53:1  Who has believed our revelation? On whose account has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

The revelation is talked about in chapter 28, remember? There is was a question of: are people going to go on from the lesser portion of the word of God to the greater portion or from the fundamentals, which are like unto milk, to meat, or revelation, divine instruction? Chapter 28, verse 9 says: Whom shall we give instruction? Whom shall we enlighten with revelation? And most people were not acceptable of that kind of higher instruction or the divine wisdom that’s offered them. There’s a dichotomy there between those who do accept and those who don’t. In Isaiah it’s always the few who do and the many who don’t accept revelation or instruction. And so it is here in chapter 53. Who has believed that revelation? Very few. Some, yes. Some go on and accept divine revelation from God, and hold fast to those things, to the word of God, and keep the laws of God and all the things He’s reveled through His servants, the prophets. But the majority, no. In Isaiah’s context, not so. The majority of people are in apostate or descending mode, descending down the spiritual ladder, and don’t come back up. And that’s why the judgments of god come upon them; they’re even losing what they had. The paring of these two ideas, who has believes that revelation and whose account has the arm of the Lord been revealed; both ideas have to do with revelation. The parallelism of those two ideas tells you that those who believe the revelation, which revelation? well all the revelation of God, and especially the revelations given through the Lord’s servant, who is the Lord’s mouth and voice, and so on. Those who believe the revelation are those on whose account the arm of the Lord has been revealed, or the arm of the Lord is manifested to those who believe the revelation. Which implies that those who don’t believe God’s revelation don’t accept the arm of God, or are not savvy what He represents, the arm of the Lord is a person. The two arms of God we’ve seen in chapter 51 verse 5 are righteousness and salvation; Salvation being the lord Himself and righteousness being His servant of forerunner who establishes righteousness so that salvation may come. These are the two arms that judge the peoples. In this case, which arm are we talking about? In this case we are talking about the arm of salvation, or actually, either arm because if you don’t accept the one you don’t accept the other. That’s how it works. If we don’t accept the Lord’s forerunner and all the preparatory work he does then how are we going to accept or be there in a position to welcome or receive the Lord when He comes? We’re not. In this case, the arm of the Lord, by context anyway, appears to be describing this suffering person, who is the lord Himself.

53:2  Like a sapling he grew up in his presence, a stalk out of arid ground. He had no distinguished appearance, that we should notice him; he had no pleasing aspect, that we should find him attractive.

The sapling and stalk idea is similar to what we saw in chapter 11 verse 1, which talks about the stalk of Jesse: A shoot will spring up from the stalk of Jesse and branch of its graft will bear fruit. And those are messianic titles or messianic imagery, a shoot, a stalk, a branch, a graft, ????????? See this in verse 2 you know that those other terms like that are also metaphors that describe the messianic individual. Of course Jeremiah literally calls the Lord’s servant “the branch”. But Isaiah doesn’t necessarily make it so literal; he doesn’t come out directly and say that.

Like a sapling, he grew up in his presence, a stalk out of arid ground. That’s kind of a contrast, growing up in His presence and out of arid ground. Arid ground implies a cursed state, a state of malediction or covenant curse, which implies wickedness or apostasy by people in general at the time of his growing up, or the time that he comes. And yet he, himself grows up in the presence of the Lord, meaning that he, himself has access to God; he’s not cut off from His presence, as perhaps the majority of people are cutoff from His presence because of their wickedness. It’s kind of a contrast between him and the people among whom he grows up.

