From: Isaiah 52:13-53:12
Fourth Song of the Servant of the Lord
[1] Who has believed what we have heard?
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
[2] For he grew up before him like a young plant,
and like a root out of dry ground;
he had no form or comeliness that we should look at him,
and no beauty that we should desire him.
[3] He was despised and rejected by men;
a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;
and as one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
[4] Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.
[5] But he was wounded for our transgressions,
he was bruised for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that made us whole,
and with his stripes we are healed.
[6] All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned every one to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
[7] He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers is dumb,
so he opened not his mouth.
[8] By oppression and judgment he was taken away;
and as for his generation, who considered
that he was cut off out of the land of the living,
stricken for the transgression of my people?
[9] And they made his grave with the wicked
and with a rich man in his death,
although he had done no violence,
and there was no deceit in his mouth.
[10] Yet it was the will of the Lord to bruise him;
he has put him to grief;
when he makes himself an offering for sin,
he shall see his offspring, he shall prolong his days;
the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand;
[11] he shall see the fruit of the travail of his soul and be satisfied;
by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant,
make many to be accounted righteous;
and be shall bear their iniquities.
[12] Therefore I will divide him a portion with the great,
and he shall divide the spoil with the strong;
because he poured out his soul to death,
and was numbered with the transgressors;
yet he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.
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Commentary:
52:13-53:12. This fourth Song of the Servant is one of the most commented on
passages in the Bible, as regards both its literary structure and its content. From
the point of view of structure, it interrupts the hymn-style of chapter 52 (which is
taken up again in chapter 54); the style here is more reflective; the theme, the va-
lue of suffering. In terms of content, the song is unusual in that it shows the ser-
vant triumphing through his humiliation and suffering. Even more than that — he
makes the pains and sins of others his own, in order to heal them and set them
free. Prior to this, the idea of “vicarious expiation” was unknown in the Bible. The
passage is original even in its vocabulary: it contains forty words that are not to
be found elsewhere in the Bible.
The poem, which is very carefully composed, divides into three stanzas: the first
(52:13-15) is put on the Lord’s lips and it acts as a kind of overture to what follows
—taking in the themes of the triumph of the servant (v. 13), his humiliation and
suffering (v. 14), and the stunning effect that this has on his own people and on
strangers.
The second stanza (53:1-11a) celebrates the servant’s trials, and the good ef-
fects they produce. This is spoken in the first person plural, standing for the peo-
ple and the prophet: both feel solidarity with the servant of the Lord. This stanza
has four stages to it: first (53:1-3) it describes the servant’s noble origins (he grew
up before the Lord like a young plant: cf. v. 2) and the low esteem in which he is
held as a “man of sorrows”. Then we learn that all this suffering is atonement for
the sins of others (53:4-6). Traditionally, suffering was interpreted as being a pu-
nishment for sins, but here it is borne on behalf of others. This is the first lesson
to be learned by those who see him “stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted”,
and it marks the climax of the poem. Thirdly (53:7-9), the point is made, again
that he has freely accepted suffering and meekly, offers himself as a sacrifice of
atonement (he is like a lamb, like a sheep). His death is as ignominious as the
suffering that precedes it. Finally (vv. 10-11a) we are told how fruitful all this suf-
fering is: like the patriarchs of old (the text seems to imply) the servant will have
many offspring and a long life and be a man of great wisdom.
In the third stanza (53:11b-12) the Lord speaks again, finally acknowledging that
his servant’s sacrifice is truly efficacious: he will cause many to be accounted
“righteous”, that is, he will win their salvation (v. 11) and will share in the Lord’s
spoils (v. 12).
The fourth song of the servant of the Lord was from very early on interpreted as
having a current application. When the Jews of Alexandria made the Greek trans-
lation of the Old Testament (the Septuagint) around the second century BC, they
tinkered a little with the text to indicate that the servant in the poem stood for the
people of Israel in the diaspora. Those Jews, who encountered huge obstacles in
their effort to maintain their identity in that Hellenistic and polytheistic environ-
ment, found comfort in the hope that they would emerge enhanced, just like the
servant.
