Someone starts speaking, and the book does not say who

Four verses into Isaiah 50 the voice changes, and somebody the book has not introduced begins to talk about himself:

"I gave my back to the smiters… I hid not my face from shame and spitting." (Isaiah 50:6)

Then the speech ends, and the chapter never says who was talking. The same unnamed figure returns in chapter 52 and right through chapter 53 — though not always as the speaker. At 52:13 God describes him; in chapter 53 a we does.

That is not a gap in the text. It is how these chapters are built, and reading them well starts with noticing it rather than hurrying past it. (The walkthrough below reads Isaiah 50 closely, including what the chapter does with the word servant one verse after the speech ends.)

Who is the Servant?

Latter-day Saints read the Servant as Jesus Christ. This week's title says so: "He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows" is Isaiah 53:4. The New Testament applies these chapters to Him repeatedly. That reading is ours, and it is not in question here.

What is worth being accurate about is that Isaiah never writes the name in.

Two opposite mistakes follow from getting that wrong. A reader told the text plainly names the Servant is surprised by how little it actually says. A reader told the connection was invented later misses that the New Testament makes the identification openly and often — and that the Savior made it about Himself.

What is on the page is an unnamed figure, described in enough detail to be recognised. The recognising is done out loud, by name, in the New Testament and the Book of Mormon.

Who else is reading these chapters

These chapters return repeatedly in the New Testament. The Savior Himself quotes them at the Last Supper (Luke 22:37, quoting Isaiah 53:12), in the Bread of Life discourse (John 6:45, quoting Isaiah 54:13), and in the temple scene recorded by Matthew, Mark and Luke.

Other New Testament connections come through Paul, Peter, and Gospel narration. An Ethiopian official reads Isaiah 53 aloud in a chariot and asks whom the prophet is describing (Acts 8:34).

Four settings, and no two alike. Jacob — not Nephi — reads Isaiah 50 and 51 to his own people so that they may "learn and glorify the name of your God" (2 Nephi 6:4; 2 Nephi 7–8). Abinadi quotes Isaiah 53 before the priests who are judging him, then explains it to them (Mosiah 14–15). The Savior reads Isaiah 54 to a gathered multitude of Nephites (3 Nephi 22). And an Ethiopian official sits alone in a chariot, reading Isaiah 53 aloud; Philip hears him and finds him with a question he cannot answer (Acts 8:30, 34).

What they share is not the occasion but the manner: in every case these words were said out loud, in a situation, rather than studied quietly. That is worth knowing before you start.

What to know before you start

Who is listening. Much of these chapters speaks to people in exile, on the far side of Jerusalem's destruction and a long way from home. Chapters 56–57 turn to questions of worship and belonging; a scholarly reading places these chapters against life in Judah after the return from Babylon. That describes their setting, not necessarily when the words were written down. A promise of comfort reads differently when you know who is hearing it, and so does a description of someone despised and rejected. (Historical & Cultural Context, in Before You Read, explains this setting.)

What kind of writing this is. What these chapters are not is a chronicle. There is very little datable event in them; they are an argument carried by poetry, and chapter 53 is where it comes to rest. (The shape of the whole, movement by movement, is set out in The Dramatic Arc at the end of this page — worth a look now if you like a map before you walk, and worth saving until afterwards if you do not.)

Follow the promise through the remaining chapters. Chapter 53 describes the Servant being “cut off out of the land of the living.” In chapter 56, the eunuch is promised an everlasting name “that shall not be cut off.” Chapter 57 then promises God’s presence with the contrite and humble. These chapters carry the reading forward—from the Servant’s suffering to promises of belonging, remembrance, and renewal.

Three questions for any chapter this week

• Who is speaking, and does the text say?
• What is being promised, and to whom?
• What does it ask of the person reading it now?

Unlike most weeks, this one skips nothing. Isaiah 50–57 is a continuous run, and all eight chapters are assigned — so this table is a map of what you are reading rather than a guide to what is being left out. Each chapter below is discussed in the walkthrough that follows.

On the Book of Mormon column. Six of these eight chapters are quoted or echoed in the Book of Mormon by the five people named in the table below. The Book of Mormon does not simply copy the King James text — some verses differ, and two of the differences are worth seeing for yourself:

• 2 Nephi 7:1 opens with a question the King James Isaiah 50:1 does not have — "Have I put thee away, or have I cast thee off forever?" — before going on to the bill of divorcement.
• In 3 Nephi 20:35, quoting Isaiah 52:10, the Savior twice puts "the Father" where Isaiah has "the LORD" and "our God," and adds seven words to the verse as He reads it: "and the Father and I are one."

On the New Testament column, the note says who is speaking, because a verse the Savior quoted and a verse a later writer applied to Him are not the same thing. A dash means none is listed here, not that none exists.

Two things the Chapter Map shows at a glance. The New Testament quotations and allusions cluster in chapters 52–54, and chapter 53 draws more of them than any other chapter this week — which is worth knowing before you start, because it tells you where the rest of scripture kept coming back to. The second is quieter. Chapter 55 reaches the Book of Mormon only as echoes: Jacob works its opening verses into his own sermon, and Nephi repeats its invitation in his (2 Nephi 9:50–51; 26:25). Chapters 56 and 57 are not quoted in it at all — yet 56, the one about the foreigner and the eunuch, is the chapter the Savior quotes in the temple scene recorded by three Gospels, standing in the house it is about.

Isaiah 50 — a voice speaks, and the chapter does not say whose — assigned

The chapter opens with God answering a charge nobody has written down, which tells you what the people had been saying. "Where is the bill of your mother's divorcement?" — produce it, if there was one. "Which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you?" — name him. The questions are rhetorical, and the answer is that no such document and no such creditor exists. Then the real answer: "for your iniquities have ye sold yourselves" (50:1). Nobody took them. There was no transaction to undo.

And then, without introduction, somebody else starts speaking.

"The Lord GOD hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary." (50:4)

Read what the gift is for. He is given a trained tongue — and the stated purpose is not to win an argument or deliver a verdict. It is "to speak a word in season to him that is weary." The whole equipment of the Servant, in the first line we hear from him, is pointed at one tired person. He is woken early to be taught, "morning by morning", and the teaching is so that he will know what to say.

Two verses later the same voice says what that costs.

"I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting." (50:6)

The verbs are the point. Not they took — I gave. Not I could not escape — I hid not. This is not a report of helplessness; it is a description of somebody not defending himself who plainly could have. And the verse after it is not a cry for rescue but a statement of confidence: "therefore have I set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed" (50:7).

Then the speech stops, and the chapter still has not said who was talking. Servant appears at 50:10, once, in someone else's sentence — "that obeyeth the voice of his servant" — and it is the only time the word occurs in the chapter. Key Passages, Passage 1, follows that observation through the chapter.

Jacob read this chapter aloud to his people (2 Nephi 7), to a group far from the land they had left. He picked the chapter that opens by denying there was ever a divorce.

Isaiah 51 — look at the rock you were cut from — assigned

If chapter 50 denies that God let them go, chapter 51 deals with the fear underneath it: there are not enough of us left for this to matter.

"Look unto the rock whence ye are hewn… Look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that bare you: for I called him alone, and blessed him, and increased him." (51:1–2)

The rock is a person. The image sounds geological until the next line names it: the quarry they were cut out of is a couple — and God's argument is that He started this with one man and one woman and no visible prospects. I called him alone. To people who can count how few they are, that is not sentiment; it is arithmetic pointed the other way.

Then the chapter does something a reader can miss at speed. Somebody calls on God to wake up.

"Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the LORD… Art thou not it that hath cut Rahab… Art thou not it which hath dried the sea…?" (51:9–10)

That is the voice of the people, remembering the Exodus and asking for it again — do what you did at the sea. It is a prayer with an edge on it, and Isaiah puts it in the book without softening it.

Rahab and “the dragon” recall the Lord’s power to make a way through overwhelming danger. Isaiah immediately connects these images to deliverance through the sea. This Rahab differs from Rahab of Jericho; Historical & Cultural Context, “Rahab: Remembering the God Who Made a Way” explains the names and the ancient imagery.

God answers their plea with reassurance. "I, even I, am he that comforteth you: who art thou, that thou shouldest be afraid of a man that shall die?" (Isaiah 51:12). They have called upon Him to awaken; He reminds them that He is already their comforter. The question redirects their attention from the mortal powers threatening them to the God who sustains them. Those threats are real, but they are not greater than He is.

And then, at 51:17, the call changes direction: "Awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem." Earlier, the people called upon the Lord's arm to awaken and deliver them as He had delivered their ancestors. Now Jerusalem herself is called to rise.

The chapter pictures her staggering under suffering and divine judgment, like someone who has drunk more than she can bear. This is the "cup of trembling": not ordinary wine, but an image of devastation that has left her overwhelmed and unable to stand. The call to awaken is therefore more than an instruction to try harder. It accompanies the Lord's promise to change her circumstances.

He takes the cup from her hand and places it in the hands of those who afflicted her. The Lord who judged His people now pleads their cause. Jerusalem is called to stand because the suffering that brought her low will not have the final word. (Isaiah 51:21–23)

Isaiah 52 — Zion is told to put on the strength she asked God for — assigned

This is the payoff of the exchange, and it turns on four words. At 51:9 the people said to God: "put on strength, O arm of the LORD." At 52:1 God says to Zion:

"Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion."

The same phrase, given back. They asked Him to put on strength; He tells them to put on theirs. Compare the two verses side by side: the repeated words connect the people's prayer with the Lord's answer. Jerusalem is told to put on beautiful garments, shake herself from the dust, and loosen the captive bonds around her neck (52:1–2). These are images of restored dignity: the woman brought low is called to rise and take her place again.

This restoration leads toward the redemption of the bride. Here Jerusalem is the captive daughter of Zion; in chapter 54, the covenant relationship becomes an explicit marriage image, with her Maker named as her husband and Redeemer. Read together, the chapters portray more than release from captivity. They promise renewed belonging and a relationship sustained by the Lord's mercy. (Isaiah 54:5–8)

For a Christian reader, the scene can also recall Jesus taking Jairus's daughter by the hand and calling her to arise. His command accompanies the power that restores her to life. It is a devotional parallel that helps us hear Jerusalem's summons: she is not left to find strength alone; the Lord announces the deliverance that makes rising possible. (Mark 5:41–42)

Then the economics of it, in one line: "Ye have sold yourselves for nought; and ye shall be redeemed without money" (52:3). They got nothing for themselves, and it will cost them nothing to get back. Three chapters later that same arithmetic becomes an invitation — "buy… without money and without price" (55:1).

The best-known line in the chapter is a pair of feet.

"How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace." (52:7)

Someone is running down out of the hills toward a city that does not yet know the war is over. It is the feet that are called beautiful — filthy, probably bleeding — because of what they are carrying.

And this is the verse a priest of King Noah used as a trap. In Mosiah 12:19–21 the priests question Abinadi "that they might cross him", and the question they choose is what do these words mean — then they quote Isaiah 52:7. The answer he gives them runs on for chapters and arrives at Isaiah 53, quoted in full in Mosiah 14. We will come back to that.

Two more things before the chapter turns. The departure is not a flight. "Depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from thence… For ye shall not go out with haste, nor go by flight" (52:11–12) — and that is deliberately unlike the first exodus, where the Passover was eaten "in haste", shoes on, staff in hand (Exodus 12:11). The first time they ran. This time they walk, with God at the front and the back of the column.

And then, at 52:13, the unnamed figure from chapter 50 returns — this time described from outside, by God: "Behold, my servant shall deal prudently, he shall be exalted." The exaltation is announced first, before a word about suffering. Then the suffering, and it is disfiguring: "his visage was so marred more than any man" (52:14). And the result is silence in high places — "the kings shall shut their mouths at him: for that which had not been told them shall they see" (52:15).

The chapter break here is a later convenience, not a division in the poem. Isaiah 52:13 begins the passage that chapter 53 finishes, and reading 53 without these three verses starts the story in the middle.

