Isaiah 53

A Man of Sorrows

A chorus of witnesses confesses that the despised servant they took to be punished by God was carrying their own sins, and the Lord declares that through his death he will see his seed and justify many.

Addressed to the exiles, c. 540 BC; quoted in full by Abinadi, c. 150 BC Also in Mosiah 14 Read with footnotes in Gospel Library

Background

Chapter 53 is the heart of the fourth and last Servant Song, which began at Isa. 52:13.

Chapter 53 is the heart of the fourth and last Servant Song, which began at Isa. 52:13. The song has five stanzas of three verses each: 52:13–15, 53:1–3, 4–6, 7–9, and 10–12. It is framed by the Lord’s own voice. At the beginning He says, “Behold, my servant shall… be exalted” (Isa. 52:13), and at the end, “my righteous servant shall justify many” (53:11). Between those frames, a group speaking as “we” confesses that they misjudged the servant (verses 1–6), and a narrator describes his silent suffering, death, and burial (verses 7–9). The last stanza (verses 10–12) turns to what the suffering accomplished.

No passage in the Old Testament has been argued over more. When the Ethiopian official in Acts read verse 7 in his chariot, he asked Philip the question that has occupied readers ever since: “of whom speaketh the prophet this? of himself, or of some other man?” Philip “began at the same scripture, and preached unto him Jesus” (Acts 8:34–35).

The Servant Songs page sets out the main answers: Israel as a people, an individual in Isaiah’s own world, or the Messiah. Some details of this song resist a purely collective reading. The servant is “stricken” for “the transgression of my people” (verse 8), which distinguishes him from the people; he is innocent, having “done no violence” (verse 9), which Isaiah never says of Israel; and he dies and is buried, yet afterward “shall prolong his days” (verse 10). Latter-day Saints read the song, with the New Testament and the Book of Mormon, as a prophecy of Jesus Christ.

The Book of Mormon quotes the chapter in full in the trial of Abinadi (Mosiah 14), with only small differences from the KJV. Abinadi had been bound, imprisoned, and put on trial by priests looking for grounds to accuse him (Mosiah 12:17–19). He answered their question about Isa. 52:7–10 by reading them this song of a servant “taken from prison and from judgment” and killed by his own people, and then he was killed by his own people.

The thread through the chapter

Isaiah 53 is about a verdict that turns out to be wrong. The people who speak in verses 1–6 had looked at the servant and drawn the obvious conclusion.

Isaiah 53 is about a verdict that turns out to be wrong.

The people who speak in verses 1–6 had looked at the servant and drawn the obvious conclusion. He was unimpressive from the start, “a root out of a dry ground” with nothing about him to attract anyone (verse 2). Then he suffered, and suffering in their world meant guilt. So “we esteemed him not” (verse 3); “we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted” (verse 4). He must have deserved it.

Then the confession: they were wrong about whose sins were being punished. “He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities.” The verdict they passed on him was the verdict that should have fallen on them. “All we like sheep have gone astray… and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all” (verses 5–6).

The narrator then describes a trial that was a travesty. The servant was “taken from prison and from judgment,” silent “as a lamb to the slaughter,” killed and buried with the wicked “because he had done no violence” (verses 7–9). The court of human opinion found him guilty.

In the last stanza the Lord gives His verdict, and it reverses theirs. The servant is “my righteous servant.” His death was “an offering for sin.” He will “see his seed,” “prolong his days,” and “divide the spoil with the strong” (verses 10–12). The song ends not with the servant condemned among transgressors but with him interceding for them.

Tap any highlighted phrase to open a note beneath its versein the margin.

Verses 1–3

No beauty that we should desire him

In plain words

Who would have believed what we have heard? To whom has the Lord’s power been revealed? He grew up before the Lord like a young shoot, like a root out of dry ground. He had no stately form or splendor that would make us look at him, nothing in his appearance to attract us. He was despised and rejected by people, a man who knew pain and was familiar with sickness. We turned our faces away from him as people do from something repulsive. He was despised, and we thought nothing of him.

1 Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed?

Word & Language #

Who would have believed it?

“Report” is šĕmuʿātēnû, literally “what we heard,” the news that has reached us.

“Report” is šĕmuʿātēnû, literally “what we heard,” the news that has reached us. Who speaks? On the collective reading, the “we” are the kings of Isa. 52:15, who have just seen “that which had not been told them.” On the Christian reading, the “we” are those who have come to believe, looking back with astonishment at how they once regarded the servant. In either case, the speakers confess that the news was unbelievable.

The second question completes a thread. The people asked the Lord’s arm to wake up (Isa. 51:9); the Lord bared His arm before the nations (Isa. 52:10). Now the arm is revealed, and it is the man described in the following verses. God’s power comes in a form no one expected.

The New Testament uses the verse to explain unbelief. John quotes it when many who saw Jesus’s miracles still did not believe (John 12:37–38), and Paul quotes it of Israel’s response to the gospel: “Lord, who hath believed our report?” (Rom. 10:16).

Abinadi introduces the chapter with a rhetorical question of his own: “Yea, even doth not Isaiah say” (Mosiah 14:1). He had just asked the priests whether all the prophets had not said “that God himself should come down among the children of men… and that he, himself, should be oppressed and afflicted” (Mosiah 13:34–35). Isaiah 53 is his evidence.