Jews of Palestine identified the victorious servant with the Messiah, but they re-
interpreted the sufferings described here to apply them to the pagan nations. The
Dead Sea Scrolls interpret this song in the light of the ignominy experienced by
the Teacher of Righteousness, the probable founder of the group that established
itself at Qumran.
Jesus revealed his redemptive mission to be that of the suffering servant prophe-
sied by Isaiah here. He referred to him on a number of occasions — in his reply
to the request made by the sons of Zebedee (”the Son of man came not to be
served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many”: Mt 20:28 and par.);
at the Last Supper, when he announced his ignominious death among transgres-
sors, quoting 53:12 (Lk 22:37); in some passages in the fourth Gospel (Jn 12:32,
37-38); etc. He also seems to refer to it in his conversation with the disciples of
Emmaus (Lk 24:25ff) to explain his passion and death. Therefore, the first Chris-
tians interpreted Jesus’ death and resurrection in terms of this poem; evidence
of this is the expression “in accordance with the scriptures” in 1 Corinthians 15:
3; the words “for our trespasses” (Rom 4:25; 1 Cor 15:3-5); the Christological
hymn in the Letter to the Philippians (Phil 2:6-11); and expressions used in the
First Letter of Peter (1 Pet 2:22-25) and in other New Testament passages (Mt
8:17; 27:29; Acts 8:26-40; Rom 10:16; etc.).
Patristic tradition reads the song as a prophecy that found fulfillment in Christ
(cf. St Clement of Rome, “Ad Corinthios”, 16:1-14; St Ignatius Martyr, “Epistula
ad Polycarpum”, 1, 3; the so-called “Letter of Barnabas”, 5, 2 and “Epistula ad
Diognetuin”, 9, 2; etc.). The Church uses it in the Good Friday liturgy.
52:14. “Beyond human semblance”: this phrase sums up the description given in
53:2-3 and shows the intense pain reflected in the servant’s face: the description
is so graphic that Christian ascetical writing, with good reason, reads it as antici-
pating the passion of our Lord: “The prophet, who has rightly been called ‘the Fifth
Evangelist’, presents in this Song an image of the sufferings of the Servant with a
realism as acute as if he were seeing them with his own eyes: the eyes of the bo-
dy and of the spirit. [...] The Song of the Suffering Servant contains a description
in which it is possible, in a certain sense, to identify the stages of Christ’s Pas-
sion in their various details: the arrest, the humiliation, the blows, the spitting,
the contempt for the prisoner, the unjust sentence, and then the scourging, the
crowning with thorns and the mocking, the carrying of the Cross, the crucifixion
and the agony” (Bl. John Paul II, “Salvifici Doloris”, 17; cf. idem, “Dives in Misere
cordia”, 7).
53:1. St Paul cites this verse to prove the need for preaching (Rom 10:16). The
verse also underlines the extraordinary degree of undeserved suffering endured
by the Servant. It is sometimes interpreted as a further sign of the humility of
Christ, who, being divine, took on the form of a servant: “Christ is a man of hum-
ble thought and feeling, unlike those who attack his flock. The heart of God’s ma-
jesty, the Lord Jesus Christ, did not come with loud cries of arrogance and pride;
he came in humility, as the Holy Spirit said of him: “Who has believed what we
have heard?” (St Clement of Rome, “Ad Corinthios”, 16, 1-3).
