10 And the Lord was pleased ... see a seed, long life, ... will do well in his hand. ...
We have an altar from which those priests who are servants in the Tent may not take food. For the bodies of the beasts whose blood is taken into the holy place by the high priest as an offering for sin are burned outside the circle of the tents. For this reason Jesus was put to death outside the walls, so that he might make the people holy by his blood.
Of the increase of his rule and of peace there will be no end, on the seat of David, and in his kingdom; to make it strong, supporting it with wise decision and righteousness, now and for ever. By the fixed purpose of the Lord of armies this will be done.
Men made sport of him, turning away from him; he was a man of sorrows, marked by disease; and like one from whom men's faces are turned away, he was looked down on, and we put no value on him. But it was our pain he took, and our diseases were put on him: while to us he seemed as one diseased, on whom God's punishment had come. But it was for our sins he was wounded, and for our evil doings he was crushed: he took the punishment by which we have peace, and by his wounds we are made well. We all went wandering like sheep; going every one of us after his desire; and the Lord put on him the punishment of us all.
For this cause he will have a heritage with the great, and he will have a part in the goods of war with the strong, because he gave up his life, and was numbered with the evil-doers; taking on himself the sins of the people, and making prayer for the wrongdoers.
Awake! O sword, against the keeper of my flock, and against him who is with me, says the Lord of armies: put to death the keeper of the sheep, and the sheep will go in flight: and my hand will be turned against the little ones.
He will have rule over the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.
Whatever the Father gives to me will come to me; and I will not send away anyone who comes to me. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my pleasure, but the pleasure of him who sent me. And this is the pleasure of him who sent me, that I am not to let out of my hands anything which he has given me, but I am to give it new life on the last day. This, I say, is my Father's pleasure, that everyone who sees the Son and has faith in him may have eternal life: and I will take him up on the last day.
But God gave him back to life, having made him free from the pains of death because it was not possible for him to be overcome by it. For David said of him, I saw the Lord before my face at all times, for he is at my right hand, so that I may not be moved: And for this cause my heart was glad and my tongue full of joy, and my flesh will be resting in hope: For you will not let my soul be in hell and you will not give up your Holy One to destruction. You have made me see the ways of life; I will be full of joy when I see your face.
Having knowledge that because Christ has come back from the dead, he will never again go down to the dead; death has no more power over him.
Who is a God like you, offering forgiveness for evil-doing and overlooking the sins of the rest of his heritage? he does not keep his wrath for ever, because his delight is in mercy.
Seventy weeks have been fixed for your people and your holy town, to let wrongdoing be complete and sin come to its full limit, and for the clearing away of evil-doing and the coming in of eternal righteousness: so that the vision and the word of the prophet may be stamped as true, and to put the holy oil on a most holy place.
The Lord your God is among you, as a strong saviour: he will be glad over you with joy, he will make his love new again, he will make a song of joy over you as in the time of a holy feast.
And a voice came out of heaven, saying, This is my dearly loved Son, with whom I am well pleased.
And when he has got it again, he takes it in his arms with joy. And when he gets back to his house, he sends for his neighbours and friends, saying to them, Be glad with me, for I have got back my sheep which had gone away. I say to you that even so there will be more joy in heaven when one sinner is turned away from his wrongdoing, than for ninety-nine good men, who have no need of a change of heart.
And get the fat young ox and put it to death, and let us have a feast, and be glad. For this, my son, who was dead, is living again; he had gone away from me, and has come back. And they were full of joy.
Truly I say to you, If a seed of grain does not go into the earth and come to an end, it is still a seed and no more; but through its death it gives much fruit.
He who did not keep back his only Son, but gave him up for us all, will he not with him freely give us all things?
For him who had no knowledge of sin God made to be sin for us; so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.
As we were designed before by him for the position of sons to himself, through Jesus Christ, in the good pleasure of his purpose,
Having made clear to us the secret of his purpose, in agreement with the design which he had in mind, to put into his hands
He took our sins on himself, giving his body to be nailed on the tree, so that we, being dead to sin, might have a new life in righteousness, and by his wounds we have been made well.
And the love of God was made clear to us when he sent his only Son into the world so that we might have life through him. And this is love, not that we had love for God, but that he had love for us, and sent his Son to be an offering for our sins.
I saw in visions of the night, and there was coming with the clouds of heaven one like a man, and he came to the one who was very old, and they took him near before him. And to him was given authority and glory and a kingdom; and all peoples, nations, and languages were his servants: his authority is an eternal authority which will not come to an end, and his kingdom is one which will not come to destruction.
He made request to you for life, and you gave it to him, long life for ever and ever.
Your children will take the place of your fathers; so that you may make them rulers over all the earth. I will keep the memory of your name living through all generations; and because of this the people will give you praise for ever.
Because they are cruel to him against whom your hand is turned; they make bitter the grief of him who is wounded by you.
His seed will keep their place for ever; his kingdom will be eternal, like the heavens.
His seed will not come to an end for ever; the seat of his kingdom will be like the sun before me.
