What Does Isaiah 53:10 Mean?
Yet the LORD delighted to crush him, and to sicken him. When you make his living soul a guilt offering, he shall see his seed, and lengthen his days, and the delight of the LORD shall break through in his hand.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.THE KEY
One Hebrew word for desire frames the crushing and its aftermath, holding the servant’s suffering and the LORD’s success within the same purpose.
THE MEANING
You meet an unsoftened claim: the LORD takes pleasure in crushing the servant and causing him grief, and the servant’s living soul is made a guilt offering. Yet the offering is followed by seed, prolonged days, and the LORD’s desire succeeding through his hand. Violence and continuation stand together in the verse.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that a life made an offering must disappear without fruit is undone here: the same servant sees seed, has his days prolonged, and carries the LORD’s desire into success.
THE ROOT
חָפֵץ
chafets
GROWS FROM
חפץ
To desire or take pleasure in.
“delighted” in this verse is chafets. The words translated “pleased” and “pleasure” belong to the same Hebrew root, appearing near the opening and close of the verse. That repeated desire word holds the crushing and the purpose that succeeds through it together.
ALSO GROWS
chafets: Desire, take pleasure in.
חָפֵץ
This verb gives the verse’s opening claim its force: the LORD’s desire is bound to the crushing named here.
chefets: Desire, delight, what is desired.
חֵפֶץ
This noun appears in the closing phrase, where the LORD’s desire succeeds through the servant’s hand.
אָשָׁם
asham
GROWS FROM
אשם
Guilt or liability; the guilt offering that answers for it.
“guilt offering” in this verse is asham. The word behind “offering for sin” is asham, which carries both guilt and the offering associated with it. The verse places the servant’s living soul in that relation to guilt, making the offering more concrete than an abstract idea of sin.
ALSO GROWS
asham: Guilt, liability; guilt offering.
אָשָׁם
This is the word used for the offering in the verse, connecting the servant’s offering with guilt and its answer.
ashem: Guilty, liable.
אָשֵׁם
This related form names the condition the asham offering addresses.
נֶפֶשׁ
nefesh
GROWS FROM
נפש
Living soul.
Nefesh means “living soul,” so the offering is the servant himself as a living person, not an isolated spiritual part. The word makes the cost of the offering personal and whole.
ALSO GROWS
nefesh: Living soul.
נֶפֶשׁ
This is the word used for the servant’s soul, placing his whole living self in the offering.
nephashot: Living souls, plural.
נְפָשׁוֹת
The plural form keeps the word’s focus on living souls as whole persons, deepening the force of what is offered here.
THE PATTERN
The offering of a life can issue in seed and enduring purpose rather than ending in disappearance.
A seed serves him; it is recounted to the Lord for the generation.Truly, truly, I say to you. Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit.Mindless one, what you sow is not made alive unless it dies.THE THREAD
So shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth. It shall not return to me empty, but shall do what I delight in, and shall break through in the thing to which I sent it.The words for the LORD’s “pleasure” and what “shall prosper” in Isaiah 53:10 recur together here: חפץ (chafets, desire or delight) and צלח (tsalach, succeed or prosper). Isaiah 55:11 shows that desire reaching its purpose through what the LORD sends forth.
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