53:4-5. “He has borne our griefs [or pains]”: the servant’s sufferings are not due
to his own personal sins; they are atonement for the sins of others. “The suffe-
rings of our Savior are our cure” (Theodoret of Cyrus, “De Incarnatione Domini”,
28). He suffered on account of the sins of the entire people, even though he was
not guilty of them. By bearing the penalty for those sins, he expiated the guilt in-
volved. St Matthew, after recounting some miraculous cures and the casting out
of devils, sees the words of v. 4a fulfilled in Christ (Mt 8:17). He interprets Jesus
Christ as being the servant foretold by the prophet, who will cure the physical suf-
fering of people as a sign that he is curing the root cause of all types of evil, that
is, sin, iniquity (v. 5). The miracles worked by Jesus for the sick are therefore a
sign of Redemption: “Christ’s whole life is a mystery of ‘redemption’. Redemp-
tion comes to us above all through the blood of his cross (cf. Eph 1:7; Col 1:13-
14; 1 Pet 1:18-19), but this mystery is at work throughout Christ’s entire life”
(”Catechism of the Catholic Church”, 517).
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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.
Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.
From: Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:7-9
Our Confidence is Based on Christ’s Priesthood
Christ Has Been Made High Priest by God the Father
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Commentary:
14-16. The text now reverts to its main theme (cf. 2:17), that is, the priesthood
of Christ. It highlights the dignity of the new high priest, who has passed through
the heavens; and His mercy, too, for He sympathizes with our weaknesses. We
have, therefore, every reason to approach Him with confidence. “The believers
were at that time in a storm of temptation; that is why the Apostle is consoling
them, saying that our High Priest not only knows, as God, the weaknesses of
our nature: as man, He has also experienced the sufferings that affect us, al-
though He was free from sin. Since He knows our weaknesses so well, He can
give us the help we need, and when He comes to judge us, He will take that
weakness into account in His sentence” (”Interpretatio Ep. Ad Haebreos, ad loc.”).
We should respond to the Lord’s goodness by staying true to our profession of
faith. The confession or profession of faith referred to here is not simply an exter-
nal declaration: external confession is necessary but there must also be commit-
ment and a spirit of fidelity. A Christian needs to live up to all the demands of his
calling; he should be single-minded and free from doubts.
15. “If we should some time find ourselves sorely tempted by our enemies, it will
greatly help us to remember that we have on our side a high priest who is most
compassionate, for He chose to experience all kinds of temptation” (”St. Pius V
Catechism”, IV, 15, 14). In order to understand and help a sinner to get over his
falls and cope with temptation, one does not oneself need to have experience of
being tempted; in fact, only one who does not sin knows the full force of tempta-
tion, because the sinner gives in prior to resisting to the end. Christ never yielded
to temptation. He therefore experienced much more than we do (because we are
often defeated by temptation) the full rigor and violence of those temptations
which He chose to undergo as man at particular points in His life. Our Lord, then,
allowed Himself to be tempted, in order to set us an example and prevent us from
ever losing confidence in our ability to resist temptation with the help of grace (cf.
notes on Matthew 4:1-11 and paragraph).
“There is no man”, St. Jerome comments, “who can resist all tests except He
who, made in our likeness, has experienced everything but sin” (”Comm. In Ioan-
nam”, II, 46). Christ’s sinlessness, often affirmed in Sacred Scripture (Romans 8:
3; 2 Corinthians 5:21; John 8:46; 1 Peter 1:19; 2:21-24), follows logically from His
being God and from His human integrity and holiness. At the same time Christ’s
weakness, which He chose to experience out of love for us, is a kind of invitation
from God to pray for strength to resist sin. “Let us adore Christ who emptied Him-
self to assume the condition of a slave. He was tempted in every way that we are,
but did not sin. Let us turn in prayer to Him, saying, ‘You took on our human
weakness. Be the eyes of the blind, the strength of the weak, the friend of the
lonely’” (”Liturgy of the Hours”, Christmas Day, Evening Prayer I).
16. The “throne” is the symbol of Christ’s authority; He is King of the living and
the dead. But here it speaks of a “throne of grace”: through the salvation worked
by Christ, the compassionate Priest and Intercessor, God’s throne has become
a judgment seat from which mercy flows. Christ has initiated for mankind a time
of forgiveness and sanctification in which He does not yet manifest His position
as Sovereign Judge. Christ’s priesthood did not cease to operate with His death;
it continues in Heaven, where He forever pleads on our behalf, and therefore we
should have confident recourse to Him.