Isaiah 53 — the suffering Servant the chapter will not name — assigned

The first thing to notice is who is talking. Chapter 53 is spoken by a we — and what that we has to say is a confession.

"Who hath believed our report? … he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him." (53:1–2)

They are not describing a stranger. They are describing someone they looked at and did not want. "We hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not" (53:3).

And then comes the line the whole chapter turns on — which is, of all things, a sentence about how they read him wrong.

"Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted." (53:4)

Read what they admit. They saw a man suffering and concluded that God was against him. They mistook His affliction for evidence of divine rejection. But the next verse reverses their understanding: "But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities" (Isaiah 53:5). The suffering they took as evidence against Him was being carried on their behalf. They had seen His pain without understanding His love.

That is worth sitting with, because it is a mistake people still make—about others, and about themselves. We see illness, loss, poverty, or a life that has come apart, and we can begin to imagine that the circumstances reveal someone's standing with God. Sometimes we turn that judgment inward: If God loved me, would this be happening? Have I done something to deserve it?

A hard life is not a verdict. Suffering alone cannot tell us whether someone is faithful, loved, or accepted by God. Isaiah's speakers discover that the person they had judged was the very one bearing their griefs. Their confession asks us to reconsider not only how we understand the Servant, but how readily we pass judgment on anyone whose suffering we do not understand.

Read in light of Jesus Christ, the passage offers another reassurance: the Savior's suffering does not reveal the absence of God's love, but the depth of it. When we suffer, we need not interpret our pain as proof that He has turned against us. The One who carried our sorrows knows what they weigh.

Then the sound goes out of it. "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" (53:7). Twice in one verse: he did not answer. And then, plainly, "he was cut off out of the land of the living" (53:8).

And then the chapter does something a funeral does not do. It turns forward.

"He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied… 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." (53:11–12)

He shall see. He shall be satisfied. The verbs go future after the death, and nobody in the chapter explains how.

And it never says who he is

Fifty-three chapters in, the most detailed description of a person in the book is attached to no name at all. That is not an oversight a reader has to work around — it is the chapter as written, and it is why this passage has been argued over for as long as it has existed.

And scripture itself records somebody asking. An Ethiopian official, reading this chapter on the road, put to Philip the question it provokes:

"I pray thee, of whom speaketh the prophet this? of himself, or of some other man?" (Acts 8:34)

That is the honest question, asked in the text, by a man with the scroll open in front of him.

Latter-day Saints answer it with Jesus Christ, and so does the New Testament — but notice how carefully it does so. At the Last Supper the Savior takes one line of this chapter and applies it to Himself: "this that is written must yet be accomplished in me, And he was reckoned among the transgressors" (Luke 22:37, quoting 53:12). He names the verse and He names Himself. The other quotations of this chapter in the New Testament are made by Paul, by Peter, by Matthew and John writing narration — and one by a man in a chariot who was still asking. (Which is which is set out in the chapter map above, and the settings in Key Passages.)

And the earliest full treatment of this chapter in the Book of Mormon is a man on trial for his life. Abinadi quotes all twelve verses to King Noah's priests — the priests who had opened by quoting Isaiah 52:7 at him to trip him up — and then spends the following chapter explaining what he has just read them (Mosiah 14; Mosiah 15). They asked him a question about a messenger's feet. He answered with the chapter about the man nobody wanted to look at.

(Jewish tradition reads the Servant of this chapter differently, and Jewish Perspective sets out what it says in its own terms. It is not our reading and is not offered as one.)

Isaiah 54 — build for children you do not have — assigned

After chapter 53, the next thing that happens is singing — and it is addressed to the last person you would ask to sing.

"Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear… for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife." (54:1)

Then the instruction gets practical, and slightly absurd: "Enlarge the place of thy tent… spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes" (54:2). She is told to make the house bigger before there is anybody to put in it. That is what the chapter asks of a people who can count how few they are: build for the family you have been promised, not the one you can see.

Then the chapter admits what it is up against.

"For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee. In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee." (54:7–8)

Notice that it does not deny the forsaking. It measures it. A small moment against everlasting kindness — and the two halves of that comparison are not the same size, which is the whole point. It is not a claim that the loss was small. It is a claim about proportion, made to people for whom the moment had lasted their whole lives.

And then the chapter does something remarkable: it stakes the promise on an oath the reader already knows.

"For this is as the waters of Noah unto me: for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth; so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee." (54:9)

That is the promise God made after the flood, with the rainbow as its token (Genesis 9:11–15). Isaiah invokes that familiar covenant to reassure people who fear they have been abandoned: the Lord's promise of mercy is dependable. Then he reaches for something that seems immovable: "the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee" (54:10). Even the landscape is less enduring than His covenant love. Their world may have changed beyond recognition, but His commitment to them has not.

The chapter ends with the line people carry: "No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper" (54:17) — spoken, in its own setting, to a community that had lost a war.

Two people carried this chapter forward. The Savior quotes verse 13 in the Bread of Life discourse — "It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God" (John 6:45) — and in 3 Nephi 22 He reads the whole chapter aloud to the Nephites, a people who could hear it as their own case, broken off and left small.

Isaiah 55 — an invitation with no price on it — assigned

The invitation is shouted, like a trader calling across a market.

"Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price." (55:1)

The invitation includes the person who has nothing to pay with. Water, wine, and milk stand before the thirsty and hungry, but lack of money does not exclude them. The Lord's invitation is not come back when you can afford it, but come and receive. This carries forward the promise of redemption without money in Isaiah 52:3, now pictured as nourishment freely offered.

Then comes the question: if the Lord offers what sustains us, why spend ourselves on what leaves us hungry?

"Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not?" (55:2)

It is not addressed to people with nothing. It is addressed to people who are spending. Money is going out and labour is being spent, and the return on both is not bread. That is a question worth putting to an ordinary week.

The verse that is almost always quoted out of its own argument

Everyone knows "my thoughts are not your thoughts." Fewer people read the sentence immediately before it, and it changes what the line is doing.

"Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD… for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD." (55:7–8)

That little word for ties them together. The reason God pardons abundantly — beyond what the returning man would think reasonable — is that His thoughts are not ours. The verse is usually quoted to explain why hard things happen and God's reasons are hidden. In its own paragraph it is doing something warmer and more specific: it is explaining the size of His mercy, to somebody who has just been told to come back and is privately certain the welcome will be smaller than promised.

(Verse 7 makes the link deliberately: the unrighteous man is told to forsake his thoughts, and the next verse tells him whose thoughts are higher.)

After the invitation to receive freely and the assurance that the Lord will abundantly pardon, the chapter grounds its promise in something familiar:

"For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven… and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth… it shall accomplish that which I please." (Isaiah 55:10–11)

The rain becomes bread. It falls into the earth, nourishes the seed, and brings forth grain that will feed someone. What first appears as weather becomes sustenance. Its work takes time, and much of it happens out of sight, but the harvest reveals what the water has been doing.

That is Isaiah's image for God's word. Chapter 54 assures us that His covenant love endures; chapter 55 shows that His word accomplishes what He promises. We may not immediately see how His promises are taking root. The image invites patience and confidence: what begins as rain becomes something we can live on.

And the chapter ends by sending them home singing, with the countryside joining in: "the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands" (55:12).

Isaiah 56 — hope for two people who feared they did not belong — assigned

Isaiah 56 opens with a promise: "Keep ye judgment, and do justice: for my salvation is near to come, and my righteousness to be revealed" (56:1). It is a message of hope before it becomes an instruction. Then it addresses two people who had good reason to fear they did not quite belong.

"Neither let the son of the stranger, that hath joined himself to the LORD, speak, saying, The LORD hath utterly separated me from his people: neither let the eunuch say, Behold, I am a dry tree." (56:3)

Both sentences are things a person says about himself. The foreigner has concluded he is outside. The eunuch has concluded he is finished — a dry tree is one that will not fruit. Isaiah does not treat either conclusion as shameful, foolish, or a denial of real circumstances. He answers each fear with God’s approaching salvation and with a promise of belonging that those circumstances cannot cancel. (The law of Moses had rulings that bore on both men; Historical & Cultural Context, section 1, sets them out.)

What is offered in exchange is specific, and it is worth reading slowly:

"Even unto them will I give in mine house and within my walls a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters: I will give them an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off." (56:5)

A man with no descendants is promised a name that outlasts descendants.

And the terms are not lowered to let him in. The door is wide; it is not a different door. (What verse 6 actually asks, and how it stands against the law's older graded system, is in Historical & Cultural Context, section 2.)

(The Ethiopian official of Acts 8 is a eunuch reading Isaiah 53. His welcome into the gospel echoes Isaiah’s promise of belonging; his story is told in Historical & Cultural Context, section 1.)

Then the line the whole chapter has been building toward:

"mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all people." (56:7)

The Savior quoted that verse in the temple, and three Gospels record it — Matthew 21:13, Mark 11:17, Luke 19:46. Only Mark keeps the words of all nations. The clause carrying Isaiah 56's whole point — that the house is for the outsider — survives in exactly one of the three. (Reading the three side by side takes a minute, and Key Passages sets it up as an exercise at Passage 9.)

And one more thing this chapter quietly does. Three chapters earlier the Servant was "cut off out of the land of the living" (53:8). Here the eunuch is promised a name "that shall not be cut off." The King James gives them the same words; the Hebrew uses two different verbs — nigzar (נִגְזַר) in 53:8 and yikkārēṯ (יִכָּרֵת) in 56:5 — both passive, both meaning to be cut off. So the echo is real without being a word-play: near-synonyms, not the same word. What the Servant loses, this man is promised he will keep.

Isaiah 57 — where God says He lives — assigned

The chapter opens on a grief most people have felt and few have seen named in scripture:

"The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart: and merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come." (57:1)

Good people die and nobody notices. That is the complaint, and Isaiah does not soften it. He adds only that the one taken has been spared something — "He shall enter into peace: they shall rest in their beds" (57:2).

The middle of the chapter exposes a world in which human life has been treated as expendable. Righteous people die without anyone taking their loss to heart; children are sacrificed in the valleys amid idolatrous worship. These are not simply descriptions of false religious practices. They reveal the suffering of people whose lives others have failed to cherish. (Isaiah 57:1–5)

Against that background, God says where He lives: in the high and holy place, and with the contrite and humble in spirit, to revive them.

"For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones." (57:15)

We might imagine that closeness to God belongs to those whose lives look secure, respected, and unmistakably blessed. Isaiah directs our attention elsewhere—to the humble and contrite, including those whose suffering has left them feeling overlooked or abandoned. Being disregarded by others does not mean being forgotten by God.

He does not describe their brokenness as a reason to keep His distance. He names their need for renewal as a reason to dwell with them. Not visiting. Dwelling. The Holy One who inhabits eternity makes room for the person who feels there is no room for them anywhere. (Marking the two dwellings for yourself is set up in Key Passages, Passage 10.)

The chapter closes by speaking peace "to him that is far off, and to him that is near" (57:19) — the same widening the eunuch and the foreigner were promised one chapter earlier. And then, unsoftened: "There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked" (57:21). The invitation is wide open and it is not unconditional. Both halves are in the same chapter, and a lesson that keeps only one of them is not teaching Isaiah 57.

Isaiah's portrait asks us to look again—at the Servant, at people whose suffering we may have misunderstood, and at ourselves. The Ethiopian official in his chariot asked, "of whom speaketh the prophet this?" Every reader is asked that question too, and another with it: what becomes visible when we stop treating hardship as evidence of rejection?

The eight chapters move in four motions. Knowing which one you are in makes the week much easier to read.

