WHO IS SPEAKING?
In parts one and two of our video series on Isaiah 53, we established from the context and Hebrew that the Servant of God is the collective singular nation of Israel, who suffered from relentless persecution throughout exile.
In this video, we will demonstrate that upon witnessing the future redemption of Israel, the shocked leaders of the world will proclaim in Isaiah 53:1, “Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” We will also show that the nations will confess that they were responsible for Israel's suffering.
To identify who is speaking in Isaiah 53, we first have to clear up a major mistake about where the passage actually begins.
The text doesn't start at chapter 53 verse 1, but earlier at Isaiah 52:7. This confusion stems from the early 13th century, when Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, introduced modern chapter divisions into the Bible. Because these artificial breaks can distort both the flow and meaning of the text, Isaiah 53 stands as a prime example of a passage severed from its true starting point.
Ancient manuscripts support this. For example, in the Isaiah Dead Sea Scroll dating back to 125 BCE, original section spacing and scribal marks clearly group Isaiah 52:7–15 together with chapter 53 as a single, unbroken literary unit.
Anyone who starts reading from Isaiah 53:1 misses the vital context that came right before it, causing them to error and assume the Servant is speaking. Beginning where the passage actually starts in Isaiah 52:7 immediately clarifies who is really talking.
Specifically, Isaiah 52:9–10 establishes the context when it states that “The Lord has comforted His people, He has redeemed Jerusalem. The Lord has laid bare His holy arm in the sight of all nations.” In other words, when God finally redeems the Jewish people, the nations of the world will be the eyewitnesses.
The term “laid bare His holy arm” is significant because the “arm of the Lord” is a well-known biblical metaphor for God’s redemption of the Jewish people, mirroring Exodus 6:6 where God redeems Israel “with an outstretched arm.”
This glorious redemption explains why Israel, the Servant, is introduced in Isaiah 52:13 as “exalted.”
It also explains the total shock of the nations. For centuries, they assumed Israel was rejected and abandoned by God and deserving of God’s wrath. When God suddenly redeems Israel “in the sight of all nations,” the nations will not only be eyewitnesses to Israel's redemption, but they will also be so shocked by this unimaginable event that Isaiah 52:15 declares, “kings will shut their mouths” in utter disbelief.
We now see how Isaiah 53:1, “Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?” flows directly from chapter 52, revealing the true identity of the speakers. These are the collective voices of the stunned nations, and their opening words tie the two chapters together seamlessly.
When they cry out, “Who would believe our report?” they are echoing the sheer shock of Isaiah 52:15, where the sight of Israel’s redemption forced world leaders to “shut their mouths” in utter disbelief. And when they ask, “To whom was the arm of the LORD revealed?” they are pointing directly back to Isaiah 52:10, where God “laid bare His holy arm” before all nations to redeem His people. Their proclamation is an expression of their complete astonishment as God redeems the Jewish nation right before their eyes.
This explanation is substantiated by several passages in Tanakh.
In Micah 7:16, the prophet describes this exact same global shock upon Israel’s redemption with these words: “Nations will see and be ashamed, deprived of all their might. They will put their hands over their mouths, and their ears will become deaf.”
An additional parallel appears in Psalm 44:22, which describes Israel enduring centuries of exile as “sheep to be slaughtered,” a phrase echoed directly in Isaiah 53:7.
Because the nations viewed Israel as “sheep to be slaughtered,” they believed God had rejected Israel, leading to their admission in Isaiah 53:3–4: “He was despised, rejected… and we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.”
However, now that they are witnessing the redemption of Israel unfold before their eyes, the nations are confronted with a disturbing question. If Israel was not rejected by God as they had assumed, why did Israel suffer so severely?
Having witnessed events unfold differently than they expected, the nations will confess that Israel's suffering was the result of their disproportionate cruelty and persecution. As Isaiah 52:4 says, “the Assyrians oppressed them without cause.”
This explains why the nations confess in Isaiah 53:5 that Israel, the servant of God, “was wounded from their transgressions, bruised from their iniquities,” of excessive persecution.
This also explains the correct translation of Isaiah 53:8, where the nations once again confess, “for the transgression of my people they (lamo -לָמו) were stricken.”
The Hebrew word lamo is plural and should be translated as “they” or “them,” as in Psalm 99:7, “וְחֹק נָתַן לָמוֹ- and testimonies He gave to them.”
While this word is sometimes translated into English as the singular pronoun "he," this occurs only when it refers to a single collective group, such as an entire nation. We see this first in Genesis 9:27, where Noah uses a singular reference for his sons Shem and Canaan to describe their collective descendants who become nations.
So far, we have seen that Isaiah described the shocked reaction of the non-Jewish nations upon witnessing the unexpected redemption of the nation of Israel. Confronted by this revelation, they confess that Israel did not suffer because God rejected them; rather, Israel suffered from the nations' own excessive persecution.
In our next video, part 4, we will explain what Isaiah 53 means when it speaks of Israel “bearing the guilt,” “carrying the griefs,” and “bearing the iniquities” of the nations. We will also examine specific details in Isaiah 53 that Jesus did not fulfill, disqualifying him as the Servant.
Thank you for listening. Stay tuned for part 4.
Rabbi Bentzion Kravitz
You can view part 2 of this series at: https://jewsforjudaism.org/kno...
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