1 WHO hath believed our report? [ The report of the prophets, of John the Baptist, and Christ's own report of himself ] and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed?

2 For he [ Who are we talking about here? Jesus Christ ] shall grow up before him as a tender plant, [ Before the FATHER he grew up as a tender plant ] and as a root out of a dry ground: [ but to the JEWS he was as a root out of a dry ground, worthless withered of no value or purpose. ] he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.

3 He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, [ Why was he sorry? ] and acquainted with grief: [ "wdyw vidua", familiar with grief What was the grief with which he was acquainted? ] and we hid as it were our faces from him; [ This is how the leper was treated. No one would come near them or even look at them because of the great shame of the disease. So the Savior is treated like a leper. ] he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

4 ¶ Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. [ Was this “we did esteem him stricken” the same as we regarded Him as stricken? We saw Him stricken? And what was this “smitten of God”? Jesus, in Gethsemane was surely smitten, but not of God. I could see I was missing something in the scripture. Was there something in the translation I was missing? something more to be learned from the original Hebrew? There are times when a new scriptural insight suddenly explodes your understanding, giving you a fresh breath of insight. This was one of those times. In Understanding Isaiah, the authors said that “the particular verb translated as stricken is used six times in Lev. 13 and 14 and always with the same meaning—that of suffering the emotional pain of having leprosy.”[i] so the scripture means, we esteemed Him as if He were a leper. For centuries, leprosy was considered a curse of God because of sin. Leprosy was the outward and visible sign pointing to the innermost spiritual corruption. It started perhaps only as a small speck on the body, and then gradually spread to the soft tissues throughout the entire body, degrading and rotting the whole body, as sin defiles man and makes him impure and incapable of entering the presence of God. People who had leprosy, the living death, were thought to deserve it. And what a punishment this was. The scriptures remind us that anyone suspected of having this disease had to go to the priest for examination. If found to be infected, “the leprous person who has the disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head hang loose, and he shall cover his upper lip and cry out ‘Unclean, unclean.’” The leper was an utter outcast. “A leper wasn’t allowed to come within six feet of any other human, including his own family. The disease was considered so revolting that the leper wasn’t permitted to come within 150 feet of anyone when the wind was blowing.” The wretchedness of having this disease that disfigured and ate away at you could only be multiplied by having the entire world regard you as having deserved it for your sin. It would be heaping humiliation upon agony. Others would think, “The rot of your body mirrors the rot of your soul.” Now we understand why we read in Isaiah 53, “we hid as it were our faces from him.” They shunned lepers, ran from them, pelted them with rocks. Could there be a greater irony than that the Lord Himself would be viewed by the world in this light, as deserving of the anguish that He freely took upon Himself to save them and to save us all? The Perfect One suffers torture, a pain so breathtaking only a God could stand this, and others scream that He deserves it. We should weep to think of this added humiliation to our Savior who was suffering for us. Smitten of God This scriptural phrase bolsters the same idea. “we esteem him…smitten of God, afflicted.” It was the popular idea of the time that all suffering in this life had its origin in sin, that every peculiar and particular disaster were punishments for terrible misdeed and inner flaw. We see this idea motivating a question. When Christ’s disciples passed a man blind from his birth and asked, “Master, who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (John 9:2). The world will see Christ’s afflictions as having been smitten of God, a deserved suffering. A punishment from the Father. If ever there was a tangle of lies, this is it. Who could have been a more perfect son, who came into this world to show us the Father, teach us of the Father, and perfectly do His will? His last words were “Thy will is done” (JST Matthew 27:54). Could He have offered a more complete sacrifice of Himself? When we learn in Isaiah 53 that the Lord “was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities”, the Hebrew helps us take that farther. “Wounded (Hebrew chalal) is better translated as “pierced fatally.” Bruised (Hebrew daka’) is more correctly ‘crushed.’ Only a sinless man could have been so completely crushed and not be destroyed. Still, Isaiah teaches us that the greatest, entirely sinless, unutterably perfect One of all would be also entirely misunderstood, blamed and counted as meriting the afflictions that came upon Him, as if He were cursed of God instead of being His Beloved son. Irony and Adversity Can we ever teach the Lord anything about being misused, misunderstood or about drinking to the fill the full cup of gall? To be human is to know life’s ironies. We have all tasted a bit of this bitter cup. Elder Neal A. Maxwell called irony the “crust on the bread of adversity.” Elder Maxwell continued, “Irony may involve not only unexpected suffering but also undeserved suffering. We feel we deserved better, and yet we fared worse. We had other plans, even commendable plans. Did they not count? A physician, laboriously trained to help the sick, now, because of his own illness, cannot do so. For a period, a diligent prophet of the Lord was an ‘idle witness.’ (Morm. 3:16). Frustrating conditions keep more than a few of us from making our appointed rounds.” “For Jesus, in fact, irony began at His birth. Truly, He suffered the will of the Father ‘in all things from the beginning.’(3 Ne. 11:11). This whole earth became Jesus’ footstool (see Acts 7:49), but at Bethlehem there was ‘no room … in the inn’ (Luke 2:7) and ‘no crib for his bed’ (Hymns, 1985, no. 206.) “At the end, meek and lowly Jesus partook of the most bitter cup without becoming the least bitter. The Most Innocent suffered the most. Yet the King of Kings did not break, even when some of His subjects did unto Him “as they listed.” Christ’s capacity to endure such irony was truly remarkable. (See 3 Ne. 11:11; D&C 19: 18-19) (D&C 49:6). Can we ever say to Him that our tests are unfair? Elder Maxwell said, “By their very nature, tests are unfair.” Can we complain to Him that we are entitled to more when He has descended so far below all things that He can also perfectly understand the irony of our lives? He knows about our best hopes that are dashed, our expectations that are diminished, our best efforts that are unrecognized or even maligned. He was the King of Kings in a crown of thorns, the Holy One shunned as a leper —and we love Him even more because He is a God who knows. [i] Peterson, Tina M. , Parry Jay A., and Parry, Understanding Isaiah. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co. ]