1. A voice starts speaking — 50 to 52. Someone unintroduced describes being struck and not resisting. Then the scene widens: Jerusalem is told to wake up, to shake off the dust, to put on the strength she had asked God to put on, and a messenger comes over the mountains ahead of the news.
2. The portrait — 53. The week stops moving and looks at one person. This is the chapter everything else is arranged around, and it is the shortest stretch of the week.
3. What it buys — 54 and 55. The tone changes completely: singing, a tent enlarged, an oath recalling Noah, food handed out to people with no money. If the middle felt heavy, this is where the week breathes.
4. Who is let in — 56 and 57. The door opens wider than its first hearers expected, and then the chapter says where God actually lives.

These chapters invite us to reconsider whom we overlook and what we assume about them. Who have we judged by circumstances we do not understand? Where have we mistaken our own grief, limitations, or losses for proof that we do not belong?

A hard life is not a verdict—but learning to believe that can change how we treat people. We can listen before explaining their suffering, offer companionship without demanding a reason for their pain, and make room for those who fear there is no place for them.

We can also bring our own weariness to the Lord without first making it look respectable. His invitation is not reserved for people whose lives appear whole.

If you do one thing with this week: read Isaiah 53 straight through, then read it in Mosiah 14, where Abinadi speaks these words before the priests judging him. Notice what that setting brings into focus. What do you hear differently when the person reading about the suffering Servant is himself facing condemnation?

Continue to Historical & Cultural Context.

Much of Isaiah 50–55 speaks to people facing exile and longing for restoration. Chapters 56–57 broaden the setting, addressing questions of worship, belonging, injustice, and faithfulness; a scholarly reading of Isaiah's later chapters places them against life in Judah after the return (the exiles' return from Babylon). These chapters need not all address the same audience or historical moment.

The Book of Mormon adds an important Latter-day Saint perspective to the question of when these prophecies were recorded. Its account suggests that prophecies commonly assigned to “Second Isaiah” (a scholarly designation for Isaiah 40–55) were already available on the brass plates before Lehi’s family left Jerusalem. In Their Imperfect Best: Isaianic Authorship from an LDS Perspective, Daniel T. Ellsworth proposes an approach that takes predictive prophecy seriously while recognising that Isaiah’s writings were gathered, transmitted, and edited over time. This allows us to distinguish the people a prophecy addresses from the time its underlying message was first revealed.

In Isaiah 56 a eunuch gives words to a fear about himself:

"neither let the eunuch say, Behold, I am a dry tree." (Isaiah 56:3)

A dry tree is one that will not bear fruit. In a society where children carried a family’s name into the future, a man unable to have children could fear that his name, his place, and his legacy would end with him.

For some men, this loss had been imposed on them. Eunuchs held important positions in Assyrian courts, where their inability to establish hereditary dynasties could make them seem less threatening to the king. Isaiah warns Hezekiah that some of his descendants would be taken away to serve as eunuchs in Babylon’s palace. Captivity could mean losing not only home and freedom, but the possibility of descendants. Assyrian court eunuchs, Isaiah 39:7.

Daniel and his companions—Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego—are sometimes understood against this background. They were captive youths selected for royal service under the chief of the eunuchs. Their physical condition is not explicitly stated; the court title alone does not settle it. Daniel 1:3–7, Old Testament student manual, section 28-4.

The eunuch’s concern also had a religious dimension. Deuteronomy restricted entry into the congregation for men with certain injuries to their reproductive organs. Someone could suffer a loss through another person’s violence and then encounter exclusion because of that condition. Deuteronomy 23:1.

God answers that fear with a promise of belonging. To eunuchs who keep His sabbaths, choose what pleases Him, and hold fast to His covenant, He promises:

"Even unto them will I give in mine house and within my walls a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters." (Isaiah 56:4–5)

In mine house. He fears that his name and future will end with him; God promises an everlasting name. What others may have taken from him will not determine the limits of his future with God.

Jesus’ teaching helps us approach these circumstances with compassion. When questioned about divorce, He distinguishes Moses’ concession to the people’s hardness of heart from God’s purpose for marriage from the beginning. In the conversation that follows, He recognises differing circumstances: some are born eunuchs, some are made so by others, and some forgo marriage for the kingdom of heaven. His explanation about divorce is not a direct explanation of the eunuch restriction, but the conversation recognises that people’s lives do not all follow the same pattern. Matthew 19:3–12.

That matters today. Someone who is single, has experienced divorce, cannot have children, or has lost the family life they hoped for may recognise something of this fear: Is there still a place for me? What will become of the promises I have trusted? Their experiences differ from the eunuch’s, but the question of belonging can be painfully familiar.

Isaiah does not dismiss that grief. His reassurance is that those circumstances do not exhaust a faithful person’s future with God. The Lord promises a place within His house—not a lesser place at its edges.

Acts gives this thread a memorable human encounter. An Ethiopian man, described as both a eunuch and the official responsible for his queen’s treasury, is reading Isaiah 53 when Philip approaches him. Acts 8:32–33 quotes Isaiah 53:7–8 directly. He asks whom the prophet is describing, and Philip begins with that passage and teaches him about Jesus. When they reach water, the man asks what would prevent his baptism. He is baptised and continues his journey rejoicing. Acts 8:27–39.

Read alongside Isaiah 56’s promise of belonging, his baptism offers a moving connection: the man seeking to understand the suffering Servant is himself welcomed into the gospel and goes on his way rejoicing.

A note on the word: Hebrew sārîs (סָרִיס) can refer to a eunuch or a court official. That range explains why court titles alone cannot establish someone’s physical condition.

The other person in Isaiah 56:3 is “the son of the stranger”—a foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord but fears that his ancestry still keeps him outside God’s people.

That fear had a history. Deuteronomy 23 treated different peoples differently: Ammonites and Moabites faced a lasting restriction, while descendants of Edomites and Egyptians could enter the congregation in the third generation. The passage connects these distinctions to remembered relationships between nations—hostility, kinship, and Israel’s former residence in Egypt. These boundaries involved a people’s history, not simply an individual’s faith. Deuteronomy 23:3–8.

Israel’s concern about assimilation also deserves to be understood. They were a small covenant people among nations whose worship, customs, and political power could draw them away from the Lord. Preserving their identity meant preserving the faith and practices they were entrusted to pass to their children. Deuteronomy’s warning about intermarriage names that concern directly: being turned away from the Lord to serve other gods. The stated concern is covenant faithfulness, not a claim that another people has less worth. Deuteronomy 7:3–8.

That helps us understand why these boundaries mattered, even as we recognise the painful questions they raised for individuals. A foreigner could sincerely love the Lord and still wonder: Is there a place for me among His people?

Isaiah’s welcome does not require Israel to abandon its covenant. It welcomes others into it. The foreigners he describes serve the Lord, love His name, keep His sabbath, and hold fast to His covenant. God promises to bring them into His holy mountain, accept their worship, and make them joyful in His house. Their ancestry does not disqualify them from that welcome. His house is to be “an house of prayer for all people.” Isaiah 56:6–8.

Across scripture, protecting covenant faithfulness and extending welcome sometimes stand in tension. Section 1 noted Jesus’ distinction, in Matthew 19, between Moses’ concession and God’s purpose from the beginning. That distinction concerns divorce; it does not settle the origin of every other restriction. But it invites us to examine inherited boundaries carefully. Those boundaries must not become ammunition for judging another person’s inherent value before God.

These questions are not confined to the ancient world. Ethnic division has wounded societies and religious communities, including our own. The Church’s account of its former priesthood and temple restrictions acknowledges the surrounding racial prejudice and rejects theories that race indicates divine disfavor or inferiority. That history deserves honest attention without assuming that every ancient restriction had the same origin or purpose. “Race and the Priesthood”.

The invitation is clear even where the history is difficult: God is “no respecter of persons,” and “all are alike unto God.” He invites every person to come unto Him. Preserving a faithful community and welcoming people of other nations need not be opposing purposes. Isaiah helps us hear that invitation from the position of someone who has feared exclusion—and asks whether our own communities help that person recognise the welcome God offers. Acts 10:34–35, 2 Nephi 26:33.

Isaiah 56 repeatedly connects keeping the Sabbath with holding fast to God’s covenant. For people who feared they stood outside His community, these observances expressed an enduring relationship with the Lord. The eunuch and the foreigner are specifically included in that invitation. Isaiah 56:2–6.

Israel’s sacred calendar involved more than the seventh day of each week. The weekly Sabbath stood alongside annual festivals and appointed days of rest, several of which are also described as sabbaths. These occasions set apart time to remember God’s deliverance, humble themselves before Him, rejoice in His blessings, and teach the next generation. Covenant remembrance had a recurring place in their lives—not only something they recalled when a crisis came. Leviticus 23.

During the exile, the loss of the temple disrupted the sacrifices and gatherings associated with that calendar. But it did not make every expression of covenant faithfulness impossible. Rest, prayer, remembrance, and instruction could continue within homes and families. Leviticus describes Sabbath observance “in all your dwellings”; Daniel portrays prayer continuing in his home, even under a decree that made it dangerous. Leviticus 23:3, Daniel 6:10.

Such practices could preserve the memory and meaning of temple worship without replacing its ordinances. Families could continue remembering whose people they were and teaching their children about the God who had delivered them. Isaiah 56 looks to a time of worship at the altar again: the faithful foreigner's offerings "shall be accepted upon mine altar" (Isaiah 56:7).

The Sabbath was therefore not only something the people preserved; it helped preserve them. Centuries later, the Jewish writer Ahad Ha’am expressed this memorably: “More than the people of Israel kept Shabbat, Shabbat kept them.” Writing in 1898, he described its power to renew Jewish life from week to week—a rhythm that sustained a people’s identity across generations and changing circumstances. Ahad Ha’am’s statement and its context.

Sacred time is not merely our remembering God; it is also a way He blesses and sustains us as we obey His laws. Setting apart time for rest, worship, and covenant remembrance helps us receive His instruction, renew our relationship with Him, and strengthen our homes and communities. The Sabbath is both a commandment to keep and a gift through which God helps keep His people.

That makes Isaiah’s welcome especially meaningful. The eunuch and the foreigner who hold fast to the covenant are promised a place in God’s house. Their circumstances do not put them beyond His reach: He receives their faithfulness and promises them belonging and joy. The sacred rhythm that sustains His people is open to them too. Isaiah 56:4–7.

Before You Read sets out whom these chapters address. For the history behind their exile, Jerusalem's fall and the deportation to Babylon, and for the questions about when Isaiah's words were written, see last week's Historical & Cultural Context.

Here, the poems seldom name a king, year, or event that would let us date each passage precisely. Their immediate concerns are personal and communal: Who belongs to God's people? What does suffering mean? Can those who feel excluded trust that God has a place for them? Understanding that setting helps us hear the force of their promises without assuming that every poem describes the same moment or addresses exactly the same audience.

Rahab: Remembering the God Who Made a Way

Isaiah 51 begins by asking the people to remember Abraham and Sarah—the “rock whence ye are hewn.” God called Abraham “alone,” blessed him, and increased him. For people uncertain of their future, their beginnings offer reason to hope: God had already brought a people into being from circumstances that seemed to promise very little. Isaiah 51:1–3.

The chapter then recalls another beginning: deliverance through the sea. The people call upon the Lord’s arm, remembering the defeat of Rahab and “the dragon.”

This Rahab is a poetic image associated with a sea monster and with Egypt. It differs from Rahab of Jericho, who sheltered Joshua’s spies: the two names are spelled differently in Hebrew, although English translations render both as Rahab. Rahab in biblical poetry, Rahab of Jericho.

Rahab belongs to a wider pattern of sea-and-dragon imagery in biblical poetry. Isaiah elsewhere describes Leviathan as a fleeing and twisting serpent, alongside the dragon in the sea. Psalm 74 places the breaking of the dragons’ heads beside the crushing of Leviathan’s heads. Isaiah 27:1, Psalm 74:13–14.

Israel’s biblical poets used imagery familiar in the ancient world to portray the Lord’s power over overwhelming danger and opposition. Sea monsters and dragon-like serpents appeared in the religious stories of neighbouring cultures, giving these poetic images a recognisable force.