“What security should be ours in considering the mercy of the Lord! ‘He has but
to cry for redress, and I, the Ever-Merciful, will listen to him’ (Exodus 22:27). It is
an invitation, a promise that He will not fail to fulfill. ‘Let us then with confidence
draw near to the throne of grace, and we may receive mercy and find grace to
help in time of need’. The enemies of our sanctification will be rendered power-
less if the mercy of God goes before us. And if through our own fault and human
weakness we should fall, the Lord comes to our aid and raises us up” (St. J. Es-
criva, “Christ Is Passing By”, 7).
7-9. This brief summary of Christ’s life stresses his perfect obedience to the Fa-
ther’s will, his intense prayer and his sufferings and redemptive death. As in the
hymn to Christ in Philippians 2:6-11, the point is made that Christ set his power
aside and, despite his being the only-begotten Son of God, out of obedience
chose to die on the cross. His death was a true self-offering expressed in that
“loud voice” when he cried out to the Father just before he died, “into thy hands
I commit my spirit” (Lk 23:46). But although Jesus’ obedience was most obvious
on Calvary, it was a constant feature of “the days of his flesh”: he obeyed Mary
and Joseph, seeing in them the authority of the heavenly Father; he was obedient
to political and religious authorities; and he always obeyed the Father, identifying
himself with him to such a degree that he could say, “I have glorified thee on
earth, having accomplished the work which thou gavest me to do [...]. All mine
are thine and thine are mine” (Jn 17:4, 10).
The passage also points to Jesus’s prayer, the high point of which occurred in
Gethsemane on the eve of his passion. The reference to “loud cries and suppli-
cations” recalls the Gospel account of his suffering: “And being in an agony he
prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling
down upon the ground” (Lk 22:44).
Hebrews 5:7-9 is probably referring not so much to his prayer in the Garden, still
less to any prayer of Christ asking to be delivered from death, but to our Lord’s
constant prayer for the salvation of mankind. “When the Apostle speaks of these
supplications and cries of Jesus,” St John Chrysostom comments, “he does not
mean prayers which he made on his own behalf but prayers for those who would
later believe in him. And, due to the fact that the Jews did not yet have the ele-
vated concept of Christ that they ought to have had, St Paul says that ‘he was
heard’, just as the Lord himself told his disciples, to console them, ‘If you loved
me, you would have rejoiced, because I go to the Father; for the Father is grea-
ter than I’ [...]. Such was the respect and reverence shown by the Son, that God
the Father could not but take note and heed his Son and his prayers” (”Hom.
on Heb”, 11).
7. “In the days of his flesh”, a reference to the Incarnation. “Flesh” is synony-
mous with mortal life; this is a reference to Christ’s human nature—as in the pro-
logue to St John’s Gospel (cf. Jn 1:14) and many other places (Heb 2:14; Gal
2:20; Phil 1:22-24; 1 Pet 4:1-2) including where mention is made of Jesus being
a servant and capable of suffering (cf. Phil 2:8; Mt 20:27-28). Jesus’ human na-
ture “in the days of his flesh” is quite different from his divine nature and also from
his human nature after its glorification (cf. 1 Cor 15:50). “It must be said that the
word ‘flesh’ is occasionally used to refer to the weakness of the flesh, as it says
in 1 Cor 15:50: ‘flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God’. Christ had a
weak and mortal flesh. Therefore it says in the text, ‘In the days of his flesh’, re-
ferring to when he was living in a flesh which seemed to be like sinful flesh, but
which was sinless” (St Thomas Aquinas, “Commentary on Heb”, 5, 1). So, this
text underlines our Lord’s being both Victim and Priest.
