Isaiah 53:4 - Borne Away
Surely our sicknesses he hath borne, And our pains he hath carried them, And we have esteemed him plagued, Smitten of God, and afflicted. (Isaiah 53:4, Young’s Literal Translation)
In the Isaiah 53:3 essay, I demonstrated that the word “sicknesses,” “choli” in the Hebrews means and includes physical sicknesses and diseases. That essay also shows that “pains” are those agonies of the soul associated with sickness and disease. In Isaiah 53:4, Isaiah uses “choli” for sicknesses and “makob” for pains.”
In Isaiah 53:3 and 4, Isaiah not only states that Jesus became “acquainted” with sickness and pain, but that He also “bore” them and “carried” them. To understand the textual sense of these verbs, we first turn to Franz Delitzch. Delitzch was one of the greatest Hebraists that ever lived and his translation of the New Testament into Hebrew is still considered the standard edition. With regard to Isaiah’s “borne” and “carried,” which Matthew references, Delitzch writes:
Freely but faithfully does the Gospel of Matthew translate this text, “Himself took our infirmities and carried our sicknesses.” The help which Jesus rendered in all kinds of bodily sickness is taken in Matthew to be a fulfillment of what in Isaiah is prophesied of the Servant of Jehovah. The Hebrew verbs of the text, when used of sin, signify to assume as a heavy burden and bear away the guilt of sin, as one’s own; that is, to bear sin mediatorially in order to atone for it. But here, where not our sins, but our sicknesses and pains are the object, the mediatorial sense remains the same. It is not meant that the Servant of Jehovah merely entered into the fellowship of our sufferings, but that He took upon Himself the sufferings that we had to bear, and deserved to bear; and, therefore, He not only bore them away, but also in His own person endured them in order to discharge them from us. Now when one takes sufferings upon himself which another had to bear, and does this, not merely in fellowship with him, but in his stead, we call it Substitution. (Quoting from McCrossan, T.J., Bodily Healing and the Atonement at 29.)
In addition to Delitzch’s Hebrew definition of “borne,” the Word provides us an even more clear, objective lesson in the meaning of “borne.” It is found in the scapegoat, ‘al-Azazel.’
But only the high priest entered the inner room, and that only once a year, and never without blood, which he offered for himself and for the sins the people had committed in ignorance. (Hebrews 9:7, NASB)
The High Priest’s entrance into the Holy of Holies marked one of the most significant events on the Great Day of Atonement. It was only on this day, where the High Priest officiated alone and in special white linen clothing, that the sins of the people
were “covered over” or “atoned”. After he had made the expiatory sacrifices for the priesthood and the people, ‘al-Azazel’ was brought forth. Laying both of his hands on the goat’s head, the high priest laid the sins of the people on the goat:
Ah, YHWH, they have committed iniquity; they have transgressed; they have
sinned, Thy people, the house of Israel. Oh, then, YHWH cover over
(atone for), I intreat Thee, upon their iniquities, their transgressions, and their sins, which they have wickedly committed, transgressed, and sinned before Thee, thy people, the house of Israel. As it is written in the law of Moses, Thy servant, saying: “For on that day shall it be covered (atoned) for you, to make you clean from all your sins before YHWH ye shall be cleansed.
While the multitude lay prostrate at the name of YHWH, the high priest turned
his face toward them and said the last words, “Ye shall be cleansed!” Then “al-Azazel,” the sin-burdened goat, would be led out “by a strong man” through Solomon’s Porch and the eastern gate who would let go the goat in the wilderness. We read this in Leviticus 16:21-22:
And Aaron [the high priest] shall lean his two hands upon the head of the living goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the sons of Israel, and all their transgressions to the extent of all their sins, - and shall put them upon the head of the goat, and then send him away by the hand of a man appointed towards the desert: so shall the goat bear upon him the iniquities into a lone land, - and he shall set the goat free in the desert. (Rotherham).
“Bear” is the same word “borne” in Isaiah 53:4. “Al-Azazel” did not bear the sins of the people in the ordinary sense of “bear.” The sins of the people were transferred to the goat and they were borne away into the desert. Hebrews expressly tells us that this goat was a shadow of Jesus’s redemptive acts:
And the lesson which the Holy Spirit teaches is this: that the way into the true Holy place is not yet open so long as the outer tent still remains in existence. And this is a figure for the time now present. (Hebrews 9:8, 9a, Weymouth)
For the law having a shadow of the destined good things. (Hebrews 10:1, NASB)
Consistent with Delitzch’s construction and the Old Testament type of the Day of Atonement and ‘al-Azazel,’ Jesus not only became acquainted with our sicknesses and pains, but He also bore them away from us.