He had no distinguished appearance that we should notice him; he had no pleasing aspect that we should find him attractive. In other words, he is not your charismatic personality who kind of sweeps everybody off their feet and has this aura about him of respect and dignity; like a statesman perhaps, or like some very popular persons. That isn’t how he comes across to people. He’s not here to make a big impression. There are some links in chapter 53 to other parts of Isaiah; word links or connecting ideas. We saw that at the end of chapter 52 it talks about the servant; the servant has many word links through Isaiah also the last part of Isaiah, 53, has many linking ideas. But these first ten verses really have very few connecting ideas to other parts of Isaiah, which shows that they are somewhat unique, that this description or this person is quite a unique person. He’s not the servant. He doesn’t link through word links or other rhetorical connections, or typological connections to a servant. His mission is distinct from the servant. The servant, at the end of chapter 52, is marred. Chapter 57 describes how he has been healed. This person in chapter 53 actually dies. He doesn’t recover. He dies, but chapter 52, verse 1 tells us also that he awakes and arises. He dies but is resurrected. Because of the structure of the ?????? parallelism what happens to the one happens to the many. Zion rises from the dust, and that’s a resurrection motif, and so does, by implication, this person who dies. He’s part of the same structure. When we read this, in chapter 53, we don’t have a lot of linking ideas to other parts of Isaiah. And that tells us that this person is unique. He’s not any of the other characters that are mentioned there, not human characters anyway. We’ll see that there are several linking ideas to the Lord Himself, besides the structural one and the ????? parallelism.

53:3  He was despised and disdained by men, a man of grief, accustomed to suffering. As one from whom men hide their faces he was shunned, deemed by us of no merit.

And what is it that causes people to treat someone like that, especially if it’s someone who is of God, and comes from God, or is a messenger of God, or has authority from God? What is it that causes others, then, to treat such people with distain, as if they’re nothing, and they despise them, and cause them various forms of oppression or persecution, so that it causes him to suffer? What is it? They recognize their own short comings, or their own guilt, ???? a pure person or a righteous person. His lifestyle would be a contradiction to their own. Especially, since in Isaiah’s context the majority are rejecting God anyway. If they rejected God they would reject anyone who would come in the name of God or authorized of God. He gets very negative treatment here from, perhaps those who should be most partial and amenable to welcoming him and sustaining him and receiving the word of God that he brings to them. This again reiterates the suffering mode that he comes in and the humiliation that he encounters. That you know from Isaiah’s structural themes, that that is a necessary prelude to exaltation. There is no exaltation without a prior humiliation; and there is no salvation without prior suffering. And the higher you go on the spiritual ladder the more humiliation and the more suffering you have to endure and go through. To go from one level to the next highest level you go through a descend before an ascend, and the higher you are on the spiritual ladder, the greater the descend that proceeds it. It is quite obvious, from Isaiah’s context that this person descends below them all, and suffers beyond all over any of the other characters. Look at King Hezekiah who suffers grievously, but it doesn’t compare to this. Presumably, Isaiah, himself suffered, I think. He appears to be a type of a servant who suffers and is persecuted, and so forth. People smite him on the cheek and pluck his beard, and so on. They probably did that to Isaiah and he’s using himself as a type but this happens to this person much more.

53:4  Yet he bore our sufferings, endured our griefs, though we thought him stricken, smitten of God, and humbled.

We thought he was under some kind of curse of God because he didn’t seem to be able to come out of this. Yet, what is actually going on? That he was enduring the curse that was really ours, which he took upon himself. We know that this person is innocent from the context of the whole chapter. As we proceed we will see that this person is not guilty of any sin or transgression that would cause covenant curses to come upon him. And so these covenant curses that are upon him, or these adversities are not through his own fault. He bore our sufferings, the things we should have suffered, he endured our grief’s, the things we should have grieved with. Was he smitten of God? …we thought him smitten of God and humbled. Yes, he was smitten of God because he took upon himself our transgressions as it says in verse 5, …he was pierced for our transgressions, crushed because of our iniquities; the price of our peace, he incurred, and with his wounds we are healed. So this person is some kind of proxy for the rest of us. And notice the pronouns, OUR sufferings; WE despised him, deemed by US of no merit. Who is speaking? There is a spokesman speaking on behalf of God’s people, who is speaking about him. It is no longer the Lord speaking about His servant as at the end of chapter 53. There is somebody who really knows and understands what this person’s life is all about, and what happened to him really. Where as, we at the time it happened, or most people at the time it happened were not aware, and this person is pointing out what really happened.

53:5  But he was pierced for our transgressions, crushed because of our iniquities; the price of our peace he incurred, and with his wounds we are healed.

