Isaiah 53:6

Thus does the whole body of the restored Israel confess with penitence, that it has so long mistaken Him whom Jehovah, as is now distinctly affirmed, had made a curse for their good, when they had gone astray to their own ruin. "All we like sheep went astray; we had turned every one to his own way; and Jehovah caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him." It is the state of exile, upon which the penitent Israel is here looking back; but exile as being, in the prophet's view, the final state of punishment before the final deliverance. Israel in its exile resembled a scattered flock without a shepherd; it had lost the way of Jehovah (Isa 63:17), and every one had turned to his own way, in utter selfishness and estrangement from God (Isa 56:11). But whereas Israel thus heaped up guilt upon guilt, the Servant of Jehovah was He upon whom Jehovah Himself caused the punishment of their guilt to fall, that He might make atonement for it through His own suffering. Many of the more modern expositors endeavour to set aside the paena vicaria here, by giving to הפגּיע a meaning which it never has. Thus Stier renders it, "Jehovah caused the iniquity of all to strike or break upon Him." Others, again, give a meaning to the statement which is directly at variance with the words themselves. Thus Hahn renders it: Jehovah took the guilt of the whole into His service, causing Him to die a violent death through their crime. Hofmann very properly rejects both explanations, and holds fast to the fact that בּ הפגּיע, regarded as a causative of בּ פּגע, signifies "to cause anything to strike or fall upon a person," which is the rendering adopted by Symmachus: κύριος καταντήσαι ἐποίησεν εἰς αὐτὸν τὴν ἀνομίαν πάντων ἡμῶν. "Just as the blood of a murdered man comes upon the murderer,…

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.

53:6 strayed away . . . left God’s paths: These are metaphors for sin (see also Rom 3:10-18).