THE FORBIDDEN CHAPTER: Message 7
By Solomon Ostrovsky
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. 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.Up to now the prophet has been speaking as a bystander observing the sufferings of this anonymous Victim, not seeing as yet the effect these things are having on the subject of his vision. But now he draws a little nearer and looks, as it were, into the face of this unnamed Person. He sees that, though under the pressure of indescribable torments, He gives not cry of pain, utters no word of revolt – “he opened not his mouth.” The prophet is amazed. What does this mean? How is he to interpret this total silence? Is it a sign of weakness, or the stoic scorn of pain? Is it human despair, or fatalism of the sort that says, “This is my fate, and all I have to do is submit to it”?
Up to now in this chapter we have seen an exceptional Man, separate and different from all others. “We all like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord has laid upon him the iniquity of us all.” The whole human race on the one hand, and He – the unique One on the other. Indeed, He saw man in his ruined state, but this did not surprise Him; for this He came – to heal man and renew him. He felt the pain and the humiliation in all their bitterness, but all the time He remained what He had ever been – the faithful expression of Divine and holy love. Not even this bitter experience – the knowledge that He was soon to be taken “as a lamb to the slaughter” disturbed His composure, or changed in any way His concern for man. No weakness was revealed. His silence was not a sign of weakness, but the expression of His spiritual supremacy, the mighty power of God dwelling in Him.
Line by line the prophet adds to his description of the person of this anonymous Man, giving us further details of His path of suffering. Not by chance and not at the hands of a lynching mob will this Man suffer, but in the official, legal way, so to speak, of prison and of judgment. “He was taken from prison and from judgment, and who shall declare his generation, for he was cut off out of the land of the living, for the transgression of my people was he stricken.” The authorities, the nation, His contemporaries will all somehow, or other be involved in this crisis. The seal of authority and legality will be given to His sufferings and His death sentence, and yet the prophet hints quite clearly here that this will not be a true judgment, but an evil perversion of justice. More about this later.
From the authorities the prophet turns to His contemporaries: “And who shall declare his generation, for he was cut off out of the land of the living. For the transgression of my people was he stricken.” There have been many different interpretations of this sentence. Here are what I consider to be the two principle ones:
A. As to His contemporaries, did anyone plead His case with those who condemned Him, or did anyone raise his voice to defend Him before His contemporaries? B. And among His contemporaries – according to Professor Delitzsch and others – did anyone realise that He had been “cut off out of the land of the living” and that it was “for the transgression of his people that he had been thus stricken?”
OF WHOM IS THE PROPHET SPEAKING HERE?
The answer of modern Jewish commentators is almost unanimous: the one spoken of in this chapter is the nation of Israel, suffering for the nations of the world. But where and when did Israel suffer? All the time that Israel was a nation in her own land she did not suffer in any special way, not more than other nations and certainly not on behalf of the other nations. The argument of those who uphold this interpretation is that this chapter refers to Israel’s suffering in the Diaspora. But is not the Diaspora itself A PUNISHMENT FOR THE SIN OF ISRAEL, even as Moses warned the nation so long ago? Does not every orthodox Jew declare every year in his prayers on the Day of Atonement, “And because of OUR sins we were scattered from the land” (Machzor Leyom Kippur)? Although Israel has suffered for generations more than other nations, the suffering spoken of here is not Israel’s suffering. In a very clear, unmistakable way the prophet declares that the Person described here is an individual suffering FOR Israel. “For the transgression of MY people was he stricken.” Words could not be clearer. Israel was Isaiah’s people, so “for the transgression of my people” surely refers to ISRAEL. For Israel, therefore, HE – the anonymous Sufferer – was smitten – one individual for the whole nation; One who was taken from judgment and cut off out of the land of the living; One who suffered for the transgression of the whole nation.
WHO IS THIS SUFFERER?
The only one in history that fits into this picture is Jesus of Nazareth. For generations Israel has hidden her face from Him, passed by, as it were, on the other side of the street, but has never dared to change this clear and uncompromising testimony of Isaiah in chapter 53 of his book. And so the leaders of Israel decided to ban the chapter itself. This is a chapter, which is never read in synagogue and which is not unduly dwelt upon in the schools. Tradition has placed a ban on it, but it is this chapter which brightly illumines the road of every seeker after truth. Here we see the Messiah dying an atoning death for Israel and for the world. In the words of his prophecy Isaiah invalidates the sentence passed on the Victim who is the subject of this chapter.
“He was taken from prison and from judgment.” With urgency, under the pressure of those who sought His death, He was taken, but without a thorough, orderly trial.
Is it not amazing that the whole “legal” process, which – in the words of a modern Jewish writer – was to have a greater effect on the world than any other sentence in the course of history, should from arrest to indictment, from indictment to verdict, from verdict to sentence and execution, be over and done with in a matter of hours?
It remains for me to say that the various experiments in history, which attempt to revise or re-examine the sentence passed on Jesus, miss the mark. Their verdict is a foregone conclusion and has nothing to do with the historical and religious reality of the past two thousand years.
By wholesale falsification of the evangelists’ evidence and by the judicious choice of witnesses to suit one’s purpose, one can prove anything. To claim – as is claimed by a recent Jewish writer – that the description of the sentence passed on Jesus as given by the evangelists does not agree with the rules of Roman law and is therefore not trustworthy, proves exactly the truth of Isaiah’s message. “He was taken from prison and from judgment.” He was sentenced to death, not after an intensive enquiry, not according to law, but according to an arbitrary decision, under the pressure of special circumstances and by a perversion of justice. Isaiah is on the side of the evangelists. More important than trying to find fault with the legal aspects of the sentence, which took place two thousand years ago, is to know the secret of the sentence as it effects us today. In his message Isaiah reveals this secret. “For the transgression of my people was he stricken.” This was an atoning death, by virtue of which we can receive forgiveness of sins and peace with God. “And with his stripes we are healed.” But to accept this one needs faith, a faith which is the product of Divine enlightenment, a result of HEARING the WORD of GOD.
“Who has believed our report and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?”
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