These grammatical points were noted in the Isaiah 53:9 thread. So that's not the point of this thread. This thread was intended to show why the national suffering servant interpretation of Deutero-Isaiah is extremely problematic. And just this one verse can be seen to be the poster-child for the problematic nature of the national suffering servant interpretation, as can be seen by cross-referencing (so to say) the statement here (53:8) to its parallels in other places.
As translated in the KJV, Isaiah 53:8 implies that the suffering servant receives his greatest blow, or strike (causing death), for the sake of the sins of the nation of Israel; their transgressions are the cause of the death of a righteous man. He's judged for their transgressions; one of which, perhaps, is the transgressive nature of his very judgment?
But that's all old hatan. ---What's new to this study is the correction of the word found in 53:9 במתיו that's errantly translated "death" or "deaths." The word means "shrine." The nature of the strike received by the sufferer results in his becoming a shrine for the Holy Spirit; a "high place" where prayers, supplication, and the hope of salvation is directed.
As can be seen throughout Isaiah, he has a particular shrine in mind when he writes what he wrote at 53:9:
Then his people recalled the days of old, the days of Moses and his people.---Where is he who brought them through the sea, with the shepherd of his flock? Where is he who set his Holy Spirit among them, who sent his glorious arm of power to be at Moses' right hand . . ..
Isaiah 63:11-12.
What, who, specifically, is this "glorious arm of power" that's central to understanding the spirit of Deutero-Isaiah? What precisely is Isaiah referencing in a manner dictating that any reasonable exegete must center this image as the gravity around which the rest of Isaiah’s prophesy revolves?
Nehushtan. A hand-held shrine constructed from Moses' serpent rod.
And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
John 3:14-15.
The Apostle John, justifying the premise of this study, claims that the shrine, in Isaiah 53:9, constructed and consecrated when the suffering servant comes under the judgement of Israel, will, get this, be lifted up as a hand-held shrine just like the one Moses lifted in the desert. . . It's the latter part of John's statement that's most remarkable. He claims that whosoever looks at the shrine and believes, will be saved.
The Talmud, as read by Rabbi Ellie Munk, asks how a copper snake could control life and death (
Rosh Hashanah 29a). To quote Rabbi Munk, "
The answer given is that when the Israelites raised their eyes to Hashem they were healed. . . when the people looked at the serpent at the top of the pole and held the thought that Hashem alone could cause a wound or its healing, then the healing soon followed." -----The wording is interesting in that Rabbi Munk, speaking for the Talmud, seems to echo John 3:14-15. -----The Israelites were raising their eyes to Hashem when they peered at the hand-held shrine. The Talmud is suggesting the serpent on the pole was designed to get the Israelites to cast their gaze toward Hashem. They’re healed by gazing up at Hashem.
In 2 Kings 18:4 we're told the Israelites gave the salvific-branch-shrine a personal name, “Nehushtan.” They used the shrine pretty much as Christian's use the crucifix. As a salvific-emblem where prayers, supplications, and the hopes for salvation are directed toward God.
In a bizarre echo from the Gospels, after explaining that the Israelites were worshiping at the salvific-shrine, Nehushtan, the very next statement (2 Kings 18:5) reads : "
He trusted in Hashem, the Hashem of Israel." . . . The Gospel documents that when they looked up at Jesus hanging on the cross the Israelites said: "
He trusted in Hashem; let him deliver him now, if he will have him: for he said, I am the Son of God" (Matthew 27:43).
Jewish exegetes will say that 2 Kings 18:5 is speaking of Hezekiah (Hezekiah trusted Hashem), who, Hezekiah, the passage claims crucified Nehustan because Jews were seeking it out as the means of salvation and contact with God. Hezekiah's attitude toward Nehushtan was like some latter-day priest's attitude toward Jesus of Nazareth.
But the passage claims the one who trusted in Hashem was, get this, the greatest king of Judah of all time. None were greater before him, and none will be after him. ----This is speaking of Messiah (no other king is greater than David). -----And it's why Rashi, Redak, and many Jewish sages claim other messianic passages in Isaiah are speaking of Hezekiah, rather than Messiah. They transpose the statement speaking of Nehushtan, the salvific-shrine, which we now know to be the messianic-salvific-shrine of Isaiah 53:9, with Hezekiah, who actually destroyed the messianic-salvific-shrine, in a manner that received, and still receives, lauds and applauds, from Pharisaical Jews and their modern Jewish religion.
The prophet Isaiah literally witnessed the crucifixion of Nehustan. He saw the destruction of Nehustan.
Some of the best exegetes and historians of the
Tanakh have remarked on the supernatural abilities of Isaiah to seemingly presage the spirit of the Gospels so many years before its direct manifestation. The pathos of this almost Delphic ability to channel the future, an ability verging on the pathological, is the fact that Isaiah is the only prophet allowed to witness the crucifixion of Nehushtan at the hands of the sacrilegious and religion fevered rulers over Israel.
Since Nehushtan was a visible manifestation of the invisible God, the destruction of Nehushtan was the crucifixion of the visible manifestation of the invisible God.
Ironically, the same cast of characters found in the Gospel account of the crucifixion of the visible manifestation of the invisible God, the sanctimonious and sacrilegious rulers of Israel, destroy Nehushtan, the ancient crucifix, precisely as their latter day offspring mimic them at the crucifixion of the living manifestation of Nehushtan. -----Isaiah is the only writer in the
Tanakh to witness the crucifixion of the visible manifestation of God, the portable theophany in Moses’ hand. Isaiah was privileged not only to witness this preemptive strike against the Branch, but also to provide an eye-witness account --- an oracular prophesy--- of an event that wouldn’t occur for many hundreds of years.
Deutero-Isaiah is drenched in the blood of Nehushtan such that only through a conspiracy concocted by the same people who destroyed Nehushtan could any person possibly ignore the fact that Isaiah saw, in the destruction of Nehushtan, which he personally witnessed, the death of the One Nehushtan only symbolized, the One spoken of in Isaiah 53, who is given the same blow Hezekiah gave Nehushtan, in order to become the universal emblem that is the messianic-salvific-shrine, par פאר excellent תפארת.
John
