The prophets preached the New Testament gospel in the New Testament economy, but no one believed their report. Their report was based on God’s revelation of Christ as the arm of Jehovah, the dynamic Redeemer (see note Isa. 51:9^1b). Both the report and the revelation concern Christ as the Servant of Jehovah (v. 11b).

This chapter speaks clearly concerning Christ in four stages:
1) the stage of Christ’s incarnation (vv. 1-3),
2) the stage of Christ’s crucifixion (vv. 4-10, 12b),
3) the stage of Christ’s resurrection (vv. 10-11),
4) the stage of Christ’s ascension (v. 12a).
The entire chapter is a confession that will be made by the household of Israel who will be saved at Christ’s second coming (Zech. 12:10; Rom. 11:26-27). At that time they will confess the contents of Isa. 53, and this chapter will be full of taste to them.

For here introduces the reason that no one believed the report and received the revelation concerning Christ (v. 1).

Verses 1b-3 contain the prophet’s report and Jehovah’s revelation concerning Christ as the incarnated Savior, who lived a lowly and sorrowful human life, which fully qualified Him to be the Redeemer and the Savior to save fallen men from Satan, sin, death, and self (Heb. 2:14-18; Matt. 1:21; Rom. 8:3; 2 Tim. 1:10; Matt. 16:24-25).

In His humanity Christ grew up not like a large tree but like a small delicate sprout (a tender plant) before Jehovah, in a difficult environment (dry ground), which included His being born of a poor family and His living in Nazareth, a despised city, in Galilee, a despised region.

Instead of majesty, Jesus had poverty (Matt. 8:20), and instead of an attractive form and a beautiful appearance, He had a visage and form that were disfigured (Isa. 52:14).

Lit., pains. So also in the next verse. Christ was a “man whose chief distinction was, that His life was one of constant painful endurance” (Keil and Delitzsch). As the complete God, signified by the arm of Jehovah (v. 1; 51:9; 52:10) as the power of God (1 Cor. 1:22-24), Christ became a perfect man, signified by a man of sorrows, in His incarnation (John 1:1, 14; 1 Tim. 2:5b).

In the report of the prophets and the revelation of Jehovah (v. 1), Christ is revealed as the crucified Redeemer, who sacrificed Himself for our trespasses (our sin) to accomplish Jehovah’s eternal redemption (vv. 4-10a; Heb. 9:12) that the believers in Christ may be redeemed (forgiven of sins — Acts 10:43, justified—Acts 13:39, and reconciled to God — Rom. 5:10), resulting in the life union with Christ in His resurrection (v. 10b), the reality of which is the life-giving Spirit (John 11:25; 1 Cor. 15:45b; Rom. 8:11).

Sicknesses and sorrows, like transgressions and iniquities (v. 5), come from sin; hence, they too need Christ’s redemption (Matt. 8:17 and note Matt. 8:17^1b). Christ bore our sicknesses at the time He was judged by God on the cross, in the hour when God put all our iniquities on Him (v. 6b; 1 Pet. 2:24).

People thought that Christ must have been wrong in something and that, as a result, He was stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. They did not understand that Christ died vicariously, in the place of us, the sinners (vv. 4-5, 8-9, 11-12c; 2 Cor. 5:21; 1 Pet. 3:18a).

See note Isa. 53:4³.

See note 1 Pet. 2:24⁷.

Referring here especially to the remnant of the Jews at the time of the Lord’s coming back. At that time all the remaining Jews will repent (Zech. 12:10-14; Rev. 1:7) and will speak the words of this verse.

It was when God was judging Jesus on the cross that He caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him, making Jesus, in the eyes of God, the unique sinner at that moment (Matt. 27:45-46 and note Matt. 27:45¹ and note Matt. 27:46²). Christ’s death was not merely a murder (Acts 7:52), nor was it a martyrdom; rather, it was carried out by God Himself according to His law. Thus, Christ died a vicarious death as the Substitute for sinners (1 Pet. 3:18), a death that was legal according to God’s law and was recognized and approved by God according to the law.

In His vicarious death for sinners, Christ was oppressed, afflicted, and led to the slaughter like a lamb and sheared before the shearers like a sheep, with no reaction (Acts 8:32; Matt. 26:63-64; 27:12, 14).

Christ was oppressed by the hypocritical Jewish leaders (Matt. 26:57, 59, 65-68) and then judged by the unjust Roman officials (Luke 23:1-12; John 18:33-38; 19:1-16). By these two things He was taken away and was crucified.

No one among Christ’s generation understood that He was cut off out of the land of the living for the transgression of the prophet’s people, the Jews, to whom the stroke was due.

Those who crucified Christ planned to bury Him with the two transgressors, the wicked ones (Luke 23:32-33), but eventually God in His sovereignty caused Christ to be buried in a rich man’s tomb (Matt. 27:57-60).

The word is plural in Hebrew, deaths, signifying “a violent death, the very pain of which makes it like dying again and again” (Keil and Delitzsch).

