Attributed commentary excerpt
Keil & Delitzsch on Isaiah 53:8
A historical reference excerpt for this verse.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.
The description of the closing portion of the life of the Servant of Jehovah is continued in Isa 53:8. "He has been taken away from prison and from judgment; and of His generation who considered: 'He was snatched away out of the land of the living; for the wickedness of my people punishment fell upon Him'?" The principal emphasis is not laid upon the fact that He was taken away from suffering, but that it was out of the midst of suffering that He was carried off. The idea that is most prominent in luqqâch (with â in half pause) is not that of being translated (as in the accounts of Enoch and Elijah), but of being snatched or hurried away (abreptus est, Isa 52:5; Eze 33:4, etc.). The parallel is abscissus (cf., nikhrath, Jer 11:19) a terra viventium, for which נגזר by itself is supposed to be used in the sense of carried away (i.e., out of the sphere of the living into that of the dead, Lam 3:54; cf., Eze 37:11, "It is all over with us"). עצר (from עצר, compescere) is a violent constraint; here, as in Psa 107:39, it signifies a persecuting treatment which restrains by outward force, such as that of prison or bonds; and mishpât refers to the judicial proceedings, in which He was put upon His trial, accused and convicted as worthy of death - in other words, to His unjust judgment. The min might indeed be understood, as in Isa 53:5, not as referring to the persons who swept Him away (= ὑπὸ), but, as in Psa 107:39, as relating to the ground and cause of the sweeping away. But the local sense, which is the one most naturally suggested by luqqach (e.g., Isa 49:24), is to be preferred: hostile oppression and judicial persecution were the circumstances out of which He was carried away by death. With regard to what follows, we must in any case adhere to the ordinary usage, according to which dōr (= Arab. daur, dahr, a revolution or period of time) signifies an age, or the men living in a particular age; also, in an ethical sense, the entire body of those who are connected together by similarity of disposition (see, for example, Psa 14:5); or again (= Arab. dâr) a dwelling, as in Isa 38:12, and possibly also (of the grave) in Psa 49:20. Such meanings as length of life (Luther and Grotius), course of life (Vitringa), or fate (Hitzig), it is impossible to sustain. Hence the Sept. rendering, τὴν γενεὰν αὐτοῦ τίς διηγήσεται, which Jerome also adopts, can only mean, so far as the usage of the language is concerned, "who can declare the number of His generation" (i.e., of those inspire by His spirit,or filled with His life); but in this connection such a thought would be premature. Moreover, the generation intended would be called זרעו rather than דורו, as springing from Him. Still less can we adopt the meaning "dwelling," as Knobel does, who explains the passage thus: "who considers how little the grave becomes Him, which He has received as His dwelling-place." The words do not admit of this explanation. Hofmann formerly explained the passage as meaning, "No one takes His dwelling-place into his mind or mouth, so as even to think of it, or inquire what had become of Him;" but in His Schriftbeweis he has decided in favour of the meaning, His contemporaries, or the men of His generation. It is only with this rendering that we obtain a thought at all suitable to the picture of suffering given here, or to the words which follow (compare Jer 2:31, O ye men of this generation). ואת־דּורו in that case is not the object to ישׂוחח, the real obje…
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