Isaiah 53:9 - Buried in a Rich Man's Tomb

 THE CLAIM

The claim by many Christians is that Isaiah 53 prophesied that the messiah would be killed (Matthew 57:50) and then buried in a rich man’s tomb. This is based on Matthew 27:57-60 which reads (KJV):

And when the even was come, there came a rich man of Arimathaea, named Joseph, who also himself was Jesus’ disciple;

He went to Pilate and begged the body of Jesus. The Pilate commanded the body to be delivered.

And when Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth,

And laid it in his own tomb, which he had hewn out in the rock; and he rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre, and departed.

There are those who claim that this fulfilled a prophecy in Isaiah 53:9, which says none of this, at least in the Greek and the Hebrew versions (Masoretic and Dead Sea Scroll versions).

ISAHAI 53:9

First, here is the KJV version:

“And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was there any deceit in his mouth.”

The latter half after “BECAUSE” doesn’t make a lot of sense. He was killed and buried because he was non-violent and honest?

Now let’s look at the Greek Version, translated from the Lexham English Septuagint:

“And I will give the wicked in place of his tomb, and the wealthy in place of death, because he committed no lawlessness, and there was no deceit in his mouth.

This makes more sense, that the wicked and the wealth were being killed instead of the protagonist because he, not they, was innocent to be given such a fate.

Now let’s move onto the Hebrew. There is one difference (other than the errors in writing the text) in that the scribe originally wrote “wealthy” in the plural form, and then the pluralization suffix was scrapped away to adjust it to the normal singular. Although, traditionally, even though it is singular, we read it as if it is plural. It’s a small difference. To see images of the scribal problems for this verse, click on this link where I show screen prints of the different issues, none of which are dramatic.

So, here’s a correct translation of the Hebrew (mine):

“And he cast the wicked and the wealthy into his burying place with its dead ones, because he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.”

(Note, I give a 5 minute explanation of why my translation is accurate at this YouTube link).

So, this is definitely not what Matthew is describing at all. There is vengeance by [someone/Someone] against the bad people who, unlike the protagonist, deserved death.

COMMENTARY

There are no capital letters in Hebrew, so “he” or “He” and “his” or “His” don’t indicate if this is a person, a people, or God killing these people, nor do we know if “his grave” refers to the mass grave with all of its dead ones means it belonged to a person, a people, or God (the latter might make it a euphemism for Sheol, the realm of the dead, which is often a biblical euphemism for “being killed”.

But in any case, Matthew does not fulfill the retributional verse of Isaiah 53:9, which is referring to Babylon before it gets decimated (something mentioned by Isaiah and other prophets). And the killing of the wealthy is likely the source for later one, when God tells the protagonist that he gets a share in the physical booty looted.

So, no, the claim that “buried in the tomb of a rich man” is a prophecy and that it was fulfilled is blatantly false.

Here’s the meme used.