Christ was sinless (2 Cor. 5:21; Heb. 4:15; 1 Pet. 2:22); hence, He did not die for His own sins. He died vicariously for us, the sinners (1 Pet. 3:18).

Christ volunteered to be an offering for sin, referring not to the sin offering (Lev. 4) but to an offering for sin in its totality — for wrongdoings, mistakes, trespasses, transgressions, evildoings, and iniquities (John 1:29).

Verses 10*b-11 refer to Christ in His resurrection. The seed here, a corporate seed, is the church as the Body of Christ, comprising all the believers produced as the many grains by the death of Christ as the one grain and by His reproductive resurrection (John 12:24; 1 Pet. 1:3). Christ as the Servant of Jehovah is the resurrected Life-giver, the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45; 2 Cor. 3:6, 17), to produce a seed for the building up of His Body as His continuation for Jehovah’s pleasure and for Christ’s satisfaction.

Today Christ is extending His days by living in His believers (Gal. 2:20 see note Acts 28:9¹). His believers as His Body are His extension.

The pleasure of God (Eph. 1:5, 9; Phil. 2:13) is to see many sons born of Him to become the members of Christ, who constitute the church as the Body of Christ, the corporate expression of Christ. This depends altogether on Christ’s death and resurrection.

The fruit of the travail of Christ’s soul implies all the items produced in and through Christ’s resurrection, as follows:
1) As the processed One, the last Adam, Christ became the life-giving Spirit as the reality of the pneumatic Christ for His propagation through life-imparting (1 Cor. 15:45; 2 Cor. 3:17);
2) as the preeminent One, the One who has the first place in all things, Christ became the Firstborn from the dead for the germinating of God’s new creation and for Christ to be Head of the Body (Col. 1:18; Rev. 1:5a);
3) as the God-man, Christ was begotten of God in His humanity (Acts 13:33) to be the firstborn Son of God in both the divine and human natures, to be a model for conforming many sons to His image (Rom. 8:29b);
4) as the resurrection life (John 11:25), Christ regenerated all His believers (1 Pet. 1:3), making them His brothers and the many sons of God (Heb. 2:10a, 11-12; Rom. 8:29b; John 20:17), who are the members of God’s household to be God’s kingdom (Eph. 2:19; Gal. 6:10) and God’s precious inheritance (Eph. 1:11);
5) as the one grain of wheat, Christ became the many grains (John 12:24), who are His increase (John 3:30) and the components of His Body, i.e., the one bread, the church (1 Cor. 10:17; Eph. 1:22-23);
6) through His life-releasing death and with His life-imparting resurrection, Christ produced a corporate seed as the issue of the travail of His soul, which seed He saw in His resurrection and was satisfied (vv. 10-11b; cf. Gal. 3:29);
7) as the life of the believers, the resurrected Christ is all the members and in all the members of the new man (Col. 3:10-11).

Christ will see the church and be satisfied with the church.

Not Christ’s knowledge but the knowing of Him, the righteous One, the resurrected Christ as the Servant of Jehovah.

Christ will make righteous those who know Him as the righteous One. Since this verse refers to Christ in His resurrection, to make us righteous is not merely to justify us objectively but to make us righteous subjectively by His living in us as the resurrection life and our living Him (Matt. 5:20 and note Matt. 5:20^1a; Rom. 5:19 and note Rom. 5:19¹; 2 Cor. 5:21 and note 2 Cor. 5:21^3b; Phil. 3:9 and note Phil. 3:9^5c).

The first part of this verse concerns Christ in His ascension. The Great and the Strong here refer to God. In Christ’s ascension God divided to Christ a portion with God as the great One, and Christ divided the spoil with God as the strong One.

Spoil indicates that a war was fought. On the cross and in His resurrection Christ fought the battle, gained the victory, and took the spoil from Satan (see note Eph. 4:8²). In Christ’s ascension there was a demonstration of Christ’s victory by the sharing of the captives, the spoil, taken in Christ’s victory. As the ascended Victor, Christ shared the spoil of His victory with God, the Great and the Strong (Psa. 68:18 and note Psa. 68:18³). Then Christ gave the spoil to the church as gifts for the building up of the Body of Christ (Eph. 4:8, 11-12 and note Eph. 4:8^3b). This is for the accomplishing of the pleasure of Jehovah, which will prosper in Christ’s hand according to God’s desire and plan (v. 10c).

Lit., soul. Man, God, and Christ all had a part in Christ’s crucifixion. Man did the murdering, the killing (Acts 7:52), but God carried out the legal judgment to kill Christ as a legal Substitute that Christ might die a vicarious death for sinners (vv. 6, 10a). Moreover, Christ Himself was willing to be such an offering. He made Himself that offering (v. 10b), and He poured out His life for that purpose (John 10:17-18; Heb. 9:14).

When Christ was crucified on the cross, He was numbered with the transgressors (Luke 23:32-33) and He interceded for the transgressors (Luke 23:34a).

See note Isa. 53:12^4c.