Isaiah 53 Footnotes

53:9b The servant “had done no violence,” although Jesus drove the money changers from the temple (Mt 21:12-13; Mk 11:15-18; Jn 2:14-16). The two clauses of this verse are in poetic parallel; the violence of the first line is defined as speaking “deceitfully” in the second. Jesus was stern with those who defiled the temple, but his words on that occasion—being a quotation, in fact, from the books of Isaiah (Is 56:7) and Jeremiah (Jr 7:11)—were anything but deceitful. But since the temple was a major financial institution under watchful Roman supervision, Jesus’s disturbance of its activities was perceived as violence and a threat to an already unstable political situation. In Roman eyes it might have been enough to justify his execution, even without the accusations brought by the Jewish authorities.

53:10 Isaiah declared that the servant of the Lord “will prolong his days.” Clearly, the servant of this passage was being persecuted to his death (v. 9). His days could be prolonged only through being raised from the dead. Isaiah’s words describe the outcome of Jesus’s passion, his vindication by the Father (Ac 2:23-24).