In Egypt, the great serpent Apep—also called Apophis—threatened the sun god Ra’s journey through the underworld. The serpent sought to prevent the sun from rising; its defeat represented the continuation of light, life, and the ordered world. Egyptian art depicts Ra and his companions overcoming it, and some accounts describe Seth protecting Ra against its attack. These stories provide cultural background for understanding the imagery’s force. Emory’s Carlos Museum: Apophis, Egyptian Museum: Seth.

We can recognise a similar storytelling pattern in later tales of heroes overcoming dragons: a threatening creature gives danger a visible shape, and its defeat represents deliverance. The Ancient Tradition podcast explores these comparisons in “Sea Monsters, Sea Serpents & Leviathans” and “A Cosmic Kingdom”. These are comparative interpretations; the resemblance between stories does not by itself establish their precise historical relationship.

Isaiah directs his people’s confidence toward the Lord. Immediately after mentioning Rahab and the dragon, he recalls the Lord drying the sea and making a path for the redeemed to cross. Psalm 89 likewise places the Lord’s rule over the raging sea beside His defeat of Rahab. Familiar cultural images give the danger a recognisable shape, while Israel’s remembered Exodus recalls who delivered them. Isaiah 51:9–10, Psalm 89:9–10.

Ancestry, deliverance, and restoration belong together in this chapter. The Lord brought a multitude from Abraham and Sarah and opened a path through the sea. Now the people look toward a return to Zion. Their prayer draws courage from those memories: You made a way for Your people before; make a way for us again. Isaiah 51:11.

Some of Isaiah’s most moving passages describe those called to serve the Lord: their calling, their willingness to listen, their suffering, and the work God accomplishes through them. Four passages are commonly grouped as the Servant Songs. Understanding their poetic form helps us recognize not only what they say, but how they lead us toward understanding it.

The name became established through Bernhard Duhm’s 1892 commentary. Isaiah does not give these passages this heading or number them, but the grouping draws attention to related themes. Scholars differ over their precise boundaries and how distinctly they should be separated from their surrounding chapters. Background on the designation.

“Servant” does not necessarily identify the same individual throughout Isaiah. The Lord explicitly calls Israel His servant in some passages. Elsewhere, a servant speaks as an individual or receives a task involving Israel. In Isaiah 49, for example, the servant is called “Israel,” yet is also commissioned to bring Jacob back and gather Israel. That relationship invites careful reading rather than a single identification imposed everywhere. Isaiah 41:8–9, Isaiah 49:3–6.

Poetry can bring individual and collective experience together: one figure may embody a people’s calling, and a people’s experience may illuminate an individual’s mission. The four passages share themes of calling, obedience, suffering, and deliverance. Those connections invite us to read them together without assuming that a shared title always means an identical referent.

The first two appeared in last week’s reading; the latter two belong to this week. In each, notice who speaks, whom the Lord addresses, and what work the servant is called to do.

Why Call Them “Songs”?

These passages are poetry, and poetry asks us to listen differently. Rather than depending on the end-rhymes familiar in many English poems, they develop meaning through paired lines, recurring phrases, vivid images, contrasts, and changes of voice. One line may echo another, deepen it, or turn our understanding in a new direction.

The received Hebrew text also carries cantillation marks—signs that guide chanting, stress, pauses, and the grouping of phrases. They help a reader hear which words belong together and where a thought reaches its resting place. Such marks occur throughout the Hebrew Bible; Isaiah uses the general accent system rather than the distinct system used in Psalms, Proverbs, and the poetic portions of Job. Their presence connects these passages with the broader tradition of chanted scripture rather than identifying a separate musical genre. Cantillation and its functions, the two accent systems.

The written notation is later than Isaiah, but the oral tradition did not necessarily begin when the marks were written down. Research on the Tiberian reading tradition recognizes roots reaching into antiquity. The marks preserve a way of hearing the text; they do not, by themselves, date its composition or recover its original melody. Geoffrey Khan, The Tiberian Pronunciation Tradition.

Isaiah 50: Listening Before Speaking

The speaker in Isaiah 50 begins with a gift: the ability to speak a sustaining word to someone weary. The verse then describes the listening through which he is taught:

“He wakeneth morning by morning,

he wakeneth mine ear to hear.”

The repeated awakening slows our attention. This is continuing instruction, received morning after morning. The next verse carries the image forward: the Lord opens his ear, and he does not turn away. His readiness to speak grows from his willingness to hear. Isaiah 50:4–5.

The poem then moves from instruction to opposition. The speaker offers his back to those who strike him and does not hide his face from shame and spitting. Yet his confidence returns in verses 7 and 9: “the Lord GOD will help me.” That recurring assurance holds the passage together. His courage rests in the Lord who teaches and sustains him. Isaiah 50:6–9.

Read the passage aloud and notice its movement: he is taught, he responds, he suffers, and he trusts. Its arrangement helps us see how those experiences belong together. We can recognize a pattern of faithful prophetic service while also considering how Christians see that pattern fulfilled in Christ.

Isaiah 52–53: Learning to Recognize the Servant

The fourth passage begins at Isaiah 52:13, where God introduces “my servant.” The chapter break at Isaiah 53 falls within the unfolding poem.

One common reading follows five movements:

This is a helpful arrangement, not the only proposed division. Scholars also examine the changing voices and the way God’s declarations about His servant frame the account of suffering. Such opening-and-closing correspondences help explain proposals for chiastic structures—arrangements in which later elements mirror earlier ones. Particular maps remain interpretations to examine, rather than conclusions supplied by the name “song.” Research on structure, voice, and repetition.

At the heart of the poem, paired lines make the relationship unmistakable:

“He was wounded for our transgressions,

he was bruised for our iniquities.”

The second line reinforces the first: his suffering stands beside their wrongdoing. The speakers are learning to see differently. What they had taken as evidence against him becomes the suffering he was bearing on their behalf. Isaiah 53:4–5.

The poetry carries that recognition. Repetition brings the speakers back to what they missed; contrasts expose their mistaken judgment; the movement toward vindication asks them to reconsider the meaning of the suffering they witnessed.

Ancient Poetry, Continuing Witness

Within Isaiah, these passages belong to the larger message of comfort, deliverance, and restoration. Their related themes help us consider the different dimensions of serving the Lord: a people’s covenant calling, a prophetic voice’s obedience, and a servant’s suffering on behalf of others.

Their poetic distinctiveness has prompted questions about whether they once circulated independently. Scholars have proposed different relationships between these passages and the surrounding book. Neither their poetic structure nor their cantillation alone establishes that they were composed earlier than their present context. The broader authorship and dating question is addressed in last week’s Historical & Cultural Context. Discussion of their literary relationships.

Later scripture gives Latter-day Saints strong reasons to recognize Jesus Christ in these passages. Abinadi recites Isaiah 53 and explains redemption through Christ. Philip begins with the Ethiopian official’s reading of the servant led like a sheep to slaughter and teaches him about Jesus. Mosiah 14–15, Acts 8:30–35.

Those witnesses enrich our reading without requiring every servant reference throughout Isaiah to refer exclusively to the Savior. We can attend to Israel’s calling, the experiences of prophetic servants, and patterns fulfilled in Christ—sometimes through overlapping layers of the poetry. The differing Jewish and Christian interpretations receive fuller attention in Jewish Perspective, section 3.

Try reading these passages aloud. Listen for what returns, notice who is speaking, and pause where understanding changes. Let each passage introduce its servant in its own context. Then consider how its witness helps you recognize the Lord’s work—and the One who came to sustain the weary and bear our griefs.

Continue to Key Passages.

How to use this section. Each passage begins with the scripture text, then explores how its wording, imagery, repetitions, and changes of voice help communicate its message. Related scriptures, prophetic teachings, and historical and literary sources offer additional perspectives and connections, including ways the passage speaks to our lives today. Questions and activities invite you to examine those connections in your own scriptures—building confidence in reading closely, weighing interpretations, and discovering connections yourself. Weekly Insights develops some of these themes further.

The Text

"The Lord GOD hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary… I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting."

(Isaiah 50:4, 6)

How the Passage Works

Follow the speaker's responses. The Lord teaches him and opens his ear; he does not turn back. When others strike and humiliate him, he says I gave, I hid not, I set my face. These phrases emphasize his willingness to remain faithful through opposition. They do not make the cruelty less real or place responsibility for it on the one being hurt.

Notice where his confidence returns. Verses 7 and 9 both say "the Lord GOD will help me." That repeated assurance holds together his listening, obedience, and endurance. Weekly Insights, “One Verse to Take With You,” develops the personal invitation to learn before speaking.

The word servant appears once in Isaiah 50, at verse 10 — after the speech is over, and in a different voice: "that obeyeth the voice of his servant." The label arrives late and from outside.

(This is the third of the four passages commonly called the Servant Songs. That grouping is a modern convention rather than a division Isaiah made — Historical & Cultural Context, section 5.)

Try This

Read verses 4 through 9 and underline every I and me. Then read verse 10 and notice who is speaking now, and about whom. The change of voice between 9 and 10 is the thing to see.

Latter-day Saint Connections

• Jacob read this chapter to his people as 2 Nephi 7. 2 Nephi 6:1, 4–5 establishes who is speaking across these chapters.
• The Gospels record the scene verse 6 describes. At His trial "some began to spit on him, and to cover his face, and to buffet him" (Mark 14:65; see also Matthew 26:67). Mark tells it without citing Isaiah; a reader who has just read 50:6 recognises it.
• What Isaiah adds is the word gave. The Gospels tell what was done to Him. Isaiah's speaker tells it from the inside: I gave my back, I hid not my face. The Savior said the same of His life: "No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself" (John 10:18).

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland describes the Savior's continued faithfulness through anguish:

“But Jesus held on. He pressed on.” — “None Were with Him”, April 2009.

His message helps illuminate the willingness expressed in Isaiah's “I gave my back”: Christ's suffering reveals His steadfast love and commitment to our redemption.

For your week. The speaker's strength is not that the blows did not come. It is verse 7: "For the Lord GOD will help me; therefore shall I not be confounded," and verse 8: "He is near that justifieth me." If you are carrying something hard this week, the passage offers the same footing: help that is near, and a face set like flint toward the One who gives it.

The Text

"Look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged. Look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that bare you: for I called him alone, and blessed him, and increased him."

(Isaiah 51:1–2)

How the Passage Works

Verse 1 gives an image; verse 2 explains it. The command to look to the rock and quarry becomes a command to remember Abraham and Sarah. Reading the paired verses together lets Isaiah supply the meaning of his own image.

Then follow the actions attributed to God: called, blessed, increased. The reassurance rests not simply on ancestry, but on what the Lord has already done. Verse 3 carries that pattern into Zion's future: He will comfort her and make her wilderness fruitful.

Try This

Read verse 1, stop, and guess what the rock is before reading verse 2. Then check. Doing that once teaches you to wait for Isaiah's own gloss instead of supplying your own.

Latter-day Saint Connections

• Elder Russell M. Nelson, then of the Quorum of the Twelve, gave "Children of the Covenant" (April 1995). He does not quote Isaiah 51, but he teaches what Isaiah asks his hearers to do: look back to Abraham to learn who you are. "A giant step toward spiritual immunity is taken when we understand the expression 'children of the covenant,'" he said, and he explained the covenant made with Abraham and renewed with Isaac and Jacob. He spoke weeks after the death of his daughter Emily, and he closed with what that identity had given him: "With that doctrine implanted deeply within our souls, the sting of death is soothed and spiritual protection is provided." Isaiah ties the same two things together. Verse 2 points to Abraham; verse 3 promises that "the LORD shall comfort Zion."

For your week. When hope feels difficult, what past experience reminds you of God’s care? Isaiah asks his people to remember how the Lord called, blessed, and increased Abraham and Sarah. How might remembering His care in your own life help you face what lies ahead?

The Text

"How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!"

(Isaiah 52:7)

How the Passage Works

Read the verse for its repetitions. Good tidings twice, publisheth twice. The doubling is the point: this is a messenger whose whole description is what he is carrying.