5 But he was wounded [ (Hebrew chalal) is better translated as “pierced fatally.” ] for our transgressions, he was bruised [ (Hebrew daka’) is more correctly translated as ‘crushed.’ ] for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; [ six editions of the early bible have the word fully and regularly expressed, "wnyml shelomeynu"; pacificationum nostrarum, "our pacification; " that by which we are brought into a state of peace and favour with God. ] 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 hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. [ Do we have any idea of the amount of suffering that he did for us? Do we have a small glimpse of the pain that he went through? Jesus partook of the most bitter cup without becoming the least bitter. My painting Sacred Prayer, while he struggled in pain he had a slight smile I saw it, he was happy to be able to do it for you and I, he was happy that he was going to be able to pull it off. ]

7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, [ Because the scribes had manupilated the old testament prophets so badly the Jews did not even recognize that this was talking about the Messiah. Even today Surely all Jews must agree that the Messiah would suffer. However, Not at all. Jews today, just like their ancestors in Palestine in 33 AD, do not view this passage as Messianic at all. According to the prestigious Rabbi Moses ben Nahman, this passage "[speaks] only of the people of Israel, which the prophets regularly call Tsrael My servant' or Jacob My servant.''100 Readers of the Book of Mormon know better, but the Rabbi isn't a fool. Isaiah's language is not obvious by any stretch of the imagination. He couldn't be obvious or he'd be killed for it. Dr. Ehrman and Rabbi Moses agree, there are no prophecies about a suffering Messiah in the Jewish canon. The Egyptian Life of Adam and Eve says prophecies about the Messiah's suffering were had from an early date: Then God said again to Adam, "Because you have endured fear and trembling in this land, languor and suffering, treading and walking about, going on this mountain, and dying from it, I will take all this on Myselfin order to save you(Egyptian Life of Adam and Eve 22:6 and 15:1). ] and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.

8 He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? [ It is said in the former, that before any one was punished for a capital crime, proclamation was made before the prisoner by the public crier, in these words: wyl[ dmlyw aby twkz wl [dwy ym lk col mi shioda lo zachoth yabo vayilmad alaiv, "whosoever knows any thing of this man's innocence, let him come and declare it. " Tract. Sandhedrim. Surenhus. Part iv. p. 233. On which passage the Gemara of Babylon adds, that "before the death of Jesus this proclamation was made for forty days; but no defense could be found. " On which words Lardner observes: "It is truly surprising to see such falsities, contrary to well-known facts. " Testimonies, Vol. i. p. 198. "It was customary when sentence of death was passed upon a criminal, and he was led out from the seat of judgment to the place of punishment, a crier went before, and spoke as follows: - 'This man is going out to suffer death by - because he has transgressed by - such a transgression, in such a place, in such a time; and the witnesses against him are -. He who may know any thing relative to his innocence let him come and speak in his behalf.'" Now it is plain from the history of the four Evangelists, that in the trlal and condemnation of Jesus no such rule was observed; though, according to the account of the Mishna, it must have been in practice at that time, no proclamation was made for any person to bear witness to the innocence and character of Jesus; nor did any one voluntarily step forth to give his attestation to it. And our saviour seems to refer to such a custom, and to claim the benefit of it, by his answer to the high priest, when he asked him of his disciples and of his doctrine: "I spoke openly to the world; I ever taught in the synagogue and in the temple, whither the Jews always resort; and in secret have I said nothing. Why askest thou me? ask them who heard me, what I have said unto them: behold, they know what I said, "John xviii. 20, 21. This, therefore, was one remarkable instance of hardship and injustice, among others predicted by the prophet, which our saviour underwent in his trial and sufferings. ] for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken.

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

10 ¶ Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD [ Which is to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. To have man come to a knowledge of the gospel and to live its principles. ] shall prosper in his hand.

11 He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.

12 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.