See my servant, whom I am supporting, my loved one, in whom I take delight: I have put my spirit on him; he will give the knowledge of the true God to the nations.
Making clear from the first what is to come, and from past times the things which have not so far come about; saying, My purpose is fixed, and I will do all my pleasure;
So will my word be which goes out of my mouth: it will not come back to me with nothing done, but it will give effect to my purpose, and do that for which I have sent it. For you will go out with joy, and be guided in peace: the mountains and the hills will make melody before you, and all the trees of the fields will make sounds of joy. In place of the thorn will come up the fir-tree, and in place of the blackberry the myrtle: and it will be to the Lord for a name, for an eternal sign which will not be cut off.
And you will be a fair crown in the hand of the Lord, and a king's head-dress in the hand of your God. You will not now be named, She who is given up; and your land will no longer be named, The waste land: but you will have the name, My pleasure is in her, and your land will be named, Married: for the Lord has pleasure in you, and your land will be married. For as a young man takes a virgin for his wife, so will your maker be married to you: and as a husband has joy in his bride, so will the Lord your God be glad over you.
And truly, I will take pleasure in doing them good, and all my heart and soul will be given to planting them in this land in good faith.
Say to them, By my life, says the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of the evil-doer; it is more pleasing to me if he is turned from his way and has life: be turned, be turned from your evil ways; why are you looking for death, O children of Israel?
And they will be living in the land which I gave to Jacob, my servant, in which your fathers were living; and they will go on living there, they and their children and their children's children, for ever: and David, my servant, will be their ruler for ever.
For the Lord has pleasure in his people: he gives the poor in spirit a crown of salvation.
Mercy and faith have come together; righteousness and peace have given one another a kiss. Faith comes up from the earth like a plant; righteousness is looking down from heaven. The Lord will give what is good; and our land will give its increase.
Your people give themselves gladly in the day of your power; like the dew of the morning on the holy mountains is the army of your young men.
And again he says, I will put my faith in him. And again, See, I am here, and the children which God has given to me.
Who has no need to make offerings for sins every day, like those high priests, first for himself, and then for the people; because he did this once and for ever when he made an offering of himself.
And he did not have to make an offering of himself again and again, as the high priest goes into the holy place every year with blood which is not his; For then he would have undergone a number of deaths from the time of the making of the world: but now he has come to us at the end of the old order, to put away sin by the offering of himself.
You had no joy in burned offerings or in offerings for sin. Then I said, See, I have come to do your pleasure, O God (as it is said of me in the roll of the book). After saying, You had no desire for offerings, for burned offerings or offerings for sin (which are made by the law) and you had no pleasure in them, Then he said, See, I have come to do your pleasure. He took away the old order, so that he might put the new order in its place. By that pleasure we have been made holy, by the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once and for ever. And every priest takes his place at the altar day by day, doing what is necessary, and making again and again the same offerings which are never able to take away sins. But when Jesus had made one offering for sins for ever, he took his place at the right hand of God;
Because of this my heart is glad, and my glory is full of joy: while my flesh takes its rest in hope. For you will not let my soul be prisoned in the underworld; you will not let your loved one see the place of death. You will make clear to me the way of life; where you are joy is complete; in your right hand there are pleasures for ever and ever.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Isaiah 53
Commentary on Isaiah 53 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 53
The two great things which the Spirit of Christ in the Old-Testament prophets testified beforehand were the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow, 1 Pt. 1:11. And that which Christ himself, when he expounded Moses and all the prophets, showed to be the drift and scope of them all was that Christ ought to suffer and then to enter into his glory, Lu. 24:26, 27. But nowhere in all the Old-Testament are these two so plainly and fully prophesied of as here in this chapter, out of which divers passages are quoted with application to Christ in the New-Testament. This chapter is so replenished with the unsearchable riches of Christ that it may be called rather the gospel of the evangelist Isaiah than the prophecy of the prophet Isaiah. We may observe here,
By mixing faith with the prophecy of this chapter we may improve our acquaintance with Jesus Christ and him crucified, with Jesus Christ and him glorified, dying for our sins and rising again for our justification.
Isa 53:1-3
The prophet, in the close of the former chapter, had foreseen and foretold the kind reception which the gospel of Christ should find among the Gentiles, that nations and their kings should bid it welcome, that those who had not seen him should believe in him; and though they had not any prophecies among them of gospel grace, which might raise their expectations, and dispose them to entertain it, yet upon the first notice of it they should give it its due weight and consideration. Now here he foretels, with wonder, the unbelief of the Jews, notwithstanding the previous notices they had of the coming of the Messiah in the Old Testament and the opportunity they had of being personally acquainted with him. Observe here,
Isa 53:4-9
In these verses we have,
Isa 53:10-12
In the foregoing verses the prophet had testified very particularly of the sufferings of Christ, yet mixing some hints of the happy issue of them; here he again mentions his sufferings, but largely foretels the glory that should follow. We may observe, in these verses,