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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Isaiah 53:9 - 53:9
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After this description in Isa 53:7 of the patience with which He suffered, and in Isa 53:8 of the manner in which He died, there follows a retrospective glance at His burial. “And they assigned Him His grave with sinners, and with a rich man in His martyrdom, because He had done no wrong, and there was no deceit in His mouth.” The subject to וַיִּתֵּן (assigned) is not Jehovah, although this would not be impossible, since נֶגַע has Jehovah as the latent subject; but it would be irreconcilable with Isa 53:10, where Jehovah is introduced as the subject with antithetical prominence. It would be better to assume that “my people” is the subject; but as this would make it appear as if the statement introduced in Isa 53:8 with kı̄ (for) were continued here, we seem compelled to refer it to dōrō (His generation), which occurs in the principal clause. No objection could be offered to our regarding “His own generation” as the subject; but dōrō is somewhat too far removed for this; and if the prophet had had the contemporaries of the sufferer in his mind, he would most likely have used a plural verb (vayyittenū). Some, therefore, supply a personal subject of the most general kind to yittēn (which occurs even with a neuter subject, like the German es gibt, Fr. il y a, Eng. “there is;” cf., Pro 13:10): “they (on) gave;” and looking at the history of the fulfilment, we confess that this is the rendering we prefer. In fact, without the commentary supplied by the fulfilment, it would be impossible to understand Isa 53:9 at all. The earlier translators did great violence to the text, and yet failed to bring out any admissible thought. And the explanation which is most generally adopted now, viz., that עָשִׁיר is the synonymous parallel to רְשָׁעִי (as even Luther rendered it, “and died like a rich man,” with the marginal gloss, “a rich man who sets all his heart upon riches, i.e., a wicked man”), is also untenable; for even granting that ‛âshīr could be proved by examples to be sometimes used as synonymous with רשׁע, as עָניִ and אֶבְיוֹן are as synonyms of צַדִּיק, this would be just the passage in which it would be least possible to sustain any such use of the word; since he who finds his grave with rich men, whether with the godly or the ungodly, would thereby have received a decent, and even honourable burial. This is so thoroughly sustained by experience, as to need no confirmation from such passages as Job 21:32. Hitzig has very good ground, therefore, for opposing this “synonymous” explanation; but when he adopts the rendering lapsator, after the Arabic ‛tūr, this is quite as much in opposition to Arabic usage (according to which this word merely signifies a person who falls into error, and makes a mistake in speaking), as it is to the Hebrew. Ewald changes עשׁיר into עַשִּׁהיק (a word which has no existence); and Böttcher alters it into רָע עֹשֵׂי, which is comparatively the best suggestion of all. Hofmann connects the two words בְּמוֹתָיו עָשִׁיר, “men who have become rich through the murders that they have treacherously caused” (though without being able to adduce any proof that mōth is ever applied to the death which one person inflicts upon another). At any rate, all these attempts spring from the indisputable assumption, that to be rich is not in itself a sin which deserves a dishonourable burial, to say nothing of its receiving one.
If, therefore, רשׁיעם and עשׁיר are not kindred ideas, they must be antithetical; but it is no easier to establish a purely ethical antithesis than an ethical coincidence. If, however, we take the word רשׁעים as suggesting the idea of persons found guilty, or criminals (an explanation which the juridical context of the passage well sustains; see at Isa 50:9), we get a contrast which our own usage of speech also draws between a rich man who is living in the enjoyment of his own possessions, and a delinquent who has become impoverished to the utmost, through hatred, condemnation, ruin. And if we reflect that the Jewish rulers would have given to Jesus the same dishonourable burial as to the two thieves, but that the Roman authorities handed over the body to Joseph the Arimathaean, a “rich man” (Mat 27:57), who placed it in the sepulchre in his own garden, we see an agreement at once between the gospel history and the prophetic words, which could only be the work of the God of both the prophecy and its fulfilment, inasmuch as no suspicion could possibly arise of there having been any human design of bringing the former into conformity with the latter. But if it be objected, that according to the parallel the ‛âshı̄r must be regarded as dead, quite as much as the reshâ‛ı̄m, we admit the force of this objection, and should explain it in this way: “They assigned Him His grave with criminals, and after He had actually died a martyr's death, with a rich man;” i.e., He was to have lain where the bodies of criminals lie, but He was really laid in a grave that was intended for the corpse of a rich man.
(Note: A clairvoyant once said of the Lord: “Died like a criminal; buried like a prince of the earth” (vid., Psychol. pp. 262, 364).)
The rendering adopted by Vitringa and others, “and He was with a rich man in his death,” is open to this objection, that such a clause, to be quite free from ambiguity, would require במויתו הוּא ואת־עשׁיר. Hengstenberg and Stier very properly refer both ויתן and קברו, which must be repeated in thought, to the second clause as well as the first. The rendering tumulum ejus must be rejected, since bâmâh never has this meaning; and בָּמֹתָיו, which is the pointing sustained by three Codd., would not be mausolea, but a lofty burial-hill, after the fashion of the Hünengräber (certain “giants' graves,” or barrows, in Holstein and Saxony).
(Note: The usage of the language shows clearly that bâmâh had originally the meaning of “height” (e.g., 2Sa 1:19). The primary meaning suggested by Böttcher, of locus clausus, septus (from בום = מהב, Arab. bhm), cannot be sustained. We still hold that בם is the expanded בא, and במה an ascent, steep place, or stair. In the Talmud, bâmâh is equivalent to βωμός, an altar, and בּיִמָה (Syr. bim) equivalent to the βῆμα of the orator and judge; βωμός, root βα, like the Hebrew bâmâh, signifies literally an elevation, and actually occurs in the sense of a sepulchral hill, which this never has, not even in Eze 43:7.)
מוֹתֵי is a plur. exaggerativus here, as in Eze 28:10 (compare memōthē in Eze 28:8 and Jer 16:4); it is applied to a violent death, the very pain of which makes it like dying again and again. The first clause states with whom they at first assigned Him His grave; the second with whom it was assigned Him, after He had really died a painful death. “Of course,” as F. Philippi observes, “this was not a thorough compensation for the ignominy of having died the death of a criminal; but the honourable burial, granted to one who had been ignominiously put to death, showed that there must be something very remarkable about Him. It was the beginning of the glorification which commenced with His death.” If we have correctly interpreted the second clause, there can be no doubt in our minds, since we cannot shake the word of God like a kaleidoscope, and multiply the sensus complex, as Stier does, that לֹא עַל (= לֹא עַל־אֲשֶׁר) does not mean “notwithstanding that not,” as in Job 16:17, but “because not,” like עַל־בְּלִי in Gen 31:20. The reason why the Servant of God received such honourable treatment immediately after His ignominious martyrdom, was to be found in His freedom from sin, in the fact that He had done no wrong, and there was no deceit in His mouth (lxx and 1Pe 2:22, where the clause is correctly rendered οὐδὲ εὑρέθη δόλος ἐν τῶ στόματι αὐτοῦ). His actions were invariably prompted by pure love, and His speech consisted of unclouded sincerity and truth.