“Prayers and supplications”: very fitting in a priest. The two words mean much
the same; together they are a form of words which used to be employed in peti-
tions to the king or some important official. The plural tells us that there were
lots of these petitions. The writer seems to have in mind the picture of the Re-
deemer who “going a little farther fell on his face and prayed, ‘My Father, if it be
possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt”
(Mt 26:39). St Thomas comments on this description of Christ’s prayer as fol-
lows: “His action was indeed one of offering prayers and supplications, that is,
a spiritual sacrifice: that was what Christ offered. It speaks of prayers in the
sense of petitions because ‘The prayer of a righteous man has great power’ (Jas
5:16); and it speaks of supplications to emphasize the humility of the one who
is praying, who falls on his knees, as we see happening in the case of him who
‘fell on his face and prayed’ (Mt 26:39)” (”Commentary on Heb.”, 5, 1).
To emphasize the force of Christ’s prayer, the writer adds, “with loud cries and
tears”. According to rabbinical teaching, there were three degrees of prayer, each
stronger than the last—supplications, cries and tears. Christian tradition has al-
ways been touched by the humanity of the Redeemer as revealed in the way he
prays. “Everything that is being said here may be summed up in one word — hu-
mility: that stops the mouths of those who blaspheme against Christ’s divinity
saying that it is completely inappropriate for a God to act like this. For, on the
contrary, the Godhead laid it down that [Christ’s] human nature should suffer all
this, in order to show us the extreme to which he truly became incarnate and
assumed a human nature, and to show us that the mystery of salvation was ac-
complished in a real and not an apparent or fictitious manner” (Theodoret of Cy-
rus, “Interpretatio Ep. ad Haebreos, ad loc.”). Christ’s prayer, moreover, teaches
us that prayer must 1) be fervent and 2) involve interior pain. “Christ had both [fer-
vor and pain], for the Apostle by mentioning ‘tears’ intends to show the interior
groaning of him who weeps in this way [...]. But he did not weep on his own ac-
count: he wept for us, who receive the fruit of his passion” (St Thomas, “Com-
mentary on Heb., ad loc.”).
“He was heard for his godly fear.” St John Chrysostom’s commentary is very ap-
posite: “’He gave himself up for our sins’, he says in Gal 1:4; and elsewhere (cf.
1 Tim 2:6) he adds, ‘He gave himself as a ransom for all’. What does he mean
by this? Do you not see that he is speaking with humility of himself, because of
his mortal flesh? And, nevertheless, because he is the Son, it says that he was
heard for his godly fear” (”Hom. on Heb.”, 8). It is like a loving contention between
Father and Son. The Son wins the Father’s admiration, so generous is his self-
surrender.
And yet Christ’s prayer did not seem to be heeded, for his Father God did not
save him from ignominious death—the cup he had to drink—nor were all the Jews,
for whom he prayed, converted. But it was only apparently so: in fact Christ’s pra-
yer was heard. It is true that, like every one, the idea of dying was repugnant to
him, because he had a natural instinct to live; but, on the other hand, he wished
to die through a deliberate and rational act of his will, hence in the course of the
prayer, he said, “not my will, but thine, be done” (Lk 22:42). Similarly Christ wan-
ted to save all mankind—but he wanted them to accept salvation freely (cf. “Com-
mentary on Heb., ad loc.”).
8. In Christ there are two perfect and complete natures and therefore two different
levels of knowledge — divine knowledge and human knowledge. Christ’s human
knowledge includes 1) the knowledge that the blessed in heaven have, that is,
the knowledge that comes from direct vision of the divine essence; 2) the know-
ledge with which God endowed man before original sin (infused knowledge); and
3) the knowledge which man acquires through experience. This last-mentioned
knowledge could and in fact did increase (cf. Lk 2:52) in Christ’s case. Christ’s
painful experience of the passion, for example, increased this last type of know-
ledge, which is why the verse says that Christ learned obedience through suffe-
ring. There was a Greek proverb which said, “Sufferings are lessons.” Christ’s
teaching and example raise this positive view of suffering onto the supernatural
level. “In suffering there is concealed’ a particular ‘power that draws a person in-
teriorly close to Christ’, a special grace [...]. A result of such a conversion is not
only that the individual discovers the salvific meaning of suffering but above all
that he becomes a completely new person. He discovers a new dimension, as
it were, ‘of his entire life and vocation’” (Bl. John Paul II, “Salvifici Doloris”, 26).
