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Isaiah 53

The fourth Servant Song reads as the testimony of a "we" who once misread the servant entirely. They saw a man with no beauty to desire, despised and acquainted with disease, and assumed he was struck by God for his own sake — until they grasped that the wounds were for them: "by his wounds we are healed" (v5). The pivot is in verse 6: all of us, like sheep, had each gone his own way, and the LORD laid that scattered guilt on one. Watch the courtroom and slaughterhouse images stack up — oppression, judgment, a lamb silent before its shearers — alongside the grave shared with the wicked and a rich man.

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1
Who has believed our message? To whom has the LORD’s arm been revealed?
2
For he grew up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground. He has no good looks or majesty. When we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.
3
He was despised and rejected by men, a man of suffering and acquainted with disease. He was despised as one from whom men hide their face; and we didn’t respect him.
4
Surely he has borne our sickness and carried our suffering; yet we considered him plagued, struck by God, and afflicted.
5
But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought our peace was on him; and by his wounds we are healed.
6
All we like sheep have gone astray. Everyone has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
7
He was oppressed, yet when he was afflicted he didn’t open his mouth. As a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and as a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he didn’t open his mouth.
8
He was taken away by oppression and judgment. As for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living and stricken for the disobedience of my people?
9
They made his grave with the wicked, and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.
10
Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him. He has caused him to suffer. When you make his soul an offering for sin, he will see his offspring. He will prolong his days and the LORD’s pleasure will prosper in his hand.
11
After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light and be satisfied. My righteous servant will justify many by the knowledge of himself; and he will bear their iniquities.
12
Therefore I will give him a portion with the great. He will divide the plunder with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was counted with the transgressors; yet he bore the sins of many and made intercession for the transgressors.

Buried with the wicked, raised to see offspring

Verses 9-12 refuse to end at the grave. The servant is assigned a tomb "with the wicked, and with a rich man in his death," though he had done no violence — yet after his soul is made an offering for sin, the text says "he will see his offspring" and "prolong his days."

The final verse hands him a reward among the great and a share of plunder with the strong, the spoils of a victor. The reason given is not conquest but that he "poured out his soul to death" and "made intercession for the transgressors" — the same ones the song's narrators turned out to be.