“For thus says the LORD of hosts, ‘After glory He has sent Me against the nations which plunder you, for he who touches you, touches the apple of His eye’” (Zech 2:8).
In this passage, God sends his prophet to warn the nations of the consequences of laying violent hands upon his people. To touch God’s people is, metaphorically, to poke God in the eye, even in those moments when Israel is undergoing divine discipline. No good comes, absolutely no good, to those who harm the people of Israel.
The innocent servant who was rejected, abused, and killed to bring atonement for Israel and for the nations must be the Messiah.
Throughout history, many have tried to curse Israel, and all eventually discover this truth the hard way. As Isaac said to the seething Esau, “Yes, and he shall be blessed” (Gen 27:33). As Balaam said to Balak, “When He has blessed, then I cannot revoke it” (Num 23:20). And as Haman’s wise men and wife said to him, “If Mordecai, before whom you have begun to fall, is of Jewish origin, you will not overcome him, but will surely fall before him” (Esth 6:13).
This eternal truth, written across the Hebrew Scriptures, decisively undermines the claim that the servant of the LORD in Isaiah 53 is Israel. For how could cursing, rejecting, abusing, and killing God’s people Israel result in forgiveness and atonement for the nations, especially when elsewhere in Scripture such treatment of Israel consistently provokes God’s wrath?
If the servant of the LORD in Isaiah 53 cannot be Israel, then only one option remains. The innocent servant who was rejected, abused, and killed to bring atonement for Israel and for the nations must be the Messiah.
“But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, ‘You know nothing at all, nor do you take into account that it is expedient for you that one man die for the people, and that the whole nation not perish.’ Now he did not say this on his own initiative, but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but in order that He might also gather together into one the children of God who are scattered abroad” (John 11:49-52).
