Keil & Delitzsch on Isaiah 53:5

A historical reference excerpt for this verse. Read it alongside the biblical text and other available sources.

Commentary on the Old Testament
C. F. Keil & F. Delitzsch · 19th-century historical commentary
Source: BibleWord.ai's local reference edition of this named work.

In Isa 53:5, והוּא, as contrasted with ואנחנוּ, 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 Zac 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 עליו שׁלומנוּ מוּסר 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 נקם and פּקדּה (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 יסּר (הוכיח). 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 עליו מוּסרנוּ, 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 שׁלומנוּ מוּסר. The connection of the words is the same as that of חיּים תּוכח…

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