Pierced--which shows the manner that he suffered. He suffered by being pierced, and one cannot help but link that to the suffering of Christ on the cross, when the nails pierced His hands and His feet, and the spear pierced his side. He was crushed also, under the weight of the cross. Not for any transgression or iniquity of His own. There is a difference between transgression and iniquity. Transgression is when you transgress the laws of God or you commit a sin and you’re guilty of that. Iniquity is something that is handed down from generation to generation. They’re negative behavioral patterns, or dysfunctional behavioral patterns which are passed on which are the results of sin; they’re cumulative. They have to do with covenant curses that happen when people sin and transgress. And those covenant curses cause people to labor in adverse situations, and to react to them, perhaps, negatively, where they are not able to cope with the consequences of their transgressions. These things are passed on from generation to generation. And he took all of that upon himself, not just our personal transgressions, but also those of our forefathers, those things that we inherited from them. …the price of our peace, he incurred; and with his wounds we are healed. Here we have a word link, peace, to other parts of Isaiah. It is the Lord Himself who brings about peace in the book of Isaiah. 26:12: O Lord, thou bringest about our peace; even all that we have accomplished, Thou hast done for us. He’s the one who brings about our peace or our salvation. Also, being healed, as we saw in chapter 6, being healed is synonymous with salvation. We see it at several places in the book of Isaiah. Peace is also synonymous with salvation; it appears in parallel with salvation. The main theme of this verse is, in fact, salvation; that he is suffering these things for our salvation, for our peace, for our healing; he’s paying the price for that. Again, alluding to his role as a proxy, our proxy, he’s doing these things on our behalf. We know that those who receive peace, for who he pays the price, are the righteous, in fact; those who repent of their transgressions. And so, putting two and two together implies that only for those that repent is there salvation, or mercy in this case, because he suffers justice on their behalf. Under the law of justice, someone has to pay the price for transgression, and he does so there is mercy involved here for those who repent. Implies that for those who don’t repent, for the wicked there is no mercy, because there is no peace for the wicked. They themselves suffer under the law of justice.

53:6  We all like sheep had gone astray, each of us headed his own way; the Lord brought together upon him the iniquity of us all.

Again, the pronouns we and us and our as before; and who are we? Sheep. Sheep is a kosher animal and elsewhere in the book of Isaiah, the Lords people are called His flock or His sheep. So you know it’s talking about the covenant people of the Lord, not the gentiles. Those who receive this salvation, of this healing, or peace are His own covenant people; again suggesting that the wicked, of those who are not His covenant people, don’t inherit peace or salvation. But, there is an interesting play on words here …We all, like sheep had gone astray, each of us headed his own way…, so we are all going in different directions, straying away from God, from the covenant, from the law of the covenant, and …the Lord brought together upon Him the iniquity of us all. That’s a beautiful image, isn’t it? We are all scattering and then He gathers up our iniquities and dumps them all upon Him. Iniquities of us all; what about those who don’t repent? Yes, even theirs. Because all they have to do is repent, and He had already suffered their iniquity as well. Weather they repent or not, He still suffered their iniquities, in other words, or suffered for their iniquities. …Each of us headed his own way… that implies that we have left Gods way. There is only one way and that’s Gods way. It’s kind of like the gook of Judges where every man did what’s right in his own eyes, and then they suffer the consequences of that.

53:7  He was harassed, yet submissive, and opened not his mouth—like a lamb led to slaughter, like a sheep, dumb before its shearers, he opened not his mouth.

