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1 Yea, even doth not Isaiah say: Who hath believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?
Abinadi gives the short verbal introduction "Yea, even doth not Isaiah say." This serves as the same function as the phrase common in English: "And I quote." This introductory phrase serves to tie the previous statements with the citation from Isaiah which follows. To refresh our memory, the verses immediately preceding are:
34 Have they not said that God himself should come down among the children of men, and take upon him the form of man, and go forth in mighty power upon the face of the earth? Mosiah 13:35 35 Yea, and have they not said also that he should bring to pass the resurrection of the dead, and that he, himself, should be oppressed and afflicted?
Abinadi begins his argument with the first verse of Isaiah chapter 53. As Welch notes:
Regardless of the technical reasons for seeing a beginning point at one place or another, there is another reason why Abinadi might choose this particular starting point. To understand this, we must first deal with Welch's implicit assumption that Abinadi must start at the "beginning" of a poetical unit. Certainly Nephi and Jacob did this in their citations, but Abinadi does not appear to be so constrained in his citations. In this particular case, the important aspect of verse one is that it begins with a question, a question which asks; " Who hath believed our report…?" If one assumes that 52:13 is the beginning point, then this is a question that refers to the beginning of the "report" which discusses the "servant." If one assumes that 53:1 is a beginning point, then the question must refer to the coming answer, rather than a previous text. In either case, it is the question that is most important. For Abinadi, he is using it as a text that looks back to the previous statements, and in this case, his own. He has declared that multiple prophets have predicted this suffering Messiah, and now he begins with "Who hath believed our report…?" While Isaiah's reference was general, Abinadi's is very directed. This verse is a loaded gun pointed straight at the priests of Noah. Abinadi has declared that there will be a suffering Messiah, a first coming Messiah, and claims prophetic support. The priests of Noah do not believe, and Abinadi is pointing out that it is they who are in conflict with the scriptures rather than Abinadi (as the priests set out to prove). As an aside, Victor Ludlow sees Isaiah 53:1 in precisely the way Abinadi uses it, as a declaration that other prophets have declared the Savior (Ludlow, Victor L. Isaiah: Prophet, Seer, and Poet. Deseret Book Company. 1982, p. 447). "Isaiah asks a second question at the beginning over verse 1: "In whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?" He implies that the servant will be revealed by the "arm" or power of the Lord. (See Isa. 52:10; John 12:37-38; 1 Ne. 22:10-11; D&C 45:47.) Isaiah spends the rest of the chapter answering this second question. The servant to be revealed by the Lord' power is not named, but both the prophet Abinadi and the evangelist Philip identify him as Jesus Christ. (Mosiah 15: Acts 8:26-35.) In addition, Matthew, Peter, and Paul apply various verses of Isaiah 53 to Christ. (Matt. 8:17; 1 Pet. 2:24-25; Rom. 4:25.)" (Ludlow, Victor L. 1982, p. 448).
2 For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground; he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him there is no beauty that we should desire him.