Notice how the feet stand for the messenger's arrival. The image joins the bearer to the good news he brings: peace, salvation, and God's reign. The next verses widen the response from one messenger to watchmen and a city singing together.

Where It Goes

Three of its appearances are worth setting side by side, because the speakers could hardly be less alike:

Elder Keith W. Wilcox closed "Look for the Beautiful" (April 1985) with this verse, citing Isaiah, Mosiah and 3 Nephi together. His point is about the messengers: "As we live righteous and unselfish lives, the Spirit of the Lord enters our souls and then radiates from us. We become beautiful… And as missionaries we can help others to become beautiful." He is applying Isaiah's image rather than explaining Isaiah 52, and the application fits the verse: what makes the feet beautiful is what they carry.

Try This

Read the priest's question in Mosiah 12:20–21, then read Abinadi's answer, which runs to the end of Mosiah 16. He is asked about a messenger's feet and replies with Isaiah 53. He comes back to the feet explicitly at Mosiah 15:14–18 — read that before you decide why it is an answer.

For your week. Think of someone whose feet brought good tidings to you, by teaching you, visiting you, or telling you the truth when you needed it. Then think of one person you could carry good tidings to.

The Text

"Behold, my servant shall deal prudently, he shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high. As many were astonied at thee; his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men."

(Isaiah 52:13–14)

How the Passage Works

The order is the first thing to notice. Exaltation comes in verse 13 — before any suffering is described. The passage does not build to triumph; it opens with it and then explains what it cost.

The chapter break falls mid-thought. Verse 13 starts a new subject, and the description it begins does not finish until 53:12. Read from 52:13, not from 53:1. (For the wider textual question, see Historical & Cultural Context, section 5.)

Then the pronouns change. At 53:1 we hear our: "Who hath believed our report?" The speakers recall their failure to recognize the Servant. Read through verse 6 and mark he alongside we and our: the poem gradually exposes the relationship between His suffering and their need. God's declaration returns in the closing verses, framing their account.

Try This

Read 52:13–15 and 53:1–3 as one paragraph, ignoring the chapter number. Then ask who we is.

Latter-day Saint Connections

• Elder Bruce D. Porter of the Seventy quotes verse 2 directly in "Redeemer of Israel" (October 1995): the Savior "made himself of no reputation, and was 'a root out of a dry ground,' having 'no beauty that we should desire him'… He might have had political power and honor; he chose instead to be a healer and a teacher." Porter reads the plainness of 53:2 as something chosen, which fits the order this passage keeps: the exaltation first, then what it cost.
• Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve brings verse 3 to the sacrament table in "This Do in Remembrance of Me" (October 1995): "we remember with Isaiah that it was for each of us that our Master was 'despised and rejected… ; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.'" For Elder Holland, "It is the wounded Christ who is the captain of our soul."

For your week. The speakers of chapter 53 failed to recognize the Servant's worth and treated Him with contempt: "he was despised, and we esteemed him not" (53:3). When the sacrament is passed this Sunday, take a moment to look again at the One they misjudged, and remember for whom He was despised.

The Text

"Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities."

(Isaiah 53:4–5)

How the Passage Works

Find the hinge word. Verse 4 has yet; verse 5 has but. Both mark the same reversal: what the speakers concluded, against what was actually happening.

Their reasoning is stated plainly — we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God. They saw suffering and inferred divine displeasure. The passage exists to correct that inference, and it is the speakers themselves who correct it.

Verse 6 names who we is: "All we like sheep have gone astray." The witnesses are not bystanders.

Where It Goes

Bishop Merrill J. Bateman, then Presiding Bishop, quoted verses 4–5 in "The Power to Heal from Within" (April 1995), while telling of parents whose son had died. "Through Christ, broken hearts are mended and peace replaces anxiety and sorrow," he said; the parents had written to him of the peace they found. He set Isaiah beside Alma's promise that the Savior would take upon Him "the pains and the sicknesses of his people" (Alma 7:11–12), and drew the conclusion for every kind of grief: "Whatever the source of pain, Jesus understands and can heal the spirit as well as the body."

Try This

Read verses 4 and 5 and mark yet and but. Then read verse 4 without the word yet and notice how much the sentence changes. One word carries the whole correction.

For your week. Bishop Bateman's example invites a response beyond correcting our judgments: compassion for someone grieving. What could you do to support that person without explaining away the loss? The Overview, Isaiah 53 walkthrough, develops the larger reminder that a hard life is not a verdict.

The Text

"He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth… He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied."

(Isaiah 53:7, 11)

How the Passage Works

Verse 7 says it twice — he opened not his mouth, and again at the end of the verse. Isaiah repeats when he wants you to stop.

Then track the movement in the English translation. After oppression, death, and burial, verses 10–12 promise he shall see, he shall prolong, shall be satisfied, will I divide. The account looks beyond the death it has described toward continuing life, purpose, and vindication. Notice that movement without assuming that English tense maps directly onto every Hebrew verb form.

Where It Goes

Bishop Bateman reads verse 10 through Abinadi in the same talk. "Isaiah and the prophet Abinadi said that when Christ would 'make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed,'" he said (Mosiah 15:10), and Abinadi explains that "his seed" are those who hearkened to the prophets (Mosiah 15:11). Then Bateman draws out what see means: "In the garden and on the cross, Jesus saw each of us and not only bore our sins, but also experienced our deepest feelings so that he would know how to comfort and strengthen us."

The Savior applies verse 12 to Himself at the Last Supper: "this that is written must yet be accomplished in me, And he was reckoned among the transgressors" (Luke 22:37). Read that claim beside the poem's closing promise of vindication. The Overview's chapter map gathers the other New Testament quotations and allusions, identifying their different speakers and settings.

Try This

Read verses 7 to 12 and mark the descriptions of death alongside the promises of what follows. Then read the two movements aloud one after the other. How does the ending change your understanding of the suffering?

For your week. "He shall see his seed." On Bishop Bateman's reading, you were among those He saw. Whatever you are feeling this week, it is not outside what He knows how to comfort.

The Text

"For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee… For this is as the waters of Noah unto me: for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth; so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee."

(Isaiah 54:7, 9)

How the Passage Works

Notice the proportions before naming the message: a small moment against great mercies; a little wrath against everlasting kindness. Each pair puts a short word beside a long one. That asymmetry is the argument.

Then verse 9 invokes a familiar covenant. The paired phrases "as I have sworn" and "so have I sworn" link the promise of mercy to God's oath after the flood (Genesis 9:11–15). The Overview, Isaiah 54 walkthrough, explains that reassurance; here, notice how the repeated oath language makes the connection.

Verse 10 then names what is less permanent than the promise: the mountains.

Try This

List the paired opposites in verses 7 and 8 in two columns. The left column is short and the right column is long, and that is the whole passage in one glance.

Latter-day Saint Connections

• The Savior read this entire chapter to the Nephites as 3 Nephi 22, to people who could hear it as their own case, broken off and left few.
• He also quoted 54:13 — "they shall be all taught of God" — in the Bread of Life discourse (John 6:45).
• President Russell M. Nelson quoted verse 7 in "Let God Prevail" (October 2020) to describe the gathering of Israel: "Mercifully, He later promised to gather them, as reported by Isaiah: 'For a small moment have I forsaken thee [Israel]; but with great mercies will I gather thee.'" He then explained who is being gathered: "The Lord is gathering those who are willing to let God prevail in their lives." The great mercies of verse 7 are happening now, one willing person at a time.
• Elder Jeffrey R. Holland ended "The Peaceable Things of the Kingdom" (October 1996) on verse 10. Of those who keep their covenants with Christ he said, "we shall, ere long, have peace. Such a reward is not only possible; it is certain," and then quoted the verse: "For the mountains shall depart and the hills be removed, but my kindness shall not depart from thee."

For your week. Elder Holland's word for this covenant promise is certain. Which phrase in verses 7–10 could help you remember the Lord's commitment when circumstances feel unstable? Let the promise sustain hope without minimizing what is painful now.

The Text

"Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat… Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread?"

(Isaiah 55:1–2)

How the Passage Works

Follow the repeated invitations. Come, buy, eat, hearken, incline your ear. The market language draws hungry people closer, but the welcome explicitly includes the person who has no money. The Overview, Isaiah 55 walkthrough, explains the connection with redemption without money in Isaiah 52:3; Weekly Insights, “Free, and Not Empty,” connects receiving with seeking and returning.

The question in verse 2 is addressed to people who are spending. Money is going out; the return is not bread.

Read verses 7 and 8 together. Verse 7 invites the unrighteous person to forsake his thoughts and return to the Lord, who will “abundantly pardon.” Verse 8 continues, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts.” That connecting word—for—links God’s higher thoughts to His willingness to forgive. His ways exceed our understanding, including our limited expectations of mercy. Someone who fears they are beyond forgiveness is invited to return: the Lord’s capacity to pardon is greater than they may imagine.

Try This

Read 55:7–9 aloud and mark thoughts, ways, and for. How does the invitation to return help you hear the statement about God's higher thoughts? Then read verses 10–11 and identify what the rain accomplishes, and what God says His word will accomplish.

Latter-day Saint Connections

• President Dallin H. Oaks, then First Counselor in the First Presidency, quoted verse 7 in "Cleansed by Repentance" (April 2019): "The prophet Isaiah assured even the wicked that when they 'return unto the Lord, … he will have mercy … [and] abundantly pardon.'" He set it beside Alma's "the arms of mercy are extended towards them" (Alma 5:33). Notice his word even: the pardon is offered to the people verse 7 calls wicked.

For your week. Verse 1 invites the one "that hath no money," and verse 7 promises a pardon larger than the returning person expects. If you have been staying away because you feel you have nothing to bring, these verses were written to you.

The Text

"Neither let the son of the stranger… speak, saying, The LORD hath utterly separated me from his people: neither let the eunuch say, Behold, I am a dry tree… I will give them an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off."

(Isaiah 56:3, 5)

How the Passage Works

Both sentences in verse 3 give voice to fears people carry about themselves. The passage does not shame either man for naming circumstances that are real. It answers those fears with the promise announced at the chapter’s beginning: God’s salvation is near, and His righteousness is about to be revealed.

The exchange in verse 5 is exact. The eunuch's complaint is about descendants; the promise is "a name better than of sons and of daughters." What he cannot have is answered with something that does not require it. (The legal background is in Context, section 1.)

Verse 6 describes the foreigners' relationship with the Lord: they join themselves to Him, serve Him, love His name, keep the sabbath, and hold fast to His covenant. Their ancestry does not cancel that relationship. Word Studies, study 6, explains the distinct words for serving and being His servants in this verse.

Where It Goes

The Savior quoted 56:7 in the temple, and three Gospels record it — Matthew 21:13, Mark 11:17, Luke 19:46. Only Mark keeps the clause of all nations.

Elder Ulisses Soares offers a present-day application through the Ethiopian official’s encounter with Philip. In “How Can I Understand?” (April 2019), he describes a man who receives help understanding Isaiah, acts on what he learns, and goes on his way rejoicing. Later, urging us to preserve relationships with loved ones who take another path, he teaches:

“Never reject or misjudge them.”

The talk draws on Acts 8 rather than interpreting Isaiah 56 directly. Read alongside Isaiah’s promise of belonging, it invites us to help others come to Christ without treating their circumstances as a verdict on their worth or their future with God. (The connection between the Ethiopian official’s story and Isaiah’s promise is explored in Historical & Cultural Context, section 1.)

Try This

Read the three Gospel versions beside Isaiah 56:7. Mark what each includes, especially Mark's "of all nations." How does that phrase connect the temple scene with Isaiah's welcome to foreigners?

The Text

"For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble."

(Isaiah 57:15)

How the Passage Works

Count the places He says He dwells. There are two, and they are in the same sentence with no transition between them — the high and holy place, and a particular kind of person.

Then read the purpose clause. To revive. The stated reason for the second dwelling is not that the contrite have earned it but that He intends to restore them.

