Isaiah 52:14,15 to 53:3.

Visage (mareh).

B Nations and Kings

Form (toar).

Heard (shamea).

Report (Shemuah).

Form (toar).

Beauty (mareh).

Isaiah 52:14,15.

AS many were astonished at Thee;

(His visage so marred more than any man).

SO shall He startle many nations;

(That which not told them they shall see).

`Who hath believed our report?' (Isa. 53:1).

Who is the speaker of these words? Jenour in his analysis places the first verse under the heading of the

`Watchmen', by which he intends `the apostles and first preachers of the gospel'.

The Companion Bible says: `The questions are asked by the prophet'. Geo. Adam Smith translates Isaiah 53:1,

`Who gave believing to that which we heard?' and gives the note:

`And not our report, or something we caused to be heard, as in the English Version. Shemuah is the passive

participle of shema, to hear, and not hashemia, to cause to hear. The speakers are now the penitent people of God

who had been preached to, and not the prophets who had preached'.

In Isaiah 53 we have a foreshadowing of Israel's repentance and grief when they look upon Him Whom they had

pierced and, at last, recognise that `He was wounded for their transgressions'.

The Authorized Version margin shows that the translators were not quite satisfied with the words `our report'

and reads `Or doctrine?' `Heb. hearing?' This word translated `doctrine' is in the text itself in Isaiah 28:9, and once

again occurs as an alternative in the margin of Isaiah 28:19.

`Who hath believed'.- As cited above, Geo. Adam Smith gives the strange rendering, `Who gave believing', but

there is a reason behind it. In his Literal Version Robert Young reads: `Who hath given credence to that which we

heard?' The reason for this circumlocution is that the translators knew that the Hebrew word for `believe' is the

origin of our word `amen', as though faith says `Amen' to all that God reveals. This word aman is of great

importance, not only by reason of its use here in Isaiah 53, but because of its influence on our approach to the

question `What is faith, or believing?'

Primarily, aman means `To prop, to stay, to sustain, to support'; intransitively the word means `To be stayed up',

hence `To be firm, unshaken; such as one may safely lean on', and, then, metaphorically, `To be faithful' (see

`Who accepted the words that we heard as being the truth, upon the veracity of which we could lean in utter

confidence, sure of the faithfulness of Him Who uttered them?'

While this is impossible as a translation, it may awaken in the English mind that which would have been quickly

conveyed to the mind of the Hebrew. The appropriateness of the title `Amen' as given to Christ in Revelation 3:14,

and the New Testament expansion of the title that follows, `the faithful and true Witness' may now be the better

appreciated, as also the introduction of the `Yea' and `Amen' in 2 Corinthians 1:20, in regard to all the promises of

What Israel heard of their Messiah was simply incredible, because tradition, blindness, ignorance and sin had

robbed them of their right to have simple confidence in the faithfulness of God Who spoke of them. Instead of

believing what they were told, they brought the doctrine of God to the bar of their own reasoning, and, judging by