Text

,‫וְּ הּוא ְּמחֹ לָׁל ִמפְּ שָׁ עֵנּו‬

;‫ְּמ ֻדכָׁא מֵ עֲוֹ נֹ תֵ ינּו‬
,‫מּוסַ ר ְּשלֹומֵ נּו ָׁעלָׁיו‬
‫לָׁנּו‬-‫ּובַ ֲחב ָֻׁרתֹו נִ ְּרפָׁא‬

But he was wounded by our wrongdoing,

crushed by our wicked behaviors;
his chastisement was our peace,
and by his bruise we were healed.
(KJV: But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the
chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.)

(Translation from the Greek: But he was wounded because of our acts of lawlessness and has
been weakened because of our sins; upon him was the discipline of our peace; by his bruise we
were healed.)

Style
GENERAL

As I have state elsewhere, the book of Isaiah, as confirmed by the Dead Sea Scroll version, was
originally devoid of chapter and verse numbers or indicators. Any spacing was at the whim of
the scribe, and each portion is composed of idea-segments rather than verses and chapters.

The Masorites who decided to organize the text into chapters and verses did so in a way that they
felt made sense, and those are the numbers that I am using to refer to specific portions of the text.

Chapter 53 of Isaiah is a song.

This is important to remember because, like many songs, it not only has words with the same
sounds, vivid imagery, and parallelisms, it also has a cadence. And it is the combination of these
attributes which directed the song-writer to select some words and avoid others.
So let's look at the composition of verse 5.

CADENCE

Like the other verses that make up the body of this song, this verse is composed of 4 segments.

If you look at segment 3, the word "was" is italicized. This is because that segment is devoid of
any tense, and perfect (past) tense is assumed because the other 3 segments are in the perfect
tense and it makes sense.

But why didn't the author add something to indicate a tense?

The problem is that in doing so, it would have ruined the cadence.

In the Masoretic version, the 4 segments have 9, 8, 8, and 9 syllables.

But it gets better with the Dead Sea Scroll version!

The Dead Sea Scroll added the letter vav ("‫ )"ו‬to prefix segments 2 and 3. This would have
changed the cadence from 9, 9, 8, 10 to 9, 10, 9, 10 – which is more symmetrical.

There are a number of these types of modifications within the DSS, and I have yet to see anyone
suggest that the reason for some of these differences is for the maintenance of the cadence.

So did the DSS scribe make his own adjustments, or were these differences part of the original
text and removed by the Masorites? It is difficult to say, and either view is acceptable.

9 V'hu m'kholeil mip'sha'einu ‫וְּ הּוא ְּמחֹ לָׁל ִמפְּ שָׁ עֵנּו‬
9 [or 10] [v']m'duka m'avon'oteinu ‫ְּמ ֻדכָׁא מֵ עֲוֹ נֹ תֵ ינּו‬
8 [or 9] [v']musar shelomeinu alav ‫מּוסַ ר ְּשלֹומֵ נּו ָׁעלָׁיו‬
10 Uvakhavurato nirpah lanu ‫לָׁנּו‬-‫ּובַ ֲחב ָֻׁרתֹו נִ ְּרפָׁא‬

RYHMING

Looking at the previous chart, we can see several rhyming patterns.

1) The "nu" sound at or near the end of each of the 4 segments.

2) A similarity of sound with m'avon'oteinu and shelomeinu (the second word for segments
2 and 3).
3) Also in segments 2 and 3, they begin with an "M" (‫ )מ‬and have an "ooh-ah" sound for
m'duka and musar.
4) There's a similar sounding and beat for the last words of segment 1 and 4, as in
mip'sha'einu and nirpah lanu.
PARALLELISMS

There are patterns as well as common expressions within the text. I'll show the English text to
make it easier to see.

But he was wounded by our wrongdoing,

crushed by our wicked behaviors;
his chastisement was our peace,
and by his bruise we were healed.

1) Each segment begins with an offense against the subject (wound, crush, chastise, bruise).
2) Each segment ends with the acts of the group narrators ("our" and "we").
3) Segment 1 and 2 end with how the group were not innocents.
4) Segment 3 and 4 and with how the group benefitted.
5) All acts against the subject are in a non-plural form ("chastisement", "bruise", "wound",
crushed"). The DSS version uses "bruises" and "wrongdoings" (the cadence remained
unchanged).
6) Segments 3 and 4 are both "he was made uncomfortable, we were made comfortable".
7) Two different, but similar meaning words for evil behavior are used in segments 1 and 2.