Read the promise and the warning together. The Lord offers “Peace, peace to him that is far off, and to him that is near,” adding, “I will heal him.” His invitation reaches beyond the distance people may feel between themselves and God. The restless sea in verses 20–21 provides the contrast: wickedness brings unrest rather than the peace He offers. Together, these verses invite us to turn toward the Lord who heals and restores.

Try This

Read verse 15 and mark the two dwellings. Then ask which one you would have expected a verse beginning "the high and lofty One" to name.

Latter-day Saint Connections

• President Ezra Taft Benson named the contrite spirit of verse 15 as the cure for pride in "Beware of Pride" (April 1989): "The antidote for pride is humility—meekness, submissiveness… It is the broken heart and contrite spirit." Isaiah 57:15 is among the scriptures he cites for it. He does not explain the verse, but he names the same condition the verse names: the person with whom the high and lofty One chooses to dwell.
• Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin of the Quorum of the Twelve applied verses 20–21 to conscience in "Peace Within" (April 1991): "If we follow its promptings, we can be free of sin and filled with peace. If we do not… we never will know true peace," and then quoted Isaiah's "troubled sea, when it cannot rest." He reads the chapter's last verses as a description of what happens inside a life that keeps ignoring that light.

For your week. Name one way you could respond to the Lord's intention to revive: receive instruction, seek needed help, or offer patient support to someone weary. The Overview, Isaiah 57 walkthrough, develops the compassionate setting of that promise; Word Studies, study 3, explains contrite alongside bruised.

Continue to Word Studies.

Six word studies carry most of this week's weight. No Hebrew is needed — every study starts in English and says what the older languages add.

One thing to watch for, because it happens twice below. The King James uses two different English words for what is one Hebrew root, so a connection that is plain in Hebrew disappears in English — which is a useful reminder that a translation is a set of choices, not a transcript.

(Three names appear as you read. The Septuagint is the Greek translation of the Old Testament, made by Jewish scholars a couple of centuries before Christ. The Vulgate is Jerome's Latin Bible; he worked on the Old Testament through the 390s and the project was complete by about AD 405. The Masoretic Text is the traditional Hebrew text, and it is what the King James translators worked from here.)

The English: "Surely he hath borne our griefs" (53:4); "he bare the sin of many" (53:12).

What the Hebrew adds. The verb means both to carry a load and to lift something high. English keeps those apart; Hebrew does not.

And watch what Isaiah does with this verb in the same week. At 52:13 the servant "shall be exalted" — Hebrew yārûm (יָרוּם) wᵉnissā' — and at 57:15 God calls Himself "the high and lofty One" — rām wᵉnissā'. The same two roots, in the same order, describing the servant and describing God.

What that does and does not establish. It is a shared word-pair. It is not, by itself, a statement that the two figures are the same — Isaiah does not say so, and a reader should hold it as a striking correspondence rather than an argument. (For the guide's reading of the Servant, see Week Overview.)

So the man who is lifted up is the man who bears the load, in one word.

Cross-Language Connections

The English: "and carried our sorrows" (53:4); "he shall bear their iniquities" (53:11).

Why this word matters here. Isaiah 53:4 uses two different verbs — nāśā' for the griefs and sāḇal for the sorrows. The King James renders them as borne and carried, which is a fair distinction, and the Hebrew supports two words rather than one repeated.

sāḇal is the heavier of the two. It is the word for dragging a load along, the labour of a porter rather than the act of picking something up. And it returns at 53:11 for the iniquities — so the sorrows and the sins are carried with the same verb.

One thing to watch in the English. The King James uses our own verb bear for both Hebrew words. "He shall bear their iniquities" at 53:11 is sāḇal; "he bare the sin of many" at 53:12 is nāśā'. One English verb, one verse apart, two different Hebrew words — which is why borne and carried in 53:4 are not two renderings of one word, but two words.

Cross-Language Connections

This is the week's find, and an English reader cannot see it.

The English gives you two unrelated-looking words:

• "he was bruised for our iniquities" (53:5)
• "it pleased the LORD to bruise him" (53:10)
• "with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit… to revive the heart of the contrite ones" (57:15)

In Hebrew those are the same root. dāḵā' means to crush. The Servant at 53:5 is mᵉḏukkā' — crushed. At 53:10 the Lord is willing dakkᵉ'ô — to crush him. And 57:15 uses it twice over: God dwells with the dakkā', and revives the heart of the niḏkā'îm — the crushed ones, in both clauses.

So the same root describes what happened to the Servant and describes the people God chooses to live with. The King James translates it bruised in one chapter and contrite in the other, and the connection vanishes.

The Latin keeps it. Jerome has conterere at 53:10 — "voluit conterere eum", He willed to crush him — and contrito at 57:15, "cum contrito et humili spiritu." Same Latin root, exactly as the Hebrew has the same Hebrew root. And our English word contrite comes directly from contritus, the participle of that verb. So the word we use for a broken heart is, by descent, the word for what was done to the Servant.

A limit worth stating. dakkā' at 57:15 is an adjective (H1793) and the verb forms in 53 are H1792 — closely related and from the same root, not identical entries. The connection is real and it is a root connection rather than a single repeated word.

Cross-Language Connections

The English: "the chastisement of our peace was upon him" (53:5); "Peace, peace to him that is far off, and to him that is near" (57:19); "There is no peace… to the wicked" (57:21).

What the Hebrew adds. šālôm is wider than the absence of conflict. It carries completeness, soundness, a thing being whole and in working order. So "the chastisement of our peace" is not only about hostility ending; it is about something being made whole again.

And the word frames the last chapter of the week from both sides. It is offered twice in 57:19 and withheld in 57:21 — the same word, two verses apart, granted and denied.

Cross-Language Connections

The English: "he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days" (53:10).

Why the word is doing more than it looks. zeraʻ is literally what a farmer sows, and by extension offspring, descendants, a line that continues. The promise is that a man who has just been described as cut off and buried will see descendants.

And the Book of Mormon supplies a reading of this exact word. Abinadi quotes Isaiah 53 in full and then explains "his seed" — "who shall be his seed?" — answering that they are those who have hearkened to the prophets' words (Mosiah 15:10–11). A prophet reading the same verse, and telling you what the word means to him. (A General Conference use of that exact pairing is cited in Key Passages, passage 6.)

Note the chapter it sits in. 53:10 promises the Servant seed — and three chapters later Isaiah 56 promises the eunuch "a name better than of sons and of daughters." Both passages take a man who will have no descendants and give him a future that does not depend on having any. (That is an observation about the two passages standing near each other, not a claim that Isaiah cross-references himself.)

Cross-Language Connections

The English: this week's reading says servant in five places:

• "that obeyeth the voice of his servant" (50:10)
• "Behold, my servant shall deal prudently" (52:13)
• "by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many" (53:11)
• "This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD" (54:17)
• "the sons of the stranger… to serve him, and to love the name of the LORD, to be his servants" (56:6)

The noun. Every servant above is ʿeḇeḏ (עֶבֶד), the noun from the same root as the verb ʿāḇaḏ (עָבַד), to work, to serve. The verb itself does not appear in Isaiah 50–57; the noun appears five times.

The word's range is wide, and it does not soften. Its first meaning is a household slave or servant, and the verb from the same root can mean to compel people to labour as slaves. Real servitude, forced labour included, stood behind the word in Israel's world. The same noun also named honoured roles: worshippers of God; those the Lord commissions for His work; Israel as a people; and, in polite speech, a way of saying I ("thy servant"). English separates what the Hebrew holds together. Webster's 1828 dictionary puts the line plainly: "Servant differs from slave, as the servant's subjection to a master is voluntary, the slave's is not." Hebrew has one word for both, so the setting has to tell you which. In 52:13 and 53:11 the setting is unmistakable. God Himself says my servant, and promises that he "shall be exalted" and will "justify many."

Watch the number change. In 50:10, 52:13 and 53:11 the word is singular. After chapter 53 it turns plural: "the servants of the LORD" (54:17), "to be his servants" (56:6). Isaiah does not comment on the shift; it is there for a reader who follows the one word. A shared title does not, by itself, make every servant the same person. Historical & Cultural Context, section 5, sets out how Isaiah uses servant for Israel, for an individual, and for others.

A second word, in the same verse. Read 56:6 again. "To be his servants" is ʿeḇeḏ. But "to serve him" is a different verb, šāraṯ (שָׁרַת), to minister, to serve, to minister to. Its root also gives Hebrew a noun for religious ministry, used of the vessels of ministry in the tabernacle and the temple. The two words are not interchangeable here. One names whose the foreigners are; the other names what they do. Isaiah gives "the sons of the stranger" both: they will minister to the Lord, and they will be His servants. (The setting of that promise is in Context, section 2.)

What the translations did. Jerome kept the two Hebrew words apart. He used servus for every ʿeḇeḏ (servi sui, servus meus, justus servus meus, servorum Domini, in servos), and a different verb for šāraṯ at 56:6: ut colant eum, from colo, to tend, care for, worship. The Septuagint chose differently at almost every verse. It has pais (παῖς), a word for both child and servant, at 50:10 and 52:13. At 53:11 it has no noun at all, reading instead a righteous one who serves many well. At 54:17 it has those who serve the Lord, a form of therapeuō (θεραπεύω). And at 56:6 it renders šāraṯ with douleuō (δουλεύω), to serve as a slave, and ʿeḇeḏ with male and female douloi (δοῦλοι), adding the female word the Hebrew does not have.

And one of those Greek choices reaches the New Testament. The Septuagint's 52:13 says that God's pais "shall be glorified." Preaching in the temple, Peter says that God "hath glorified his Son Jesus" (Acts 3:13), and Son there is pais: the same two Greek words. Peter does not cite Isaiah, but a reader of the Greek Bible would hear the servant of 52:13 in his sentence.

One noun says whose they are; one verb says what they do. And in Isaiah 56 the stranger is given both.

Cross-Language Connections

Continue to Jewish Perspective.

This section sets these eight chapters beside three Jewish sources. Here is what each one is.

The Talmud is the great rabbinic collection of law, argument and commentary, completed in Babylonia around AD 500. It is cited by tractate, page and side — so Sanhedrin 98b means the tractate called Sanhedrin, page 98, side b. The Gemara is the layer of discussion inside it.

Midrash Rabbah is a body of interpretive commentary on the books of the Bible, assembled over several centuries. Genesis Rabbah is its volume on Genesis. A midrash reads closely and often at an angle — following a word where it leads rather than working verse by verse.

Targum Jonathan is an Aramaic translation of the Prophets. Aramaic is a language closely related to Hebrew. This Targum frequently explains a passage while translating it, which makes it a translation and an interpretation at once.

One point about dates matters more than the rest. The Talmud and the Midrash below were compiled centuries after Isaiah, and centuries after the life of Christ. The Targum reached its present form over a long period, and this guide does not try to date it. None of them is a record of what Isaiah's first hearers thought. They are the work of readers who had these chapters by heart and argued about them for a very long time, and that is a different thing — worth having, but not the same thing.

Everything below links to Sefaria, a free library where any reader can open the passage and see its context.

These traditions are not ours, and nothing here is offered as a practice to adopt. They are here because people read these chapters with great care for many centuries, and some of what they noticed is worth knowing. Where a reading differs from ours, the difference is stated plainly and neither side is corrected.

Chapter 50 opens with God asking a question rather than making a statement:

"Thus saith the LORD, Where is the bill of your mother's divorcement, whom I have put away?" (Isaiah 50:1)

To hear the edge in it, you need one piece of law. A man who sent his wife away had to put it in writing and place the document in her hand (Deuteronomy 24:1). A divorce left paper behind. So the question is not rhetorical in the vague sense — it is a demand. Produce the document.

Sanhedrin 105a puts the verse inside a scene. Exiles come and sit down in front of the prophet Ezekiel, and he tells them to repent. They answer him with a legal argument: a slave whose owner has sold him on, or a woman whose husband has divorced her — does either still have a claim on the one who let them go? God handed us to other masters, they are saying. The tie is already cut, and repentance is beside the point.

