About who does Isaiah 53 speak?

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Truster

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I guess you haven't read the book of Daniel lately. It's quite clear. "Seventy weeks have been decreed for your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sin, to make atonement for iniquity to bring in everlasting righteousness..." (Dan.9:24) Hasn't it always been the command from God that the blood of sacrificed (executed) animals must be offered to bring an end to sin, though temporary? Daniel writes of the time when the blood offered will be permanent. For that to happen, the Messiah would have to be executed. It is further emphasized in verse 26:

"Then after the 62 weeks the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing..." To be "cut off" always means executed. But you already knew that, right?

Sacrificed and executed are not synonymous.
 

jamie

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LIFETIME MEMBER
Do you have some support from the text of Isaiah to support your point that Isaiah 53 speaks about the messiah?

Do you have some support from Moses that there would not be a prophet like him?

"I will raise up for them a Prophet like you from among their brethren and will put My words in His mouth, and He shall speak to them all that I command Him. And it shall be that whoever will not hear My words, which He speaks in My name, I will require it of him." (Deuteronomy 18:18-19)

Moses was a law giver, who is his successor?
 

beameup

New member
I guess you haven't read the book of Daniel lately. "Then after the 62 weeks the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing..." To be "cut off" always means executed. But you already knew that, right?

I guess you haven't been following the thread closely and have "jumped in" to a conversation between Elia & beameup and a question posed to an orthodox Jew (Elia).
 

CherubRam

New member
I guess you haven't read the book of Daniel lately. It's quite clear. "Seventy weeks have been decreed for your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sin, to make atonement for iniquity to bring in everlasting righteousness..." (Dan.9:24) Hasn't it always been the command from God that the blood of sacrificed (executed) animals must be offered to bring an end to sin, though temporary? Daniel writes of the time when the blood offered will be permanent. For that to happen, the Messiah would have to be executed. It is further emphasized in verse 26:

"Then after the 62 weeks the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing..." To be "cut off" always means executed. But you already knew that, right?

"Cut off" has more than one meaning.
 

beameup

New member
Bs"d

About who does Isaiah 53 speak?

Christians say about the messiah.

Judaism says it speaks about the nation Israel.

Who is right?

The Babylonian Talmud does not associate this passage with "Israelis" (ie: Jews).
The teaching/belief that the "suffering servant" of Isa. 53 is Israel, began to be taught in the 11th century CE.
You have been caught fibbing again.
 

KingdomRose

New member
I guess you haven't been following the thread closely and have "jumped in" to a conversation between Elia & beameup and a question posed to an orthodox Jew (Elia).

No, you are wrong. I have been following the thread closely, and what I have posted is relevant to the discussion. I realize Elia is a Jew and have posted my thoughts accordingly. Don't YOU know that "cut off" means executed? Elia should know that.
 

Elia

Well-known member
The Babylonian Talmud does not associate this passage with "Israelis" (ie: Jews).
The teaching/belief that the "suffering servant" of Isa. 53 is Israel, began to be taught in the 11th century CE.
You have been caught fibbing again.

Bs"d

The only one who has been thought nonsense is you:

Long before Rashi in the year 1000 the Jewish understanding of Isaiah 53 was that is speaks about the nation Israel. In the Midrash Rabba on Numbers it is clearly written that the suffering servant is Israel.

In the Talmud, finished around the year 500, in tractate Brachot 5A, it is written at least three times that the suffering servant is Israel.

The targum Jonathan ben Uzziel from the first century says in his comment on Isaiah 53 multiple times that the servant is Israel.

And there is of course the Christian father of the church, Origen, born in the year 185, who says that in a debate with wise Jews, they told him that the servant in Isaiah 53 is the nation Israel.

He says that in his book "Contra Celsus". That book can be found online here:
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0416.htm

Look in book 1, the end of chapter 54, and the beginning of 55, There Origen writes:

"But He was wounded for our sins, and bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon Him; by His stripes we were healed. We all, like sheep, wandered from the way. A man wandered in his way, and the Lord delivered Him on account of our sins; and He, because of His evil treatment, opens not His mouth. As a sheep was He led to slaughter; and as a lamb before her shearer is dumb, so He opens not His mouth. In His humiliation His judgment was taken away. And who shall describe His generation? because His life is taken away from the earth; because of the iniquities of My people was He led unto death." Now I remember that, on one occasion, at a disputation held with certain Jews, who were reckoned wise men, I quoted these prophecies; to which my Jewish opponent replied, that these predictions bore reference to the whole people, regarded as one individual, and as being in a state of dispersion and suffering, in order that many proselytes might be gained, on account of the dispersion of the Jews among numerous heathen nations."

This is very clear, Origen, debating Jews, is told by these Jews who are considered wise men, that Isaiah 53 is about Israel.

So not the messiah, but ISRAEL.

In the very beginning of Christianity.
 

Elia

Well-known member
Well, to me it is pretty plain that Isaiah 53 is NOT speaking about the nation of Israel, for these reasons:

1) Isaiah writes about his nation (Israel) holding the suffering servant "as of no account,"

So Israel holds Israel as of no account. What's the problem with that?

and "Jehovah himself has caused the error of US ALL to meet up with that one," and "because of the transgression of MY PEOPLE he had the stroke." How could Isaiah be referring to the nation of Israel---his people---when it is they who held the suffering servant as of no account, and it is they who transgressed and therefore had to find a reprieve in the suffering servant?

Since when, when A sins, does B gets punished for it??

It is very simple: When Israel sins, then Israel gets punished. That concept you see all over the Tanach.

The concept that when Israel sins God Himself has to be murdered by His creatures before He can forgive them, is NOWHERE to be found in the Tanach.

