Isaiah 53:4

4 Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted.

Isaiah 53:4 in Other Translations

4 Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

4 Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.

4 Yet it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for his own sins!

4 But the fact is, it was our pains he carried - our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us. We thought he brought it on himself, that God was punishing him for his own failures.

4 Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows; yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

4 He certainly has taken upon himself our suffering and carried our sorrows, but we thought that God had wounded him, beat him, and punished him.

4 Yet He Himself bore our sicknesses, and He carried our pains; but we in turn regarded Him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted.

4 He suffered the things we should have suffered. He took on himself the pain that should have been ours. But we thought God was punishing him. We thought God was wounding him and making him suffer.

Isaiah 53:4 Meaning and Commentary

Isaiah 53:4

Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows
Or "nevertheless", as Gussetius ^F11; notwithstanding the above usage of him; though it is a certain and undoubted truth, that Christ not only assumed a true human nature, capable of sorrow and grief, but he took all the natural sinless infirmities of it; or his human nature was subject to such, as hunger, thirst, weariness; and to all the sorrow and pain arising from them; the same sorrows and griefs he was liable to as we are, and therefore called ours and hence he had a sympathy with men under affliction and trouble; and, to show his sympathizing spirit, he healed all sorts of bodily diseases; and also, to show his power, he healed the diseases of the soul, by bearing the sins of his people, and making satisfaction for them; since he that could do the one could do the other; wherefore the evangelist applies this passage to the healing of bodily diseases, ( Matthew 8:17 ) , though the principal meaning of the words may be, that all the sorrows and griefs which Christ bore were not for any sins of his own, but for the sins of his people; wherefore these griefs and sorrows signify the punishment of sin, and are put for sins, the cause of them and so the apostle interprets them of Christ's bearing our sins in his own body on the tree, ( 1 Peter 2:24 ) , and the Septuagint and Arabic versions render the words here, "he bears our sins"; and the Targum is,

``wherefore he will entreat for our sins;''

these being laid upon him, as is afterwards said, were bore by him as the surety of his people; and satisfaction being made for them by his sufferings and death, they are carried and taken away, never to be seen any more: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted;
so indeed he was by the sword of divine justice, which was awaked against him, and with which he was stricken and smitten, as standing in the room of his people; but then it was not for any sin of his own, as the Jews imagined, but for the sins of those for whom he was a substitute; they looked upon all his sorrows and troubles in life, and at death, as the just judgment of God upon him for some gross enormities he had been guilty of; but in this they were mistaken. The Vulgate Latin version is, "we esteemed him as a leprous person"; and so Aquila and Symmachus render the word; and from hence the Jews call the Messiah a leper ^F12; they say,

``a leper of the house of Rabbi is his name''

as it is said, "surely he hath borne our griefs"; which shows that the ancient Jews understood this prophecy of the Messiah, though produced to prove a wrong character of him; and so it is applied unto him in other ancient writings of theirs; (See Gill on Matthew 8:17). The words are by some rendered, "and we reckoned him the stricken, smitten of God" ^F13, and "humbled"; which version of the words proved the conversion of several Jews in Africa, as Andradius and others relate {n}; by which they perceived the passage is to be understood not of a mere man, but of God made man, and of his humiliation and sufferings in human nature.

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FOOTNOTES:

F11 Ebr. Comment. p. 41. (Nka) "verumtamen", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator; "et tamen", so some is Vatablus.
F12 T. Bab. Sanhedrin, fol. 98. 2.
F13 (Myhla hkm) "percussum Deum", Sanctius.
F14 Vid. Sanctium in loc.

Isaiah 53:4 In-Context

2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.

3 He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

4 Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted.

5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.

6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Cross References

• 1. Matthew 8:17*
• 2. S Deuteronomy 5:24; S Job 4:5; Jeremiah 23:5-6; Jeremiah 25:34; Ezekiel 34:23-24; Micah 5:2-4; Zechariah 13:7; John 19:7
• 3. S ver 3; S Genesis 12:17; S Ruth 1:21