Isaiah 50:1 is the answer they are given, and the weight of it falls not on the missing certificate but on the verse's third clause: "for your iniquities have ye sold yourselves." You sold yourselves. There is no creditor to name because God was not the seller — and that, the Gemara concludes, is why He did not sever His ties with His people.

Read the verse again and notice that it asks twice. Where is the certificate — and which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you? Those are the exiles' own two cases, the divorced woman and the sold slave, handed back to them as questions. The exile was real. What it was not, the verse answers, is a sale God made.

One limit, stated plainly. Jeremiah 3:8 says the Lord gave the northern kingdom "a bill of divorce" — so Isaiah's question is addressed to the people in front of him rather than offered as a rule covering every case.

LDS Connection

The answer Isaiah gives in question form arrives later in the same week as a promise: "For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee" (Isaiah 54:7). The risen Christ read that chapter aloud to the Nephites and told them to search it (3 Nephi 22). The absence of a document and the smallness of the moment are the same assurance, offered twice.

Isaiah 51 describes Jerusalem’s humiliation through a painful image:

“thou hast laid thy body as the ground, and as the street, to them that went over.” (Isaiah 51:23)

The people have been treated like ground beneath someone else’s feet. Their conquerors act as though they have no dignity, no power, and no future.

Genesis Rabbah 69 connects this image with God’s promise that Jacob’s descendants would be “as the dust of the earth.” (Genesis 28:14) Dust suggests their multitude, but the commentary also considers its endurance: it is trodden underfoot, yet remains.

Rabbi Azarya, speaking in the name of Rabbi Aḥa, draws attention to the street itself. People pass over it, but the street is still there after they have gone. What looks like an image of complete defeat becomes an image of endurance. Those who humiliate God’s people do not necessarily have the final word about their future.

The commentary is explaining Jacob’s blessing in Genesis and brings Isaiah into that discussion. Read alongside Isaiah’s promise of restoration, its image offers hope: present humiliation need not define the people’s lasting identity or future.

LDS Connection

In Liberty Jail, Joseph Smith received the assurance that his afflictions could give him experience and be for his good. (Doctrine and Covenants 122:7)

The connection is not that suffering becomes easy or mistreatment becomes acceptable. It is that what others do to us does not exhaust what God can do for us. Their treatment of us is not the final measure of our worth, and our present circumstances are not the whole of our story.

You will hear it said that Jewish tradition does not read Isaiah 53 of the Messiah. You will also hear the opposite. Neither is accurate, and what is actually there is more interesting than either.

The Talmud reads this chapter in at least three directions, on three different verses:

Take them one at a time.

Sanhedrin 98b is asking what the Messiah's name will be. Several answers are offered, each proved from a verse. The answer given in the name of the Rabbis is "the leper of the house of Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi" — and the verse they prove it from is "Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted" (Isaiah 53:4). The suffering and the sickness are not read away. They are attached to the Messiah.

Berakhot 5a reads 53:10 as a teaching about afflictions of love: suffering that can accompany God's love rather than signal His rejection. The Gemara—the rabbinic discussion—then asks whether the blessings described in the verse follow automatically from suffering. Its answer draws on the phrase "when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin." Just as an offering is brought knowingly and willingly, the suffering in this interpretation must also be accepted knowingly. The reasoning comes from that comparison with an offering, not simply from the English word when.

And then the Talmud argues with itself about it, which is the part worth having. The discussion narrows the principle several times over, and on the following page it does something sharper still. Rabbi Yoḥanan visits a sick student and asks him, "Is your suffering dear to you?" The student answers, "I welcome neither this suffering nor its reward." Rabbi Yoḥanan takes his hand and raises him up. Then Rabbi Yoḥanan falls ill himself, is asked the same question by a visitor, and gives the same answer (Berakhot 5b).

So this is not a settled Jewish teaching set against ours. It is not settled among them either — the same sages who taught that affliction can be a token of God's love declined it when it came to their own sickbeds, and the Talmud records that without embarrassment.

Sotah 14a reads 53:12 of Moses, who "hath poured out his soul unto death" and "was numbered with the transgressors" and "made intercession for the transgressors" — which is a fair description of Moses standing between Israel and the consequences of the golden calf.

A fourth reading comes from Targum Jonathan, an Aramaic translation that also explains and expands the biblical text. Unlike the discussions above, it works its interpretation into the wording of the passage itself. It identifies the servant as the Messiah, but describes his role differently from the Christian reading of a Messiah who bears others' suffering.

At the head of the passage it simply names him:

"Behold, my servant the messiah shall prosper, he shall be exalted and extolled, and he shall be very strong." (Targum Jonathan, Isaiah 52:13)

The King James reads "Behold, my servant shall deal prudently" without naming the servant. The Targum adds the messiah, making its identification explicit at the beginning.

The next question is who suffers, and what the Messiah does for them. In several verses, the Targum applies suffering or refining language to the people and describes the Messiah praying for their forgiveness. The following comparisons show that change, and the first shows the Targum exalting the Messiah himself:

These examples portray a suffering people and a Messiah who intercedes for them. Yet the Targum does not remove every difficult experience from the Messiah: 53:3 also says of him, "Although he shall be in contempt" (Targum Jonathan, Isaiah 53:3).

The final verse also retains language about his life being delivered unto death and his intercession for others:

"because he has delivered his life unto death... he shall pray for the sins of many, and as for the transgressors, each shall be pardoned for his sake." (Targum Jonathan, Isaiah 53:12)

So the distinction is not simply that one reading includes suffering and the other excludes it. The Targum retains language of death and intercession, while giving several descriptions of suffering to the people. Its portrait needs to be read across the passage rather than reduced to a single contrast.

The point of the comparison is to see both the shared identification and the different interpretation. Targum Jonathan names the servant as the Messiah; Christians identify this servant with Jesus Christ. But the Targum's account of what the Messiah undergoes and how he brings forgiveness is not the same as the Christian understanding of Christ bearing our griefs and sins. Nor does this one Targum represent every Jewish reading: the Talmud passages above preserve several other interpretations.

(English from Sefaria's 1871 London "Chaldee Paraphrase"; "Chaldee" was the older English name for Aramaic.)

So the picture is four readings, not one — and the chapter's difficulty is the reason. A passage that produces four serious answers is not a passage anyone found easy.

These different readings can help us approach Jewish interpretations with greater understanding. It is sometimes said that Jewish interpreters avoid Isaiah 53. The discussions above show the opposite. They engage its difficult questions at length: Who is the servant? Whose suffering is described? How does that suffering relate to forgiveness and restoration?

As Latter-day Saints and other Christians, we read this chapter through our faith in Jesus Christ. Jewish interpreters approach it within their own scriptural and interpretive traditions, which preserve multiple readings. Recognizing that complexity does not require setting aside our convictions. It invites careful listening, and an understanding of why this passage—and the expectations surrounding the Messiah—is more complicated than either of the quick claims at the start of this section suggests.

LDS Connection

The Week Overview tells of the Ethiopian official Philip approached on the road, and of the question he asked: whether this chapter speaks of the prophet himself or of some other man. Set his question beside this section and something becomes clear about it: it was not a naive question. The four readings above are four serious attempts at exactly what he asked, and they went on being argued for centuries after Philip answered him.

Abinadi answered it the same way Philip did — quoting Isaiah 53 entire before the priests of Noah (Mosiah 14) and then spending the whole of the next chapter explaining who the servant is. Abinadi thought the chapter needed explaining too. That the question was genuinely hard is part of why the answer matters.

Isaiah 54 promises a restored community in which the people's children are taught by the Lord:

"And all thy children shall be taught of the LORD; and great shall be the peace of thy children." (Isaiah 54:13)

Berakhot 64a draws an additional lesson from the Hebrew wording. The words for "your children" (bānayik) and "your builders" (bōnayik) share the same consonants. The vowel marks distinguish them. Because Hebrew texts were traditionally written without those marks, the rabbis could invite readers to hear another meaning in the same written letters:

"Do not read 'your children,' but 'your builders.'"

This is a way of interpreting the verse, not an instruction to remove its promise about children. The rabbis connect being taught with becoming someone who builds peace. In this discussion, the builders are Torah scholars: people whose study and teaching should contribute to the peace of their community.

The connection follows the verse's own movement: instruction from the Lord leads to peace. The additional reading asks us to consider how that peace takes shape. Those who receive instruction can help build it through what they teach and how they live.

LDS Connection

The Savior quotes Isaiah's promise that all will be taught of God in John 6:45. The Doctrine and Covenants likewise joins learning with responsibility toward others: "seek ye diligently and teach one another words of wisdom." (D&C 88:118)

Read alongside these passages, the rabbinic interpretation offers a useful question: How does what we learn from God help us build peace—in our homes, our wards, and our communities? Learning is not only something we receive. It can become something we contribute.

Isaiah 56 speaks to people who feared they had no lasting place among God's people. The eunuch describes himself as a “dry tree”; the foreigner fears separation from the community. The Lord answers with promises of belonging: a lasting name, welcome on His holy mountain, and joy in His house of prayer. (Isaiah 56:3–7)

The rabbinic discussions below explore two parts of that promise. One connects the faithful eunuchs with familiar figures from Daniel. The other finds an unexpected expression of God's mercy in the language about His house of prayer.

The Faithful Eunuchs and the Three Men in the Furnace

Sanhedrin 93b connects Isaiah's promise to Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah—better known by their Babylonian names, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. These are the three men who refused to worship Nebuchadnezzar's image and were delivered from the fiery furnace.

The rabbis debate whether these men were physically made eunuchs in Babylon or whether the word is figurative. On the figurative view, idol worship was "emasculated" in their day, robbed of its power, and that is why Isaiah's word for eunuchs, sārîs (סָרִיס), fits them. The discussion preserves both interpretations rather than establishing their physical condition beyond dispute.

The connection matters because it places these faithful men within Isaiah's promise of belonging. People whose circumstances might seem to deny them a future are remembered for their loyalty to God. Their place in His covenant is not measured by their ability to have descendants.

“My House of Prayer”: A Rabbinic Picture of God's Mercy

Isaiah also promises:

"Even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer." (Isaiah 56:7)

Berakhot 7a hears an additional meaning in this phrase. Where the King James reads “my house of prayer,” the Hebrew is literally “the house of my prayer”: the word “my” is attached to tᵊp̄illâ (תְּפִלָּה), “prayer,” not to “house.” The rabbis take that wording at its word. If the prayer is God's own, then God prays, and they ask: What would God pray?

The answer pictures God expressing His desire to deal mercifully with His children—to let mercy prevail over anger and strict judgment.

The point is not merely the surprising statement that God prays. It is what this prayer reveals about His relationship with His people: a desire to extend mercy. Read beside Isaiah's welcome to the eunuch and foreigner, it gives the discussion a compassionate center.

LDS Connection

The Book of Mormon offers another moving account of divine compassion expressed through prayer. In 3 Nephi 17:15–17, Jesus prays to the Father for the gathered people, and the witnesses cannot fully describe what they hear.

The accounts portray prayer differently: Berakhot describes God's desire for mercy, while the Book of Mormon describes the Son praying to the Father. The connection is compassion—God's people are not merely the objects of judgment; they are the recipients of His loving concern.

Can someone who has wandered from God return to a place of belonging? Isaiah offers this promise:

"Peace, peace to him that is far off, and to him that is near, saith the LORD; and I will heal him." (Isaiah 57:19)

Berakhot 34b connects this verse with a question about repentance: how does the standing of someone who returns to God compare with that of someone who has remained faithful?

Rabbi Abbahu gives special honor to the person who repents. He understands “far” as someone who was distant from God but has returned, and “near” as someone who remained faithful. Because Isaiah names the far person first, Rabbi Abbahu hears a welcome that gives the returning person particular distinction.