Twice it says he opened not his mouth. Why would it say that twice? That’s the only thing that it really emphasizes like that in the whole chapter. He could have opened his mouth and defended himself. He could have spoken up. He could have said, um, you guys are wrong. You’re making a big mistake. Or he could have pointed out there faults. He chose not to. He chose not to speak up because that’s what God wanted him to do; to be submissive. What did God inflict upon him? Harassment, slaughter, arrest and trial, in the next verse, being pierced, being crushed, bearing our sufferings and grief’s, being shunned by people, deemed to be nothing of worth when he was of most worth. The lamb led to slaughter is a sacrificial idea, which appears again in verse 10 which refers to an offering for guilt. If he made his life an offering for guilt, in Hebrew it’s a shum. It’s anciently a sacrifice under the law of Moses that was offered when a man transgressed. A lamb led to slaughter reminds one of the Passover lamb, and it’s another metaphor. The Passover lamb was proxy for the first born of Israel, that they would not die. Here is proxy also for the first born of Gods people, who will not die, who will not die spiritually or physically. He’s led to slaughter, that means he dies. Like a sheep dumb before its shearers he opened not his mouth. That’s more imagery. He comes among the people of God who, are his sheep, covenant people. He’s sheared also, implies he’s sheared, that his clothes are taken away. You can’t help but identify this with Christ during His earthly ministry, Galilee and barns of Jerusalem.

53:8  By arrest and trial he was taken away. Who can apprise his generation that he was cut off from the land of the living for the crime of my people, to whom the blow was due?

Isaiah really hits home with this idea that he is our proxy. He dies. For his own crime? No, for his peoples crime; the crime of my people, that is again, the covenant formula, for their transgressions justice needed to be done. The blow was the punishment due for their transgressions. And he suffered the blow, or the covenant curses, or the consequences of transgression. He suffered under the law of justice on their behalf. It also implied that he was done so formally, through trial and arrest. He wasn’t just beat up by a gang somewhere in the woods. He went through an official execution. Who can apprise his generation that he was cut off from the land of the living… implies more than just the covenant people. Generation implies almost a dynasty. It’s possible that it refers to his lineage. It talks about him having lineage in verse 10, having offspring. He was cut off from the land of the living, that’s what Hezekiah did not want but almost happened to him. That’s what doesn’t happen to the servant, either. He is marred and then healed. But this person dies, and his death is part of his suffering and his humiliation; his death by trial, condemnation unto death.

53:9  He was appointed among the wicked in death, among the rich was his burial; yet he had done no violence, and deceit was not in his mouth.

In the Masoretic Text these first two likes are reversed, perhaps by error or perhaps intentionally, we don’t know, but the servant tyrant parallelism helps us in identifying that they were reversed. He was not appointed among the wicked in his burial nor among the rich in his death, but he was appointed among the wicked in death and among the rich in his burial. And of course, that happened to Christ. He died amidst two thieves or two robbers or two offenders of the law, and He was buried in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, who was a wealthy man. And was by appointment. That word appoint is also used of the Lords servant. Both are appointed, the Lord and His servant, by God, one higher on the spiritual ladder than himself, who is His Lord. It says the Lord willed to crush him in verse 10. Each one has his Lord who is above him. The same in verse 6, the Lord brought together upon him the iniquity of us all. To us, He’s our Lord, Jehovah, yet on His rung of the spiritual ladder, there is one above Him. And when Christ came, He spoke of Him as His father. Also we know that those first two lines of verse 9 were reversed because the wicked do violence and the rich are deceptive. Deception is a sin of the rich or the wealthy, and violence is a sin of the wicked, not the other way around. There may be deception among the wicked and there may be violence among the rich, but that’s not usual. Those are paralleled ideas that help us identify these first two lines were, in fact, reversed. Makes much more sense to say: he was appointed among the rich in death, yet he had done no violence, among the rich was his burial, yet deceit was not in his mouth.

53:10  But the Lord willed to crush him, causing him suffering, that, if he made his life an offering for guilt, he might see his offspring and prolong his days, and that the purposes of the Lord might prosper in his hand.