When the Jews sin, the Jews gets punished, and through the punishment the sin is erased.

2) Isaiah writes that this suffering servant "had done no violence, and there was nodeception in his mouth." (verse 9) Such was not the case with the nation of Israel. Sad to say, they had a history of violence and deception. It's not pleasant to relay this information, but it stands as truth, because it is recorded in the very Tanakh of the Hebrew scholars.

It doesn't speak about the whole history of the Jews, but about a timeperiod in which they didn't do violence or deceit.
But they did do idolatry, and for that they got punished.

"The remnant of Israel shall do no unrighteousness
And speak no lies,
Nor shall a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth;"
Zephaniah 3:13

So, as I see it, the nation itself cannot be the one that Isaiah 53 speaks about. It says that this one that comes to take on himself their errors is someone other than the nation itself. He "will bring a righteous standing to many people," and "he will carry the very sin of many people." (vs.11,12) How could the nation of Israel do that? It itself was in need of help. How could it help Isaiah's people when it WAS Isaiah's people? How could the nation sacrifice itself for itself, when it was steeped in violence and deceit?

How could it not? When somebody sins, that person gets punished. Sometimes with death. In that case he makes himself an offering for (his own) sin.

Isaiah uses poetic language. In one sentence he addresses Israel directly as "they" or "we", and also through the metaphor "the servant".

That may give the impression that he is speaking about different subjects, but that is not the case.
He is just no so very exact with pronouns, as we can see in for instance Isaiah 42.

Nobody in his right mind will deny that Isaiah 42 speaks about Israel, and that the servant there is Israel, because that is plainly mentioned several times in the text.

However, Isaiah addresses that servant with different pronouns, even in the same sentence:

"Who gave Jacob for a spoil, and Israel to the robbers? Did not the LORD, he against whom we have sinned? For they would not walk in his ways, neither were they obedient unto his law. Therefore He hath poured upon him the fury of his anger, and the strength of battle: and it hath set him on fire round about, yet he knew not; and it burned him, yet he laid it not to heart."

We see here that Isaiah, clearly speaking about the Jewish people, jumps in this short piece of text from "we" to "they" to "he". Three different incompatible pronouns, both singular and plural, all for the Jewish people.

That doesn't mean we're dealing here with three different subjects, that's just the writing style of Isaiah, and the same goes for Isaiah 53.
 

Elia

Well-known member
I guess you haven't read the book of Daniel lately. It's quite clear. "Seventy weeks have been decreed for your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sin, to make atonement for iniquity to bring in everlasting righteousness..." (Dan.9:24) Hasn't it always been the command from God that the blood of sacrificed (executed) animals must be offered to bring an end to sin, though temporary? Daniel writes of the time when the blood offered will be permanent. For that to happen, the Messiah would have to be executed. It is further emphasized in verse 26:

"Then after the 62 weeks the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing..." To be "cut off" always means executed. But you already knew that, right?

Bs"d

I said it several times before, but I'll say it again: For Daniel 9 look here:

https://tinyurl.com/Daniel-9
 
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Elia

Well-known member
Since the chapter is speaking of a literal person, it can not possibly be about the nation; not even as a parable.

Bs"d

Here in Isaiah 1:5-6, it speaks about a literal person: "Why should you be stricken again?
You will revolt more and more.
The whole head is sick,
And the whole heart faints.
6
From the sole of the foot even to the head,
There is no soundness in it,
But wounds and bruises and putrefying sores;
They have not been closed or bound up,
Or soothed with ointment."

But read the context, and you see also that speaks about Israel.
 

CherubRam

New member
Bs"d

Here in Isaiah 1:5-6, it speaks about a literal person: "Why should you be stricken again?
You will revolt more and more.
The whole head is sick,
And the whole heart faints.
6
From the sole of the foot even to the head,
There is no soundness in it,
But wounds and bruises and putrefying sores;
They have not been closed or bound up,
Or soothed with ointment."

But read the context, and you see also that speaks about Israel.

That is because we are informed that it is a parable.

Isaiah 1:26
I will restore your leaders as in days of old,
your rulers as at the beginning.
Afterward you will be called
the City of Righteousness,
the Faithful City.”
 

Elia

Well-known member
Bs"d

"And Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him." Gen 5:24

Do you think that the above is a messianic prophecy?

Bs"d

And then only silence remained.

That's because that whole "300 messianic prophecies fulfilled by JC" is a big scam.

There are no 300 messianic prophecies. What some Christians do is ripping Tanach texts which have no bearing on the messiah what so ever out of context, and presenting them as "fulfilled messianic prophecies".

And that is of course lying and deceit.

I go deeper into that subject on this page: https://sites.google.com/view/324x0/home
 
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beameup

New member
Bs"d

And then only silence remained.

That's because that whole "300 messianic prophecies fulfilled by JC" is a big scam.

There are no 300 messianic prophecies. What some Christians do is ripping Tanach texts which have no bearing on the messiah what so ever out of context, and presenting them as "fulfilled messianic prophecies".

And that is of course lying and deceit.

"Lying and Deceit" is how you hide the fact that in the 1st century, there was a belief in TWO MESSIAHs: Messiah ben Joseph "the suffering messiah" and Messiah ben David "the kingly messiah".
Many Jews at the time recognized that the 2 "messiahs" were one and the same and started the Sect of the Nazarenes, having faith in Yeshua.

As well, you are purposely hiding the fact that there was no "consensus" on Isaiah 52:13-53:12 until the 11th century CE. Many "candidates" were suggested prior to the 11th century, including that the passage referred to Moses.
There seem to be only TWO things that are now in universal agreement amongst Jews: Yeshua was NOT messiah, and Isaiah's prophecy concerns Jews.
 
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