The first element describes the suffering Messiah (these passages are typically labeled the suffering servant songs, with Jewish interpretation having Israel as the suffering servant) as a young and tender plant. Ludlow suggests that this is the image of the Messiah being raised from an infant, and that he must grow as do all children (Ludlow 1982, p. 448). This image may also have a tie to the image of the "branch" which is also used to describe the Messiah (see Isaiah 11:1 and Jeremiah 23:5;23:15).While the tender plant is not precisely the same as a branch, yet the botanical reference to a young growth is close enough that it should be considered. The next image relates the tender plant to the dry ground. Here the image adds the root of the plant. As with the "tender plant" we may also see the "root" as related to established Messianic imagery, such as is found earlier in Isaiah: Isa. 11:10 "And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek: and his rest shall be glorious." In Isaiah 11:10 the "root" is clearly a personification of the triumphant Messiah. In Isaiah 53:2 the "root" is the suffering Messiah. Nevertheless the imagery is sufficiently similar to suspect that Isaiah not only used them similarly, but comprehended that the suffering Messiah and the triumphant Messiah were indeed the same person. The dry ground is a symbolic contrast with a fertile land. The image is therefore a Messiah coming from a land not necessarily prepared for that Messiah. The Israel into which the suffering Messiah will be born will not be one that is willing to accept the Message of the servant of God, and therefore will inflict upon him the conditions Isaiah will describe. The final description is of a being who is not possessed of physical beauty (as the KJV translates it). Joseph Fielding Smith read the passage as follows: "There was nothing about him to cause people to single him out. In appearance he was like men; and so it is expressed here by the prophet that he had no form or comeliness, that is, he was not so distinctive, so different from others that people would recognize him as the Son of God. He appeared as a mortal man." (Smith, Joseph Fielding. Doctrines of Salvation. Bookcraft, 1977. 1:23). This interpretation diminishes the pejorative connotations of Isaiah. Rather than the relatively negative statement of Isaiah, President Smith suggests a neutral reading. While it is certainly true that Jesus was not followed because of his striking physical beauty, Isaiah may be suggesting that this lack of comeliness was similar to the other "negatives" of the suffering servant. Certainly the earthly Jesus labored with his hands. Mark describes him as a "tekton" in Greek (Mark 6:3), which has been traditionally translated as a carpenter. John Dominic Crossan has examined the first century social context of a carpenter, and finds that it may be a rather undesirable profession, indicative of one who is landless. He then examines other statements in the gospels and suggests that some of the gospel writers were somewhat embarrassed by this less-than-admirable profession of their spiritual leader (Crossan, John Dominic. The Birth of Christianity. Harper San Francisco, 1998, p. 349). While Crossan's evidence is tenuous, it nevertheless highlights the possibility that the more negative aspects of Isaiah's descriptions might also apply to the mortal Messiah. A further indication of the intent of Isaiah's passage to provide the contrast between the real nature of the atoning Messiah and his apparent nature lies in the word that was translated as "comeliness" in the KJV. That word is transliterated as hadar. Kevin Barney notes: "Hadar means "ornament, splendour, honor." It is used, for example, to refer to grey hair for old men (Pro. 20:29), in Exodus 16:14 figuratively of the ornaments of Jerusalem as the bride of Yahweh, and in Leviticus 23:40 of the fruit of goodly (IE ornamental, beautiful) trees. Here it seems to mean that he had no splendour or majesty." (Barney, Kevin. "Translation question on Isaiah 53:3" January 16, 2000, Scripture-L.) Isaiah is contrasting the real splendor of the Messiah with this lack of apparent glory. This poetic contradiction is a stylistic feature of many of Isaiah's writings.
3 He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
"[Jesus] experience constant sorrow and rejection throughout his life. (Matt. 23:37.) Members of his own family and the people in his hometown rejected him at first. (John 7:5; Luke 4:16-30.) His own chosen people, the Jews, rejected his messianic calling. (John 1:11; 5:18.) As his mortal ministry neared completion, one of his apostles betrayed him and another temporarily denied any knowledge of him. (Luke 22:48; 54-62.) This constant persecution and rejection must have cause Christ great sorrow, for the very people he came to save first turned away from him. (See Mark 9:12; 1 Ne. 19:7-10.) (Ludlow 1982, p. 449).
4 Surely he has borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows; yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
As Barney also suggests, the reversal of the two elements "sorrows/pains" and "grief/sickness" creates a tighter poetic coupling between verses 3 and 4, with a chiastic reversal of the elements from one verse to the next. This suggests that there is a poetic point that is being made, and is probably made on the "pains/sickness" meanings. The atoning Messiah is a man of pain and sickness because he is mortal, and his undertanding of our pain and sickness allows him to carry those burdens for us. It is possible that the somewhat cleaner connotations of griefs and sorrows grew from the tendency in Christianity to emphasize Christ's perfection, which of course (in that line of thought) would not allow such a thing as a physical ailment such as a sickness, nor perhaps even the mortal pain associated with manual labor. This later tendency to remove Jesus' essential humanity in favor of exalting his obvious deity does not describe the Messiah Isaiah, who was human, and subject to physical ailment and labor. It is that contradictory image of the very human and the very divine that is at the heart of Isaiah's declaration.