That’s harsh language. He was pierced for our transgressions, crushed because of our iniquities, in verse 5. To crush is like to crush the life out of something, to crush his spirit, to crush his body. The Lord willed that. Why? Why would God want to hurt His own Son or servant? Is that how God is, He’s a vengeful, retributive God? No! But in order to bring about the salvation of His people or the redemption of the world, whoever gives Him their covenantal allegiance can obtain salvation, and peace, and healing. For the sake of so many people in their lost and fallen state, in their state of covenant curse, their state of ignorance and darkness; for their sake the Lord willed to crush him, that good might come out of his sacrifice; that if he made his life an offering for guilt, their guilt, not his own. On the higher levels of the spiritual ladder one does not suffer for ones owns sins. How could he be a proxy for another is he himself has a sin or transgression? King Hezekiah interceded with God on behalf of his people. But do you think that his offering of a sacrifice of his life would have been acceptable if he himself was a transgressor? Then he would have deserved to die, he would have deserved to suffer. But King Hezekiah’s suffering went beyond that. And so that of others higher on the spiritual ladder. They didn’t deserve to die, but if they did suffer and die, then it could count for the salvation or deliverance of others. That’s based on the proxy principle. Just like the animal dies under the law of Moses on behalf of the offender, the one who transgressed against Gods law in guilty of death under the law if justice, and God provided a proxy in the form of the sacrificial animal, and that’s what this person is. He made his live an offering for guilt; offering for guilt is one word in Hebrew, asham, means the same offering that was offered under the law of Moses. So he dies for them instead of them. And the higher you go on the spiritual ladder, the greater or more effective is the proxy role that one can perform. Hezekiah’s offering of his life only merited, only merited, his peoples physical deliverance from the besieging Assyrians. But that of seraphs or those of the seraph level of the spiritual ladder can merit more than that, can merit divine intervention in the lives of others. On this level of the spiritual ladder where the Lord Himself suffers and dies, all of their sins and iniquities may be taken away. That’s the highest proxy function known, in Isaiah, anyway.

…That if he made his life an offering for guilt, he might see his offspring and prolong his days; that the purposes of the Lord might prosper in his hand. So here there is mention of offspring. In verse 9 there is mention of his burial. Those are covenant blessings. To have offspring is a covenant blessing. To have a burial is a covenant blessing. In the servant-tyrant parallelism, the King of Babylon has no offspring. They’re all cut off. They are all destroyed. He has no burial, his corpse lies unburied, full of maggots. In other words, the King of Babylon is suffering from covenant curses. This person is enjoying covenant blessings even amidst all his afflictions there is a redeeming factor to the whole thing. He has offspring. Well is that maybe spiritual offspring of adopted sons and daughters of Christ? No! It’s boys first literal in Isaiah. If he did not have literal offspring he would be under a curse, and God has provided that he is not under a curse because he is innocent. We know he’s innocent, it has already said that. He’s suffering on behalf of others, and here he’s letting us know additionally that he’s innocent by the fact that he’s enjoying some covenant blessings.

…that he might see his offspring and prolong his days. Your days are prolonged when? When you honor father and mother, according to the fourth commandment of the Ten Commandments: Honor thy father thy and mother that thy days may be long upon the land. In the Old Testament, if you honored father and mother, and your days were prolonged upon the land, they would be prolonged through your offspring, too; prolonged upon the land, upon the Earth (land and Earth is the same word in Hebrew). So some have offspring that live on into the Millennium, into all eternity, like Abraham, whose offspring would be like the sands of the seashore and the stars heaven for multitude, earthly and heavenly posterity, and others would not. Others would have their offspring cutoff, like the King of Babylon in chapter 14, who is juxtaposed with the King of Zion in these chapters. The King of Zion has offspring; the King of Babylon does not. The King of Zion is buried; the King of Babylon is not. All the way through there’s 21 antithetical or opposite verses describing the attributes of one as the opposite of the other.

