Isaiah 53:11

This great work of salvation lies as the great object of His calling in the hand of the deceased and yet eternally living One, and goes on victoriously through His mediation. He now reaps the fruit of His self-sacrifice in a continuous priestly course. "Because of the travail of His soul, He will see, and be refreshed; through His knowledge will He procure justice, my righteous servant, for the many, and will take their iniquities upon Himself." The prophecy now leaves the standpoint of Israel's retrospective acknowledgment of the long rejected Servant of God, and becomes once more the prophetic organ of God Himself, who acknowledges the servant as His own. The min of מעמל might be used here in its primary local signification, "far away from the trouble" (as in Job 21:9, for example); or the temporal meaning which is derived from the local would be also admissible, viz., "from the time of the trouble," i.e., immediately after it (as in Psa 73:20); but the causal sense is the most natural, viz., on account of, in consequence of (as in Exo 2:23), which not only separates locally and links together temporarily, but brings into intimate connection. The meaning therefore is, "In consequence of the trouble of His soul (i.e., trouble experienced not only in His body, but into the inmost recesses of His soul), He will see, satisfy Himself." Hitzig supplies בּטּוב (Jer 29:32); Knobel connects בדעתּו, in opposition to the accents (like A. S. Th. ἐμπλησθήσεται ἐν τῇ γνώσει αὐτοῦ), thus: "He looks at His prudent work, and has full satisfaction therewith." But there is nothing to supply, and no necessity to alter the existing punctuation. The second verb receives its colouring from the first; the expression "He will see, will satisfy Himself," being equivalent to "He will en…

The two great things which the Spirit of Christ in the Old Testament prophets testified beforehand were the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow, Pe1 1:11. And that which Christ himself, when he expounded Moses and all the prophets, showed to be the drift and scope of them all was that Christ ought to suffer and then to enter into his glory, Luk 24:26, Luk 24:27. But nowhere in all the Old Testament are these two so plainly and fully prophesied of as here in this chapter, out of which divers passages are quoted with application to Christ in the New Testament. This chapter is so replenished with the unsearchable riches of Christ that it may be called rather the gospel of the evangelist Isaiah than the prophecy of the prophet Isaiah. We may observe here, I. The reproach of Christ's sufferings - the meanness of his appearance, the greatness of his grief, and the prejudices which many conceived in consequences against his doctrine (Isa 53:1-3). II. The rolling away of this reproach, and the stamping of immortal honour upon his sufferings, notwithstanding the disgrace and ignominy of them, by four considerations: - 1. That therein he did his Father's will (Isa 53:4, Isa 53:6, Isa 53:10). 2. That thereby he made atonement for the sin of man (Isa 53:4-6, Isa 53:8, Isa 53:11, Isa 53:12), for it was not for any sin of his own that he suffered (Isa 53:9). 3. That he bore his sufferings with an invincible and exemplary patience (Isa 53:7). 4. That he should prosper in his undertaking, and his sufferings should end in his immortal honour (Isa 53:10-12). By mixing faith with the prophecy of this chapter we may improve our acquaintance with Jesus Christ and him crucified, with Jesus Christ and him glorified, dying for our sins and rising again for our justification.

53:11 his experience (literally his knowledge): This clearly does not refer to intellectual knowledge but to all that the servant would experience in his obedience, suffering, and intimate relationship with God. • The servant’s righteous obedience enables people to be put right with God (see Gen 15:6; Rom 5:18-19), for he will bear all their sins.