Read Isaiah 53 here (text coming …) or at Bible Gateway.
The Hebrew paragraphs:
53:1-12 {p} The Servant crushed, His soul a trespass offering
The Strong theme:
52:1-53:12 {sx6+p} The good news of Zion’s redemption: YHVH’s Servant shall bear Zion’s transgression
The Chiastic structure:
Most actions endured by the Servant involved bodily agony (all definitions adapted from Webster’s):
Stricken : overwhelmed by disease, misfortune, or sorrow
Smitten : struck sharply or heavily with the hand or a hand-held object
Afflicted : grievously troubled
Pierced : run through with a pointed weapon; thrust into sharply or painfully
Crushed : reduced by overwhelming force or pain
Wounded : injured in body from trauma or violence, involving laceration
But then there is:
Because He poured out His soul to death, and was numbered with the transgressors … Isa 53:12
TO POUR OUT is Strong’s H6168, ערה arah, “to uncover, to lay bare, to strip naked, to expose, to pour out.”
ayin ע = eye (watch, know, shade)
resh ר = head of man (head, first, top, beginning, man)
hey ה = man w/ upraised arms (look, reveal, wonder, worship, breath)
The Hebrew Root Word parable is to see (ayin) the man (resh) revealed (hey).
His soul was uncovered, stripped naked, laid bare, and poured out to death. To have your soul stripped bare is the most extreme vulnerability a person can experience, an intense heart-piercing suffering of lost dignity, leaving nothing reserved.
Moreover, the verb form here indicates He caused His soul to be poured out. It was not something that happened to Him, as an unwilling lamb to the slaughter. He chose to pour out His soul willingly, as a trespass offering (asham) for our sake (Isa 53:10, Joh 10:18, “I lay it down”).
The Servant’s sacrifice was all-in: body and soul crushed together of His own volition.
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