…and that the purposes of the Lord might prosper in his hand. Now there is a transition here to the next part of the chapter. That the purposes of the Lord might prosper in his hand. The hand is his right hand who is his servant; the Lords servant, and, in fact, anyone who is his servant. How can we prosper, how can the Lords servants prosper, how can the Lords servants be empowered, if the whole thing rests upon a false foundation? The servant himself, at one time, and all the rest of us, are sinners. We have need to repent for our transgressions of he law of God, and when we do so, we are forgiven because He is our proxy and has taken our guilt and transgressions upon Himself. But if He did not come along, if he did not function as our proxy, to take away our guilt and out iniquities, then how could we do anything? We would remain in transgression. The purposes of the Lord could not prosper in us. They couldn’t, because we would forever remain in our lost and fallen state. We would forever remain in a state of transgression, suffering the consequences of transgression or the curses of the covenant. The Lord has done this, brought this work of deliverance for us, this proxy atonement, for our sins, for our transgressions, and based upon that foundation; we can function as His servants, or the Lords servant can function legitimately. Otherwise, he too would he in a state of transgression. The Lords servant could not prepare a people for the coming of the Lord, this time in an exalted state, in a saved condition, in a resurrected state, if the people remained in a state of transgression. They all must repent and assume a higher level on the spiritual ladder for the Lord to come and dwell among them. If we’re separated on the spiritual ladder too far then He cannot live with us. We have to be in proximity to Him. We have to acquire His divine attributes so that He can live among us, or we can dwell in His presence. Notice all of these metaphors in this chapter, The Arm of the Lord, sapling, a stalk, a lamb, and now His hand. And those are just as real as if He’s named them. Each one refers to a person, the Lord and His servant.

53:11  He shall see the toil of his soul and be satisfied; because of his knowledge, and by bearing their iniquities, shall my servant, the righteous one, vindicate many.

He shall see the toil of whose soul? The last one mentioned who is the hand of the Lord; in other words, the Lords servant, His forerunner, His righteous servant. The one who establishes righteousness, the arm of righteousness. The ensign, the light, all the things we’ve already named. He too suffers, as Hezekiah suffered. Anyone on the spiritual ladder who performs a Messianic or proxy role, suffers. They don’t suffer as much as Christ suffered, they don’t suffer to the same degree as the King of Zion Himself, but they suffer. Again, not for their own transgressions but for those of others, as Hezekiah did.

He shall see the toil of his soul and be satisfied; because of his knowledge and by bearing their iniquities shall my servant, the righteous-man vindicate many. Now the Lord is speaking, Himself. He has done His work of atonement, His proxy salvation. Now He talks about His servant, again, as He talked about him at the end of chapter 52. And He talks about him in verse 12, chapter 53, 11 and 12. So what’s going on? We have a chiasm here, if you like, A-B-A. The middle part of the chiasm is the Lord Himself. A servant is one who prepares the way before Him. The servant, too, goes through a humiliation and exultation. His appearance was marred beyond human likeness. He appalled people, and yet, he became exceedingly eminent and highly exulted, in chapter 52, verses 13 and 14. He astounds many nations, rulers shutting their mouths at him. This man is an exulted being, very prominent in the whole Earth. How did he get that way? He just came and assumed this role? No. He himself went through horrendous humiliation and suffering before that, he was marred, and here it talks about it some more. He had toil of soul just like King Hezekiah in chapter 38. Read that chapter and you see the tremendous suffering that Hezekiah went through. He really did suffer, had toil of soul. And when the Lord sees that and the persons endures it well, and suffers in humble submission to God’s will, then there comes a point when it’s enough and the Lord is satisfied. He shall se the toil of his soul and be satisfied. He did offer his life up to God. He consecrated his sufferings in behalf of others. They lent substance to his intersession with God in their behalf; he paid the price.

He shall see the toil of his soul and be satisfied; because of his knowledge and by bearing their iniquities shall my servant, the righteous- man vindicate many. What knowledge? Is he just smarter than the rest of us? Because of his knowledge shall my servant vindicate many? Knowledge is a covenant term, as we have already discussed. Knowledge implied covenant knowledge, of knowledge of the covenant; and knowledge of God and His ways, and knowledge of the terms of the covenant. And he knows that according to the terms of the covenant that if he intercedes on behalf of others and pays the price for their transgressions, or answers to God for their infidelities and unfaithfulness, for their transgressions, he, through his sacrifice can merit others deliverance. In Hezekiah’s case that’s limited to physical deliverance. In the Lord’s own case it’s not limited to physical deliverance, He incorporates all deliverance, physical and spiritual; particularly spiritual because the physical flows out from there. It allows other proxies like King Hezekiah, or the Lords servant in this case, to also merit deliverance on a physical level. What is this knowledge? It’s parallel with bearing their iniquities. …because of his knowledge and by bearing their iniquities. His knowledge of the terms of the covenant lead him to bear their iniquities or makes him willing to bear their iniquities. Does the Lord Himself do this? Of course! Is it limited to this servant only? Of course not! The servant is only doing what he has seen his Lord do. He does it on a lesser level; but he does it never the less. The servant is emulating the Lord in many respects, as many as he can physically do. The Lord bears our iniquities. He vindicates us when we repent; the servant does it on a physical level.