In our Lord’s case, his experience of suffering was connected with his generosity
in obedience. He freely chose to obey even unto death (cf. Heb 10:5-9; Rom 5:
19; Phil 2:8), consciously atoning for the first sin, a sin of disobedience. “In his
suffering, sins are canceled out precisely because he alone as the only-begotten
Son could take them upon himself, accept them ‘with that love for the Father
which overcomes’ the evil of every sin; in a certain sense he annihilates this evil
in the spiritual space of the relationship between God and humanity, and fills this
space with good” (”Salvifici Doloris”, 17). Christ “learned obedience” not in the
sense that this virtue developed in him, for his human nature was perfect in its
holiness, but in the sense that he put into operation the infused virtue his human
soul already possessed. “Christ knew what obedience was from all eternity, but
he learned obedience in practice through the severities he underwent particularly
in his passion and death” (St Thomas Aquinas, “Commentary on Heb., ad loc.”).
Christ’s example of obedience is something we should copy. A Christian writer
of the fifth century, Diadochus of Photike, wrote: “The Lord loved (obedience) be-
cause it was the way to bring about man’s salvation and he obeyed his Father
unto the cross and unto death; however, his obedience did not in any sense di-
minish his majesty. And so, having—by his obedience—dissolved man’s disobe-
dience, he chose to lead to blessed and immortal life those who followed the
way of obedience” (”Chapters on Spiritual Perfection”, 41).
9. Obviously Christ as God could not increase in perfection. Nor could his sacred
humanity become any holier, for from the moment of his Incarnation he received
the fullness of grace, that is, he had the maximum degree of holiness a man
could have. In this connection Thomas Aquinas points out that Christ had union
(that is, the personal union to the Son of God gratuitously bestowed on human
nature): clearly this grace is infinite as the person of the Word is infinite. The
other grace is habitual grace which, although it is received in a limited human na-
ture, is yet infinite in its perfection because grace was conferred on Christ as the
universal source of the justification of human nature (cf. “Summa Theologiae”, III,
q. 7, a. 11). In what sense, then, could Christ be “made perfect”? St Thomas pro-
vides the answer: Christ, through his passion, achieved a special glory — the im-
passibility and glorification of his body. Moreover, he attained the same perfec-
tions as we shall participate in when we are raised from the dead in glory, those
of us who believe in him (cf. “Commentary on Heb., ad loc.”). For this reason our
Redeemer could exclaim before his death, “It is finished” (Jn 19:30)—referring not
only to his own sacrifice but also to the fact that he had completely accomplished
the redeeming atonement. Christ triumphed on the cross and attained perfection
for himself and for others. In Hebrews the same verb is used for what is translated
into English as “to be made perfect” and “to finish”. Christ, moreover, by obeying
and becoming a perfect victim, truly pleasing to the Father, is more perfectly posi-
tioned to perfect others. “Obedience” is essentially docility to what God asks of
us and readiness to listen to him (cf. Rom 1:5; 16:26; 2 Cor 10:5; Heb 4:3).
Christ’s obedience is a source of salvation for us; if we imitate him we will truly
form one body with him and he will be able to pass on to us the fullness of his
grace.
“Now, when you find it hard to obey, remember your Lord: ‘factus obediens usque
ad mortem, mortem autem crucis”: obedient even to accepting death, death on a
cross!’” (St. J. Escriva, “The Way”).
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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.
Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.