ODDITIES

As I wrote earlier, chapter 53 of Isaiah is a song. And as we all know, words in songs are often
chosen, not for significance, but for how they sound.

For example, the word wounded is not universally accepted as the meaning for ‫מחלל‬. If you read
some of the classical commentaries, there are different views as to what this word could mean.
It's not a word that appears anywhere else in Scripture.

The word our wrongdoing is only found in one other place in Scripture (Lamentations 3:42). our
wicked behaviors is used far more often.

The act of being crushed only appears in one other place, and that too in Isaiah (19:10), which is
an expression of physical crushing, as in crushing the foundations of a place. It's an odd word to
use for a human.

As I will explain in detail under "Meanings", the use of mussar (chastisement) is always used in
Biblical Hebrew as a term demanding negative reinforcement to correct one's evil behavior. For
those who ideologically view the victim in this verse as an innocent, that poses a problem.

The lack of a verb form to indicate a tense in segment 3, forcing some to insert "was" to have it
flow better. I've never seen "His chastisement, our peace" as a translation.

The Hebrew word for bruise, as used in this verse, is only used 4 times in Scripture (Ex. 21:25,
Is. 1:6, 53:5, and Prov. 20:30). It's another uncommon Hebrew word used (there are other
Hebrew words that are translated as "bruise").
So as we see, we have a song that has chosen words that have similar sounds and cadence, even
if those words are rarely, if ever, used elsewhere in Scripture. It is for this reason that many
people find the Book of Isaiah to be difficult Hebrew, and usually they do not consider that the
difficulties are only because it's a song.

INTERPRETATIONS

Much of this verse, this segment of a longer song, is not taken literally, even by the most
committed presuppositionalist.

Was the person literally crushed as the Hebrew word normally indicates? Did his evil ways need
to be corrected through chastisement, as the word mussar always indicates? Did he have but a
single bruise? How does having a bruise heal the group that made it?

As with most of this song, everyone who reads it reinterprets all of these words, giving them
alternate meanings in order to create a narrative that they find acceptable to his or her ideological
views.

But if you can read this song, or even sing it without such preconceived views, you might be able
to enjoy this song even more.

Meanings
But he was –

In the previous verse, it ended with “…we accounted him as infected, beaten, abused by
Elohim.” The focus was on being abused by Elohim. And this verse tells us something else
entirely different, and so the prefix vav ("‫ )"ו‬which is often "and", as well as "or", "but", or is
ignored altogether, I chose to assign the word "but" to this segment connector to establish that
what was said before is about to be reversed.

The word “he” is referring to the subject of our verse, the abused victim.

Finally, “was” is not in this word, but is being used to continue the tense from the prior verse and
support the passive verb forms in this verse.

All of Strong’s #H1931 recommendations (“he”) are acceptable.

wounded – The Hebrew word ‫ מחלל‬is a problem because there is no agreement as to what it
means, which is true of a lot of words in Scripture. This is why I chose to display it in italics.
So why did I choose to use the word "wounded"?

In this instance, I went with the term used in the Greek version only because any word that I
came up would not be more valid. So here, I am using a traditional value only because there is no
known intended meaning by the author.

Strong’s #H2490 recommendations show the variety of interpretations of this word, and they are
all guesswork. Some are based on using other roots and similar sounding words which may or
may not be valid.

by our wrongdoing – As for "wrongdoing", a pesha (“‫ )”פשע‬can be a sin of a rebellious

nature when it is referring to the act of one who defiantly and intentionally chose to do
something that God forbade. It can also mean an act that one did not do that God demanded. I
was tempted to emphasize the "our" in this phrase because of that, but chose to avoid doing so.

Pesha need not be connected to a commandment by God, but can also be an expression of
lawlessness, villainy and criminality, a transgression against another person or people, which is
what is happening in this verse.

Because “transgression” carries with it a lot of theological baggage concerning “sin”, I decided
to use something that echoes the intent of the text, where the group has admitted that it harmed
and acted badly against a person or a people. I chose “wrongdoing” which is similar to the word
for “lawlessness” that is used in the Greek text. If you prefer a different word that has a similar
meaning, then by all means, use that one.