5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
For a time there was much excitement about a reconstructed passage in the Dead Sea Scrolls that appeared to discuss a Messianic figure who would be (or was) put to death (See Eisenman, Robert, and Michael Wise. The Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered. Barnes and Nobles Books, 1992, pp. 24-29). The process of further scholarship in the subject, however, now indicates that the reading was probably erroneous: "Rediscovered' among the unpublished fragments fo the scrolls when they first became available late in 1991, 4Q285 frag. 5 of The War of the Messiah created a flurry of excitement and generated front-page headlines all over the world. Line 4 o the fragment is ambiguous in the original Hebrew, which is written without vowels. According to the vowels mentally supplied by the Hebrew reader, 1.4 could say either "they (the enemy) will put the Leader of the community to death" or "the Leader of the community will have him (the enemy leader) put to death." The Leader of the community is a messianic figure known from other Dead Sea Scrolls . Thus following the first option, frag. 5 appeared to be describing the execution of a messiah, and the obvious parallels to Jesus of Nazareth were drawn. The excitement has since died down. After a whirlwind of research activity and a number of critical assessments, scholarly consensus has rejected the first option and settled on the second. Even the primary exponent of the "dying messiah" interpretation, Robert Eisenman, has publicly recanted, saying that in fact he never really believed it in the first place." (Wise, Michael, Martin Abegg, Jr. and Edward Cook. The Dead Sea Scrolls. Harper San Francisco. 1996, pp. 291-2). The Dead Sea Scrolls do deal with a Messiah, but tend to concentrate on the triumphant Messiah rather than the suffering Messiah. As with Abinadi, the frequently use Isaiah as a base text for their understanding (Eisenman, Robert, and Michael Wise. The Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered. Barnes and Nobles Books, 1992, p. 17).
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 iniquities of us all.
Variation: The Book of Mormon has "iniquities" in the plural, while the KJV has "iniquity" in the singular. While this may simply be a dictation error as I suggested with a similar occurrence earlier, Tvedtnes notes that the Hebrew term may be used as a collective, so that while it is grammatically singular, it may be legitimately translated as a plural in languages where the translated word is not a collective (Tvedtnes, John A. "Isaiah Textual Variants in the Book of Mormon." FARMS, 1981, p. 92).
7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb so he opened not his mouth.
The reference to the lamb is not simply a literary follow up to the previous verse, but a layering of symbolic meaning. The lamb as sacrifice for Israel comes from the Exodus: Ex. 12:1-7 1 And the LORD spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, 2 This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you. 3 Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for an house: 4 And if the household be too little for the lamb, let him and his neighbour next unto his house take it according to the number of the souls; every man according to his eating shall make your count for the lamb. 5 Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year: ye shall take it out from the sheep, or from the goats: 6 And ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month: and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening. 7 And they shall take of the blood, and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door post of the houses, wherein they shall eat it. While the reference is not absolute since Isaiah includes a lamb before the shearers (an image of humiliation?), the death of a lamb combines symbolically with the bearing of the "iniquities of all" in a very powerful way.
8 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 transgressions of my people was he stricken.
