Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Isaiah 53:5

Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Isaiah 53:5 - 53:5

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Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Isaiah 53:5 - 53:5

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In Isa 53:5, וְהוּא, as contrasted with וַאֲנַחְנוּ, continues the true state of the case as contrasted with their false judgment. “Whereas He was pierced for our sins, bruised for our iniquities: the punishment was laid upon Him for our peace; and through His stripes we were healed.” The question is, whether Isa 53:5 describes what He was during His life, or what He was in His death. The words decide in favour of the latter. For although châlâl is applied to a person mortally wounded but not yet dead (Jer 51:52; Psa 69:27), and châlal to a heart wounded to death (Psa 109:22); the pure passives used here, which denote a calamity inflicted by violence from without, more especially mechōlâl, which is not the participle polal of chı̄l (made to twist one's self with pain), but the participle poal of châl (pierced, transfossus, the passive of mechōlēl, Isa 51:9), and the substantive clauses, which express a fact that has become complete in all its circumstances, can hardly be understood in any other way than as denoting, that “the servant of God” floated before the mind of the speaker in all the sufferings of death, just as was the case with Zechariah in Zec 12:10. There were no stronger expressions to be found in the language, to denote a violent and painful death. As min, with the passive, does not answer to the Greek ὑπό, but to ἀπό, the meaning is not that it was our sins and iniquities that had pierced Him through like swords, and crushed Him like heavy burdens, but that He was pierced and crushed on account of our sins and iniquities. It was not His own sins and iniquities, but ours, which He had taken upon Himself, that He might make atonement for them in our stead, that were the cause of His having to suffer so cruel and painful a death.

The ultimate cause is not mentioned; but עָלָיו שְׁלוֹמֵנוּ מוּסַר which follows points to it. His suffering was a mūsâr, which is an indirect affirmation that it was God who had inflicted it upon Him, for who else could the yōsēr (meyassēr) be? We have rendered mūsâr “punishment;” and there was no other word in the language for this idea; for though נָקָם and פְּקֻדָּה (to which Hofmann refers) have indeed the idea of punishment associated with them, the former signifies ἐκδίκησις, the latter ἐπίσκεψις, whereas mūsâr not only denotes παιδεία, as the chastisement of love (Pro 3:11), but also as the infliction of punishment (= τιμωρία κόλασις, Pro 7:22; Jer 30:14), just as David, when he prayed that God might not punish him in His anger and hot displeasure (Psa 6:2), could not find a more suitable expression for punishment, regarded as the execution of judgment, than יִסַּר (הוֹכִיחַ). The word itself, which follows the form of mūsâd (Isa 28:16), signifies primarily being chastised (from yâsar = vâsar, constringere, coercere), and included from the very outset the idea of practical chastisement, which then passed over into that of admonition in words, of warning by example, and of chastity as a moral quality. In the case before us, in which the reference is to a sufferer, and to a mūsâr resting upon him, this can only mean actual chastisement. If the expression had been עָלָיו מוּסָרֵנוּ, it would merely mean that God had caused Him, who had taken upon Himself our sins and iniquities and thus made Himself representatively or vicariously guilty, to endure the chastisement which those sins deserved. but it is שְׁלוֹמֵנוּ מוּסַר. The connection of the words is the same as that of חַיִּים תּוֹכַחַת in Pro 15:31. As the latter signifies “reproof leading to life,” so the former signifies “the chastisement which leads to our peace.” It is true that the suffix belongs to the one idea, that that has grown up through this combination of the words, like berı̄th shelōmı̄, “my peace-covenant” (Isa 54:10); but what else could our “peace-chastisement” be, than the chastisement that brings us peace, or puts us into a state of salvation? This is the idea involved in Stier's rendering, “restoring chastisement,” and Hofmann's, “the chastisement wholesome for us.” The difference in the exposition simply lies in the view entertained of the mūsâr, in which neither of these commentators will allow that there is any idea of a visitation of justice here. But according to our interpretation, the genitive שׁלוֹמנו, which defines the mūsâr so far as its object and results are concerned, clearly shows that this manifestation of the justice of God, this satisfaction procured by His holiness, had His love for its foundation and end. It was our peace, or, what is more in accordance with the full idea of the word, our general well-being, our blessedness, which these sufferings arrived at and secured (the synonyms of shâlōm are tōbh and yeshū‛âh, Isa 52:7). In what follows, “and by His stripes (chăbhūrâh = chabbūrâh, Isa 1:6) we have been healed,” shâlōm is defined as a condition of salvation brought about by healing. “Venustissimum ὀξύμωρον,” exclaims Vitringa here. He means the same as Jerome when he says, suo vulnere vulnera nostra curavit. The stripes and weals that were inflicted upon Him have made us sound and well (the lxx keeps the collective singular, and renders it very aptly τῷ μώλωπι αὐτοῦ; cf., 1Pe 2:24). We were sick unto death because of our sins; but He, the sinless one, took upon Himself a suffering unto death, which was, as it were, the concentration and essence of the woes that we had deserved; and this voluntary endurance, this submission to the justice of the Holy One, in accordance with the counsels of divine love, became the source of our healing.