It should be noted that pesha is singular, (although, the DSS version does pluralize it). In the MT
version, the noun is not plural, although many translations use “transgressions” as if it were. I
kept to the singular for to reflect the MT spelling.

Keep in mind that the prefix “‫ ”מ‬means “from”, “by”, “because of” and other terms that indicate
that what is connected to the prefix is the cause. This prefix indicates that these acts of
lawlessness caused the wounds (or whatever damage ‫ מחלל‬might have originally inferred). Many
translations use “for” rather than “by”, which causes problems for those who rely on English
translations.

Strong’s #H4480 recommendations (“from”) and #H6588 (“wrongdoing”) are acceptable.

crushed – The Hebrew word ‫ דכא‬can be emotional, as in Isaiah 57:15 (“contrite and humble”)
or Psalm 90:3 (“a contrite man turns”), as well as physical, as in Psalm 143:3 (“he has crushed
my life”) and Psalm 72:4 (“may he crush the oppressor”)
Both ideas, of being defeated by a foe or being emotionally crushed, work equally well in this
verse. The Greek text uses “weakened” here, which can also refer to a physical or emotional
state, but is less intense than "crushed". “Shattered” is also a good choice.

Most of Strong’s #H1792 recommendations for “crushed” are only focusing on the physical
aspect. The Brown-Driver-Briggs’ recommendations are much better.

by our wicked behaviors; – The verb form is plural and is attached to the plural narrators
(“our”) as the cause due to the “‫ ”מ‬prefix, which, like “by our wrongdoing” above, is being
represented by using “by”. Unlike "wrongdoing", this verb is in the plural form.

The Hebrew word for "wicked behavior" and is pronounced “avon” is often translated as
“iniquity”, is an archaic form of acting in a wicked manner. It can also mean a form of sin when
man transgresses a commandment from God.

Because this verse is about a group of people inflicting abuse upon the human subject, I am using
“our wicked behavior” which is causal, as indicated by the "‫ "מ‬prefix. It is speaking of an action
of a group of men against another.

In the Masoretic Text, a pause occurs at this point, so I inserted a semi-colon to reflect that
tradition.

Strong’s #H4480 recommendations (“from”) and #H6588 (“iniquity”) are acceptable.

chastisment – This begins a pair of parallelisms which loosely translates as "His discomfort
was our comfort, and his injury was our healing." For the author to keep the desired cadence,
some shortcuts in expressing this were taken, making a literal translation clumsy ("The
chastising of our peace was upon him", for example).

So let's first take a look at this expression of discomfort, the Hebrew word mussar (‫ )מוסר‬has a
number of different meanings, and the Biblical usage, which is different from the modern usage
of "ethics". In modern usage, it can mean that someone is learning how one is expected to behave
within society. It is the act of improving one’s ethical and moral behavior. This can be initiated
by the person wanting to improve himself, or by an outsider, a teacher, who wants to give some
mussar to the pupil under his charge.

But the Biblical usage is different.

First, let's look at the root.

Mussar contains the root "‫ "מסר‬which means to deliver to another, and the other to whom it is
being delivered may or may not desire to receive it.
Here are few examples of how this word is used elsewhere in Scripture.

When a zealous teacher hits a student who is disrupting the class, we can call that mussar. It is
negative reinforcement applied to change a behavior. We see a similar use of that in Jeremiah
30:14, which speaks of God giving cruel mussar because of the severity of the sins. We see it
again in Proverbs 13:24 where it speaks of chastising with a switch to hit one's son daily in order
to give him mussar. So mussar can be used to refine a person or break a person.

And in this verse, we have already read about the acts against the subject, ("wounded”,
“crushed” and “bruised”), acts of violence that were brought to bear against him to force him to
submit to their will. Remember, mussar is done to correct unacceptable behavior and to for the
recipient to submit to the will of the one(s) giving it. Using "mussar" as an expression of
inflicting pain is to declare that the recipient deserved it.

For the group to call their actions "mussar", is to minimize their view about what they did, which
is why I selected "chastising". Other terms, such as "disciplining" and "punishing" are also
acceptable variations.

