Thursday, June 6, 2024

Isaiah 53:7 - Silent Before Accusers

ACCORDING TO MATTHEW

In Matthew 27:12, we are told that after Jesus was arrested and was brought eventually to Pilate. And was asked to defend himself, that Jesus remain silent. Fourteen verses later, Jesus is scourged, beaten, and eventually crucified, and in the midst of that cries out in complaint “My God, my God, why have you removed yourself from me?” (Based on the Aramaic).

We are told that this fulfilled the prophecy in Isaiah 53:7.

Let’s look at the verse with some explanations. I will highlight the verses so that it’s easy to scan with the eyes.

TRANSLATING ISAIAH 53:7

The verse says “נגש”, or “He had been oppressed”. This word is also used in Isaiah 14:4 when God promises to one day stop the oppression against the Jews.

and had been abused”. The verb root is “ענה”, which is often an expression for torture, and when it refers to what a man does to a woman, it is translated as “raped”. Here, however, it’s torturous abuse.

And yet, he would not open his mouth”. I am translating the vav-prefix here as “and yet”, since the context is “despite the pain, he didn’t open his mouth”, rather than the usual simple “and”, “or”, or “but”. This verse is also part of a song, with the second and fourth parts of the quatrain echoing one another to provide emphasis on this one point that seems to make it a praiseworthy act.

like a ram lamb to the slaughter” – the noun “שה” is masculine and refers to a designated offering, a sheep or a goat, usually. And sine they were usually young for being slaughtered, I used “lamb”. Using “ram” is just to point out the gender in the verse which will then switch. “Slaughtered” can refer to a sacrifice or a meal (see Genesis 43:16), or massacring a person (Isaiah 34:2).

he’d been brought”. The masculine form is carried forth. The type of bringing was typically one who is bound, which may be the imagery implied.

like a ewe”. Here the gender switches while making a parallelism between “like a ram lamb” and “like a ewe”.

before her shearers”. The use of the plural form is a nice expression when applying it to one who is before his enemies. The feminine form is perhaps being used to imply more passivity from the view of the ancient songwriter.

who is dumbstruck”. While it literally translates to “she is dumbstruck”, I felt that “who” flows better. It’s a continuation of the feminine form.

and yet, he would not open his mouth”. This is a parallelism to the second segment of this quatrain. And its relation to “dumbstruck” is possibly to provide even more emphasis.

COMPARING MATTHEW TO ISAIAH

As I mentioned at the beginning, Matthew has Jesus being silent, and then tortured, and then crying out his complaint.

In Isaiah, it’s the exact opposite: the protagonist has been tortured, and despite it being understandable if he complained, he instead kept silent and accepted his fate, like a lamb.

Since Isaiah is speaking about being silent in the midst of such torture, and seems to hold it as honorable, the text in Matthew has Jesus being silent when no such torture was happening, which is an easier thing to do.

CONCLUSION

Did the Matthew text fulfill the text in Isaiah?

No.

 Here's the meme




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