"By oppression and judgment, he was taken away. And who can speak of his descendants? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was stricken." Gileadi renders it: "By arrest and trial he was taken away. Who can apprise his generation that he was cut off from the land of the living for the crime of my people, to whom the blow was due?" (Gileadi 11988, p. 202). The NEB has: "He was arrested and sentenced and taken away, and who gave a thought to his fate - how he was cut off from the world of the living, stricken to death for my people's transgression?" The renditions of the verse agree on judgement. Most agree that he was taken away by judgement, where the KJV has him taken from prison. It would appear that it is a better translation to have the judgement applied against him, rather than the judgement removing him from prison. The next focal point of translation differences is the concept of "generations." The NEB gives the most creative rendition, assuming that it addresses his fate. The KJV assumes "generations" refers to forebears, and the NIV assumes descendants. Gileadi has it as his contemporaries. That is a wide range of possibilities. Based on the question in which this critical term appears, and the correlation to Isaiah 53:1 which began with a question, the intent would appear to be parallel. These are questions that are not answerable. Since the first rhetorical question dealt with the past (the past prophets who have declared the report, which was not believed) this may also refer to past - and indicate that his origin/true origin would be unknown, perhaps here a reference to his divine parentage. Sidney Sperry, however, opts for the interpretation of "generations" as descendants (Sperry, Sidney B. Book of Mormon Compendium. Bookcraft, 1968, p. 304). The final point of the verse is dramatically clear. This suffering servant will be put to death for the sins of the people. While rendered somewhat obliquely in the KJV, "cut off of the land of the living" is still recognizable as death.
9 And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no evil, neither was any deceit in his mouth.
"He was appointed among the wicked in death, among the rich was his burial; yet he had done no violence, and deceit was not in his mouth." Isaiah is creating a poetic contrast here between the righteousness of the suffering servant and the circumstances of death. The first incongruity is that the righteous man would be "among the wicked in death" yet have a grave among the rich (death with the theives on the cross, and burial in the tomb of Joseph of Arimethea). While Gileadi alters the text to be closer to Christian history, it is probable that Isaiah's imagery relied more upon a tighter incongruity, that he would have a grave paradoxically with both the wicked and the rich. In this particular case, rich would not have the pejorative connotation that can have it other parts of Isaiah's writings. Variant: The KJV has "violence" where the Book of Mormon has "evil": " because he had done no evil/violence." Tvedtnes notes that the Masoretic text reads mrmh which means both "evil" and "violence" (Tvedtnes 1981, p. 93). The KJV translation is stressing the lack of reason for capital punishment, while the Book of Mormon appears to emphasize the purity (lack of evil) of the suffering servant.
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 shall prosper in his hand.
This verse views the suffering servant from the Lord's perspective. It indicates that the Lord allowed the suffering because it fit into a larger purpose. What is most fascinating here is the juxtaposition of the death imagery of verses 8 and 9 and the clearly life affirming statement that the Lord "shall prolong his days…" even that "he shall see his seed…." As with other contradictory statements in this passage, it was intended to be seen as a paradox. For instance, it would be hard to imagine how a grave among the wicked could also be a grave among the rich - unless one understands how Christ fulfilled that prophecy. Similarly, it is intended to be contradictory that there should be a death and a prolonging of days. The poetic attempt of this verse is to declare the resurrection. The resurrection is the part of the atonement that extends Jesus days after death. Who then are his "seed?" Sperry sees the "seed" as the future believers, partly based on thetext Ether 3:14 that indicates that "… In me shall all mankind have life, and that eternally, even they who shall believe on my name; and they shall become my sons and my daughters." (Sperry, 1982, p. 304). This would then see a resurrected Christ able to witness his "generations" of the faithful who follow him, and have become his sons and daughters through faith on his name.
11 He shall see 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 bore the sins of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.
Variant: As in other places there is a number difference between the KJV and the Book of Mormon. In this case the KJV has "the sin of many" and the Book of Mormon has "the sins of many." This is another area where the underlying text is a collective, and either translation is correct (Tvedtnes, 1981, p. 93). Textual: There is no chapter break at this point in the 1830 edition. While we have seen breaks between cited text and a return to narrative, this occasion does not really match that. While Abinadi changes referents here, Mormon does not. Mormon is still working with copied text. The break will come when Mormon shifts to narrative from copying text (our chapter 16). |
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| by Brant Gardner. Copyright 1999 |
Mosiah
14:1
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