The Scripture behind the Scripture

He Bare the Sin of Many

Isaiah 53:12 says the servant was numbered with the transgressors and bare the sin of many. Jesus himself quotes it in Luke 22:37 on the night he was betrayed.

“Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.”Isaiah 53:12

“For I say unto you, that this that is written must yet be accomplished in me, And he was reckoned among the transgressors: for the things concerning me have an end.”Luke 22:37

“And the scripture was fulfilled, which saith, And he was numbered with the transgressors.”Mark 15:28

In its own place

In its own place. This is the final verse of Isaiah's servant song, the summary and vindication after the servant's suffering. Because he poured out his soul unto death and was numbered with the transgressors, God will divide him a portion with the great, giving him the reward of a victor. The verse declares that he bare the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors. In its original setting it completes the astonishing portrait of one who suffered and died for the sins of others, and then names his reward. He is counted among criminals, treated as one of the guilty, yet in fact he is bearing their guilt on their behalf. And in his suffering he intercedes for the very transgressors he is numbered with, praying for those he dies to save. The verse holds together humiliation and exaltation, the servant brought down to death among the wicked, then lifted up and given a great inheritance because of what he accomplished. Within Isaiah's vision of redemption, this crowns the message that God will save his people through a servant who takes their place, dies their death, and is afterward vindicated and rewarded by God.

Where the New Testament takes it up

This is a direct quotation, and strikingly it is Jesus himself who applies it to his own coming death. In Luke 22:37, at the Last Supper, Jesus tells his disciples that this that is written must yet be accomplished in me, And he was reckoned among the transgressors, quoting Isaiah 53:12. He says the things concerning him have an end, that is, are reaching their fulfillment. By quoting this line, Jesus deliberately identifies himself as Isaiah's suffering servant and announces that he is about to be numbered with criminals, which happens literally when he is arrested as though a robber and crucified between two malefactors. The quotation follows the Greek closely. What is remarkable is that Jesus does not merely have this text applied to him by later writers, he claims it for himself in advance, interpreting his own approaching death through Isaiah 53. This shows that the identification of Jesus with the suffering servant goes back to Jesus himself, not only to the apostolic church. He understood his death as the fulfillment of the servant who bore the sin of many, and he told his disciples so on the very night the fulfillment began.