Strong’s #H4148 recommendations are acceptable.

our peace – The Hebrew word shalom (‫ )שלום‬can mean “peace”, “welfare”, “happiness”,
“contentment”, and other terms that express an experience of being without conflict, of being at
ease, which seems, at first glance, to be at odds with the first half of this verse.
"The mussar of our teacher's love for us" indicates that "teacher" is the one inflicting the mussar,
and is doing so out of the commitment to love. In this case, the group ("our") is inflicting the
mussar and is doing so out of a commitment to the welfare of the group. Without the mussar, as
far as the group was concerned, there could be no contentment or peace among them.

It is an expression of justifying acts of cruelty.

Also, "was" has been inserted as a sort of prefix by me to make it flow better even though there
is no verb tense in this segment.

Strong’s #H7965 recommendations are acceptable.

his – If you haven't noticed, this word is in a different order than the Hebrew, and it requires
some explanation.

The most common uses of “‫ ”עליו‬typically include “unto him” (Isaiah 42:25), “concerning him”
(Isaiah 37:22), “over him”, (Isaiah 19:16), “upon him” (Isaiah 36:6), “against him” (Isaiah
31:4), “because of him” (Isaiah 52:15), and simply "him" (Isaiah 36:6).
It is this last usage that I want to address, because that is the form that I am using here.

In Modern Hebrew, when I want to tell you to call someone on the phone, I will say "‫"תתקשר עליו‬
or “call him”. The prefixing ‫ על‬is but a placeholder for the pronoun rather than being translated
as “call unto him”. We also see this in Psalm 50:16, where it means “mine” and not “upon me”,
or in Isaiah 36:6 as in “…to all who trust him”. It is not, “…to all who trust upon him.”

I already explained that mussar means to initiate corporal punishment against the subject of this
verse, one could reasonable interpret “‫ ”עליו‬as “against him” or “concerning him”, or even
simply saying that it was “his” mussar. All of these interpretations work equally well.

Expressions such as the mussar was “upon him”, “unto him” are not suitable for the idea of
someone being the victim of abuse by a group, which is why I avoided using them.

Translating with a dictionary and using “the best” meaning is one of two of the biggest problems
with many of the translations.

The other big problem is trying to keep the English translation in the same order as the Hebrew
verse.

In Hebrew, the action and the subject need not be contiguous in the verse. For example, if I were
to translate Isaiah 26:21 and lay out the English meanings exactly as we find in the text, it would
literally read:

“…to visit iniquity, dweller of the land, unto-him.”

Instead of:

“…to visit iniquity unto-him, the dweller of the land.”

In this case “him” is redundant and refers to the dweller, so in English we would simply drop the
“him”, and making it sound better I would render it as:

“…to visit iniquity upon the residents of the land.”

In a similar fashion, if we literally translated our segment of Isaiah 53:5 in the order of the
words, it could read any of the following ways:

“mussar, our peace, his”

“mussar, our peace, against him”
“mussar, our peace, concerning him”

But if we properly render it in acceptable English we would get:

 “his mussar is our peace”
“[our] mussar against him is our peace”
“Concerning his mussar, it’s our peace”

And because of the tense of the verse, we would force a “[was]” to replace the default “is”.

That is why I chose “his chastisement [was] our peace” in my translation.

I will expand further why this is the recommended view in my commentary below.

Strong’s #H5921 recommendations are not that great.

and by his bruise – The Masoretic text has this in the singular form, and to reflect that, I am
also using "bruise" in the singular form. It is worth noting that the DSS inserted a letter,
changing ‫ בחבורתו‬to ‫בחבורתיו‬, to render this into the plural form.

A bruise is a mild form of harm, as compared to a "wound", and this could be one reason for its
use. It isn't clear of this bruise is literal or metaphorical.

Most of Strong’s #H2250 recommendations are very good, except for its inclusion of “stripes”,
which is clearly and ideological force.

we were healed – This Hebrew pair of words literally means “it had been a healing to us"
which is in the passive verb form. That sounds rather clumsy in English and required a bit of a
rewrite to sound better in English.

Doing so also resulted in my changing the passive ("it had been") to a perfect verb form
("were"). I also changed the object of the healing which is "to us" to "we", which doesn't change
the object of the healing, and used "healed" in the past tense to reflect the perfect tense of the
original verb.

Some translations have "we were healed", which is fine. I simply preferred having a slight
variation to reflect the usage within the Masoretic Text.

Strong’s #H7495 recommendations are fine.