Rabbi Yoḥanan understands the words differently. For him, “far” describes someone who has always stayed far from wrongdoing. “Near” describes someone who was close to wrongdoing but has now turned away from it. His reading therefore gives priority to the consistently righteous person.

The disagreement is not about whether repentance matters. It is about the relative standing of the repentant and the consistently righteous—and about whom Isaiah's words describe. Both readings recognize a place for those who return. Their disagreement should not obscure the verse's promise: the Lord offers peace and healing.

LDS Connection

The Doctrine and Covenants emphasizes the Lord's joy in repentance: “how great is his joy in the soul that repenteth!” (D&C 18:13)

The Savior's parable of the prodigal son explores a related concern. The returning son fears he has forfeited his place in the family; his father welcomes him home. When the older brother objects, the father affirms his continuing relationship with him while explaining why his brother's return deserves celebration. (Luke 15:11–32)

The parable does not settle the rabbis' debate about spiritual standing. It helps us see why welcoming someone back need not diminish those who remained. Another person's restoration is a reason for joy, not a threat to our own belonging.

These Jewish interpretations offer several insights to consider alongside our own reading of Isaiah:

1. Exile did not mean God had abandoned His people. Isaiah 50:1 challenges that fearful conclusion. Their suffering was real; it was not proof that God had let go.
2. Humiliation does not determine a people's future. The Midrash's image of a street that remains after people walk over it turns being trampled into an image of endurance. Those who mistreat God's people do not have the final word about them.
3. Different readings of Isaiah 53 deserve careful understanding. The discussions above show Jewish interpreters engaging seriously with the servant's identity, suffering and intercession. We can retain our witness of Jesus Christ while listening respectfully to readings shaped by other traditions.
4. Those who learn from God can help build peace. The children/builders interpretation connects receiving instruction with contributing to a community. What we learn can shape how we teach, serve and live with others.
5. Belonging and mercy are central to Isaiah's promises. The faithful eunuch and foreigner receive promises of welcome. The rabbinic prayer expresses a desire for mercy, and the discussion of “far” and “near” recognizes a place for those who repent, even while debating their relative standing.

Isaiah 55 does not appear above. The Talmud and Midrash often borrow it to illuminate other passages rather than expounding this chapter itself.

Across these discussions, interpreters ask questions about the text and explain how its wording supports their readings. That careful attention is a practice we can share, even when our conclusions differ. The Ethiopian official likewise asked whom Isaiah's passage described. Philip began with that scripture and taught him about Jesus Christ: "Philip opened his mouth, and began at the same scripture, and preached unto him Jesus" (Acts 8:35).

Every Jewish and Targum source quoted above, with a link to the passage itself. Rabbinic citations give tractate, folio and side — Berakhot 5a is the tractate Berakhot, folio 5, side a — and each one opens on Sefaria, where any reader can see it in context. Talmud English is quoted from The William Davidson digital edition of the Koren Noé Talmud, with commentary by Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz, via Sefaria.

Continue to Teaching Applications.

Choose the setting you are teaching in. Each activity begins with scripture, supplies only the context the activity needs, and gives learners something to do. The fuller explanations live in Historical & Cultural Context, Key Passages, Word Studies and Jewish Perspective. Use the fuller explanations when helpful, and provide enough context for learners to understand the passage and participate comfortably.

One note before you plan. These eight chapters include Isaiah 53, which describes suffering in unusual detail, and Isaiah 56, which is about people who had been told they did not belong. Both can land close to home for someone in the room. Each section below says where to take care.

Ask everyone to name things money can buy. Then ask for things it cannot. Let the second list get as long as it wants to.

Read Isaiah 55:1–2. Explain the setting in one sentence: this is written as a street cry — the shout a seller uses to call people over — "Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters." Then let someone notice the strange part. The one calling out is after customers who have no money, and he is not asking for any.

Activity: put the invitation on one of the two lists. Then read verse 2 — "Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread?" — and ask what someone might spend a lot on and still be hungry afterwards.

Take care here. Keep the activity on the invitation rather than on the family's own finances. Some households are stretched, and this is not a lesson about budgeting.

Read Acts 8:30–34 before turning to Isaiah. Philip "heard him read" — and the class will meet a man working through Isaiah 53 alone and stopping on a question: "of whom speaketh the prophet this? of himself, or of some other man?" The Week Overview has the scene if you want it.

Then read Isaiah 52:13–53:12 together and put his question to the class before giving any answer. Let them work from the text: what does the servant do, what is done to him, and what comes of it?

Philip's answer is in verse 35 — he "began at the same scripture, and preached unto him Jesus." Abinadi answered it the same way, quoting the chapter whole in Mosiah 14 and then explaining it for a chapter afterwards. Key Passages, passage 3, follows what he does with it.

Closing question: The Ethiopian official asked a thoughtful question, and Philip studied the passage with him. How can asking questions and learning together deepen our understanding of scripture?

Read Isaiah 53:6. Two words need explaining first: astray means wandered off, and iniquity means the wrong things people do.

Notice the exact wording with them: "we have turned every one to his own way." Not one direction — a different one each.

Activity: draw a flock of sheep with every sheep facing a different way, and a shepherd going after them. Then read the last part of the verse again, slowly: "the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." The shepherd is the one who carries it.

Take care here. Do not ask children to name something they have done wrong. The verse says all we and us all — it includes every adult in the room, and saying so out loud keeps the lesson from becoming an accusation pointed at children.

Give the setting in a sentence: someone is speaking in Isaiah 50:4–9, and the next verse calls him the servant without ever naming him. Read verses 4, 6 and 7.

Verse 6 is blunt — "I hid not my face from shame and spitting." Verse 7 answers it: "therefore have I set my face like a flint." Flint is a hard stone, the kind used to strike fire. Ask what the difference is between being set and being stubborn.

Then go back and read verse 4 again, and notice the order. Before any of the endurance, there is this: "he wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear." The steadiness in verse 7 comes after the listening in verse 4, not instead of it.

Private reflection: think of something you keep having to face that you would rather avoid. What would a morning-by-morning habit of listening look like for you this week? Nobody needs to say any of this aloud.

Take care here. Keep personal reflection optional and private. Faithful perseverance does not require remaining in an unsafe situation. Seeking protection and help from trusted people can be part of moving forward in faith.

Jewish Perspective, section 3, sets out four ancient readings of Isaiah 53 — three from the Talmud, applying 53:4, 53:10 and 53:12 in three different directions, and a fourth from an Aramaic translation. Bring that section, rather than re-teaching it.

Activity: give each group one of the four positions and one question: what is this reading trying to account for in the chapter? Then compare. The most useful discovery is usually that the chapter is hard enough to produce four serious answers, which is also why Philip and Abinadi both had to explain it.

Approach these interpretations with curiosity and respect. Jewish tradition preserves several readings of Isaiah 53. The shared identification of the servant as the Messiah belongs to the Christian reading and this Targum, rather than to every Jewish interpretation. The surviving text does not establish who heard this particular translation or in what setting. Explore both connections and differences without turning the discussion into a contest.

Isaiah 53 has been discussed between Jews and Christians for a very long time, and not always kindly. If this chapter comes up, it deserves more care than any other passage in the week.

Ask whether the other person would like to look at a passage together.

Listen first. Jewish tradition preserves several readings of Isaiah 53, and an ancient interpretation does not necessarily represent the beliefs of the person speaking with you. Invite them to explain their understanding, share your own, and look for both connections and differences. It is a conversation between friends, not a debate to win.

If the conversation would be better on less contested ground, Isaiah 55:6–7 and 56:6–7 are shared and generous, and 56:7 is a verse about a house of prayer for everyone.

A question that keeps a conversation open: what do you notice in this passage that I might have read past? Differences can be named without being argued, and naming one plainly is better than pretending it is not there.

Choose by situation rather than by chapter:

• For someone who feels they do not belong — Isaiah 56:3–5. Two men say out loud why they think they are outside. Read what they are promised instead.
• For grief — Isaiah 53:3–4. Acquainted with grief is not a distant sympathy. Let it stand without requiring that the grief lift today.
• For someone who feels they have nothing to offer — Isaiah 55:1–2, read slowly, with attention to how many times the invitation repeats.
• For shame, or the sense of being crushed — Isaiah 57:15. Notice both places the high and lofty One says He lives.
• For fear that a covenant has lapsed — Isaiah 54:7–10, ending on verse 10: "the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee."

One small practice: take a single verse from the list above, write beside it the one word you would have chosen differently, and say why. It is a quick way to find out what you actually expected the verse to say. Return to the note in a week.

Continue to Study Questions.

These twenty-one questions move from what the text says to what a reader might do with it. Choose a few that fit your study rather than working through all of them. The personal questions are invitations, not assumptions about anyone's circumstances. Personal questions may be considered privately. No one needs to disclose painful experiences, financial circumstances, or another person's difficulties. For helpful explanations and context, see Key Passages, Historical & Cultural Context, Word Studies and Jewish Perspective.

1. Read Isaiah 50:4–7. What does the speaker say was given to him, what is done to his body, and what does he say he has set his face like?
2. In Isaiah 51:1–3, what are the hearers told to look at, and what does the Lord promise to do with Zion's waste places?
3. Read Isaiah 52:7–10. What does the messenger announce, and what do the watchmen do when they see it?
4. Isaiah 54:1 tells someone to sing. Who is it, and what reason does the verse give?
5. In Isaiah 56:3–8, what fear does each man voice about his place among God’s people, and what is each promised instead?

1. Compare Isaiah 53:4 with Matthew 8:17. What does Matthew apply the verse to, and what does that application add to your reading of Isaiah 53:4?
2. Read Acts 8:32–33 beside Isaiah 53:7–8. Which verses did the Ethiopian have in front of him, and what in them raised his question?
3. Compare Isaiah 52:7 with Romans 10:15. What does Paul do with the feet on the mountains, and who is carrying the news in his version?
4. Read Isaiah 54:13 with John 6:45, which is the Savior's own quotation of it. What does He say being taught of God leads a person to do?
5. Isaiah 53:1 is used twice in the New Testament — by John as a narrator's comment, and by Paul in an argument. What is each of them using it to say?

1. A man in Isaiah 56:3 calls himself a dry tree. How does the promise in verse 5 speak to a fear that circumstances have settled one’s place or future? The question invites hope without dismissing anyone’s grief.
2. Isaiah 53:6 says "all we like sheep have gone astray." What changes when the verse is read as all we rather than as a description of somebody else?
3. Isaiah 55:2 asks why people spend their resources on what does not nourish them. What kinds of pursuits can leave us unsatisfied, and what does the Lord invite us to receive instead?
4. Isaiah 50:4 describes speaking "a word in season to him that is weary." What might thoughtful encouragement look like this week—for yourself or someone else? Consider how listening can help us recognize what is needed.
5. Read Isaiah 54:10. What would be different this week if you took that promise to be steadier than the landscape?

1. Read Isaiah 52:13–53:12 beside Mosiah 14. Abinadi quoted the chapter whole and then spent the next chapter explaining it. What did he evidently think needed explaining?
2. Compare Isaiah 56:3–5 with Acts 8:26–39. Acts identifies the official as a eunuch and shows him reading Isaiah 53. How might Isaiah 56's promise of belonging deepen our appreciation of his encounter with Philip and his baptism?
3. 3 Nephi 22 is Isaiah 54, quoted in full by the risen Christ. Read the chapter knowing He is the one who chose it. What do you notice that you would not have otherwise?
4. Choose one rabbinic reading from Jewish Perspective. What did it notice that an English reader would miss, and where does our own reading differ? Name the difference plainly rather than blending the two.
5. Isaiah 53 produced four serious ancient answers to the question of whom speaketh the prophet this? What does that difficulty suggest about how to read the chapter — and about what Philip did with it in Acts 8:35?
6. The King James says the Servant was bruised (Isaiah 53:5) and that God dwells with the contrite (Isaiah 57:15). What does the second verse offer a reader who has just read the first? For the related Hebrew words and their limit, see Word Studies, study 3.

Continue to Weekly Insights.