KJV Isaiah 53:4 “Yet we did esteem stricken of God.”

NASB Isaiah 53:4 “Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken…of God.” 

KJV Isaiah 53:7 “Yet He opened not His mouth.”

NASB Isaiah 53:7 “Yet He did not open His mouth.”

KJV Isaiah 53:10 “Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him.”

NASB Isaiah 53:10 “But the LORD was pleased to crush Him.”

“Yet” is a small word, a conjunction, that throws into stark relief what has gone before, with the statement that follows. It is meant to highlight a great contrast or change. Its usage in three passages in Isaiah 53 fulfills this purpose.

“Yet we did esteem stricken of God.”

In verse 4, it spotlights the mistake to which the nation will confess in a coming day. It was our griefs and sorrows that He bore. This is not referring to Calvary. As He moved amongst men, healing disease and confronting the effects of sin, He was a Man of Sorrows. The men of His day ascribed His sorrow to His own sin. They felt confirmed in their estimation of Him as a sinner. But all that will change when He returns. The converted remnant will recognize that He was bearing the grief and sorrow of their sin and departure. His sensitive soul grieved at the ravages sin had caused to the nation.

“Yet He opened not His mouth.”

In verse 7, His silence is in contrast to the oppression and affliction that He knew. Scribes and elders, soldiers and rulers all provoked Him sore. Pilate was amazed at the silent composure of the man before him (Mark 15:5). He had never witnessed its equal. The worst that men could say was said. Luke summarizes it by writing, “many other things blasphemously spake they against him” (Luke 23:65). We can only imagine the language that hardened soldiers would be capable of saying.

The selfless tongue of the perfect Servant of Isaiah 42, the skillful tongue of ch 49, the sympathetic tongue of ch 50, is now the silent tongue of the Servant in ch 53. No word of defence or words of self-vindication were uttered. “When He suffered, He threatened not but committed Himself to Him that judges righteously” (1 Peter 2:23).

He was led like a Lamb going to slaughter, but He did not open His mouth. Here was the only sacrifice ever brought to the altar possessing at the same time both full knowledge of all that lay ahead, and absolute commitment to it, yet His mouth is silent.

“Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him.”

He was characterized by a perfect life. “He did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth” (v 9). As the late brother Gustafson was wont to say, He did not resort to the abuse of the strong (violence), nor to the ruse of the weak (guile). His words and deeds were always pure and blameless, bringing infinite pleasure to His Master. But then verse 10 adds, “Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him.”

We must never fall into the error that God found pleasure in crushing His Servant-Son on the cross. The thought behind “pleased” is that it was God’s will and purpose. The Father must have grieved deeply over the treatment of His Son by wicked men. The holy God Who wielded the sword at Calvary must have at the same time found not only satisfaction for sin’s penalty, but delight in a Man Who loved the Lord His God with all His heart, mind, soul, and strength; and that would go to the depths of the cross to glorify Him. It did not “please God” to crush Him, but Calvary brought pleasure and glory to the heart of God.

Consider

Look at the three mentions of “soul” as well in the chapter.