Israel, the most common interpretation today among Jewish scholars. Even after Rashi (Rabbi Solomon Yitzhaki) first proposed this interpretation; however, many other Jewish interpreters have held, even to the present, the traditional Talmudic view that Isaiah 53 speaks of the Messiah. 34 One of the most respected Jewish intellectuals of all history, Moses Maimonides (AD 1135-1204), rejected Rashi’s interpretation, and he taught that the passage was messianic. (MoS.LM 25: 364-66) Rashi and other Jewish interpreters are not necessarily grasping at straws to suggest that the servant is the nation of Israel. Isaiah 43: 10 says to the people of Israel: “‘ You are My witnesses,’ declares the LORD, ‘and My servant whom I have chosen.’” Surely then, they would say, the servant must be Israel. That this interpretation is in error can first be seen in Isaiah 52: 14 where the nation of Israel is compared to the servant: “Just as many were astonished at you, My people, so His appearance was marred more than any man.” In 53: 8, the servant bears punishment that should have been born by “my people” (obviously Israel). It makes no sense for the nation of Israel to bear substitutionary punishment for the nation of Israel. Therefore Israel cannot be the servant of Isaiah 52: 13-53: 12. But what about Isaiah 49: 3, “And He said to Me, ‘You are My Servant, Israel, in Whom I will show My glory’”? Good question!—because it leads to a clearer understanding of why the Messiah had to come on Israel’s behalf. The key to identifying the servant in Isaiah 52: 13—53: 12 is to see who he is in the three previous “servant songs” of Isaiah: 42: 1-9; 49: 1-12; and 50: 4-9. Since these passages spoke of the servant, for example, establishing justice in the earth (Isaiah 42: 4) and regathering the Jewish people from worldwide exile (Isaiah 49: 8-13), Jewish interpreters have traditionally held the servant songs to be speaking of the Messiah, not the nation of Israel. Even in Isaiah 49: 3, it is not saying that Israel is the servant; rather it is saying that the servant (Messiah) is the true Israel! In verses 5 and 6 we see: “Now says the LORD, who formed Me from the womb to be His Servant…‘ to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved ones of Israel.’” The point is that Jacob (Israel) had gone astray, especially from the commission God gave to him: “In you and in your descendants shall all the families of the earth be blessed” (Genesis 28: 14). The Servant (Messiah) was now to stand in Israel’s place to do two things: (1) to bring the nation of Israel back to God (Isaiah 49: 5); and (2) to be a light to the nations, as seen in verse 6: It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant… I will also make You a light of the nations so that My salvation may reach to the end of the earth. If you caught what is going on here in Isaiah, you probably are realizing right now why Jesus so often appealed or alluded to this prophet. The Servant is the Messiah. The Messiah had to suffer and die for many. He also had to be raised from the dead (Psalm 16: 10). When the monumental event of the resurrection did occur and the disciples were filled at Pentecost with the Spirit of God, they preached everywhere the message “that Messiah died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.” 35 To judge from the earliest surviving Christian literature, 1 Thessalonians, they also preached that the Messiah would come again. (Josh McDowell & Bill Wilson, Evidence for the Historical Jesus (The McDowell Apologetics Library), 7413-7449 (Kindle Edition): Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers)
The prophecies and fulfillment of Isaiah 53 provide incontrovertible evidence of the truthfulness of Christianity, and the death of the Messiah shows us the love and mercy of God in ways that surpass our limited human understanding.
Thank You, Lord Jesus, for Being our Savior. Amen.