Because of his knowledge and by bearing their iniquities, shall my servant, the righteous one… Ah! That particular servant, the one who personifies righteousness, the one who is righteousness or is righteous. The word righteous one, righteousness, are virtually synonymous in Hebrew (the Hebrew words are explained) they’re all terms identifying the Lord’s servant. He exemplifies righteousness to us; is a model of righteousness for us to follow. That’s where the toil of his soul comes in, when he bears their iniquities. Because of his knowledge in the terms of the covenant he knows that he can do that and merit deliverance for them. In that way he vindicates them; they are vindicated. They don’t have to suffer death at the asieging(sp?) Assyrians, or some other calamities. Because of the Lord’s servant intercession they will be delivered from things like that. The word in Hebrew, to vindicate, is the same word as to make righteous, or to make right, or to validate. The servant vindicates, or makes righteous, or validates others, many in fact, the idea of the one and the many.

53:12  I will assign him an inheritance among the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the mighty, because he poured out his soul unto death, and was numbered with criminals—he bore the sins of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

Does the suffering figure do this in the first part of chapter 53, the Lord Himself? Of Course! He does all of that. But, here the Lord is speaking of His servant in these last two verses as at the end of chapter 52. So the servant does that also in the course of emulating his Lord. In fact, every one of these lines, every one of the sentences, has a type in Israel’s history. Caleb received an inheritance among the great. When the Israelites came into the Promised Land, Caleb was given an inheritance among the great, because he was one of the two spies sent who remained faithful to the Lord when all the others gave a bad report; Joshua and Caleb gave a true report. And they were the only ones of that whole generation that came out of Egypt that actually inherited the Promised Land. All the others died in the wilderness; and Moses also passed on. David divided the spoil with the mighty in his wars against the Philistines. David is the type of this person.

...because he poured out his soul unto death… Hezekiah did that in chapter 38. …and was numbered with criminals… David was numbered with criminals. Now after Samuel anointed him, Saul sought his life; and he ran around in the wilderness of Ein Gedi with 300 outcasts of society. Was Christ numbered with criminals? Or Course! He was crucified between two thieves or offenders. …he bore the sins of many… Who did that? He bore the sins of many refers to Job. When Job’s children were partying, indulging in their own pleasures, he would come in the evening and offer up a sacrifice in their behalf. And Job was smitten with many curses, which convinced Job’s companions that he was guilty of transgression; but in his proxy role we see that he was really paying the price of others transgression, not his own.

…[he]made intercession for the transgressor… That’s Moses when Israel made the golden calf, and God was about to wipe out the whole nation that came out of Egypt, Moses interceded for the transgressors with God and God spared the people. So there we have a lot of links to other Old Testament characters, and we’ve already seen that the servant is like a lot of these heroes of the Old Testament; that he performs many of the same functions as they did, as Moses led the exodus, as Joshua led the conquest of the Promised Land, and so forth; as Abraham came from a distant country, from the east to the Promised Land, and as Cyrus rebuilt the temple. All of these things set precedence in Israel’s history are all roles that the servant assumes. But who is the servant? He would have to be on the same spiritual level that those characters of the Old Testament were. He would have to be of the same spiritual caliber, and in fact, he is because he is because he too suffers as they suffered; he too interceded, he too prays on their behalf; he too gives a good report. He does all the things that God requires him to do; fights the battles of the Lord. And when all is said and done he’s only emulating his Lord, who is his exemplar on the next highest level of the spiritual ladder.