The Servant’s Carrying of Sin (53:4–6)

If there were any question about why the Servant suffers, these verses answer the question once and for all. Despite what “we” thought, he is not suffering because God has inflicted deserved punishment on him (53:4). It is our suffering that he bore, and it is for “our transgressions” and “our iniquities” that he suffered (53:5). The repetition of first-person plural pronouns hammers home that the Servant has suffered in “our” place.

There has been endless debate about who the first readers understood the “we” to refer to. It seems plain to me that the obvious referents are the prophet and the people he is addressing. This makes it utterly clear that the people, while remaining the servants of God to bear witness to his saving power, are not the Servant of the Lord who will bring justice and deliverance to the earth (as some claim). Verse 6 drives this point home with imagery. “We,” the blind, rebellious people of God (cf. 42:18–25), are the sheep who have gone astray, but he is the one who gets beaten for our willfulness!