Sources: Donald W. Parry and John W. Welch, eds., Isaiah in the Book of Mormon, Provo, UT: FARMS, 1998. John N. Oswalt, The Book of Isaiah, New International Commentary on the Old Testament, 2 vols. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986–1998.

2 For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.

Imagery & Symbol #

A root out of dry ground

“Tender plant” is yônēq, literally “a suckling,” used of a new shoot growing from a stump.

“Tender plant” is yônēq, literally “a suckling,” used of a new shoot growing from a stump. “Root” (šōreš) recalls Isaiah’s earlier messianic image: “there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots” (Isa. 11:1); “there shall be a root of Jesse” (Isa. 11:10). The house of David has been cut down to a stump, and something grows from it anyway, in soil that should not support it.

The servant has no “form” (tōʾar) or “comeliness” (hādār, splendor, majesty). These are royal words. Israel’s first king was chosen partly for his looks: “a choice young man, and a goodly” (1 Sam. 9:2). When Samuel went to anoint Saul’s successor, the Lord warned him, “man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart” (1 Sam. 16:7). The servant fails the test of appearance completely.

Sources: John N. Oswalt, The Book of Isaiah, New International Commentary on the Old Testament, 2 vols. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986–1998. Shalom M. Paul, Isaiah 40–66: Translation and Commentary, Eerdmans Critical Commentary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012.

3 He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Verses 4–6

He carried ours

In plain words

Yet it was our sicknesses he carried and our pains he bore. We thought he was being punished, struck down by God and humiliated. But he was pierced because of our rebellions and crushed because of our sins. The punishment that brought us peace fell on him, and by his wounds we are healed. All of us have wandered off like sheep; each of us has gone his own way. And the Lord laid on him the guilt of us all.

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

Restoration Insight #

“The pains and the sicknesses of his people”

The KJV’s “griefs” and “sorrows” translate ḥŏlāyênû and makʾōbênû, “our sicknesses” and “our pains.”

The KJV’s “griefs” and “sorrows” translate ḥŏlāyênû and makʾōbênû, “our sicknesses” and “our pains.” The same two nouns described the servant in verse 3, “a man of sorrows [pains], and acquainted with grief [sickness].” Verse 3 says what he experienced; verse 4 reveals whose it was. Matthew understood the verse that way, applying it to Jesus’s healings: “Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses” (Matt. 8:17).

The Book of Mormon has a striking echo. Alma, teaching the people of Gideon, said that the Son of God would suffer “that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people” (Alma 7:11). Alma is quoting a prophecy, and the likeliest candidate is this verse. Thomas Wayment has pointed out that Alma’s wording, “pains and sicknesses,” is a more literal rendering of the Hebrew than the KJV’s “griefs and sorrows,” which Joseph Smith would have known. The order is reversed (sicknesses and pains become pains and sicknesses), and reversing the elements of a quoted phrase was a common practice when biblical writers quoted one another, a pattern scholars call Seidel’s law. Scripture Central summarizes the argument.

Alma then explains why the Savior took these things on Himself. It wasn’t only to pay for sin; it was “that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities” (Alma 7:12). Isaiah’s servant carries our sickness and pain as well as our guilt, and Alma draws out what that means: the Savior understands them from the inside.

Sources: Scripture Central, “Whose “Word” Was Fulfilled by Christ’s Suffering “Pains and Sicknesses”?”, KnoWhy #564, June 2, 2020. Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906.

5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

Witness of Christ #

Pierced and crushed

The verbs are violent. “Wounded” is mĕḥōlāl, “pierced,” from ḥālal, to bore through.

The verbs are violent. “Wounded” is mĕḥōlāl, “pierced,” from ḥālal, to bore through. “Bruised” is mĕdukkāʾ, “crushed,” from dākāʾ, to crush to pieces; the same verb returns in verse 10: “it pleased the LORD to bruise him.” “For” is the Hebrew preposition min, “because of.” Our rebellions caused his wounds.

“The chastisement of our peace” means the punishment that brought us peace (šālôm, wholeness, well-being). “Stripes” is ḥabbûrâ, a singular noun: a welt or bruise, the mark left by a blow. Peter quoted the line to Christian slaves who were being beaten unjustly, telling them that Christ “his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree… by whose stripes ye were healed” (1 Pet. 2:24).

Abinadi’s commentary puts the same exchange in legal terms. The Son stands “betwixt them and justice; having broken the bands of death, taken upon himself their iniquity and their transgressions, having redeemed them, and satisfied the demands of justice” (Mosiah 15:9). In latter-day revelation the Savior describes the same exchange in the first person: “I, God, have suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent” (D&C 19:16).

Sources: Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. John N. Oswalt, The Book of Isaiah, New International Commentary on the Old Testament, 2 vols. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986–1998. Shalom M. Paul, Isaiah 40–66: Translation and Commentary, Eerdmans Critical Commentary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012.

6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Witness of Christ #

“Laid on him”

The verse begins with the confession that makes everyone equal: “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way.”

The verse begins with the confession that makes everyone equal: “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way.” Sin here is not a crowd going the wrong way together. It is every person heading off separately, each “to his own way.”

“Laid on him” translates hipgîaʿ bô, from pāgaʿ, to meet or strike. The Lord made our guilt fall on him. The image recalls the Day of Atonement, when the high priest confessed Israel’s sins over the head of a goat, and “the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited” (Lev. 16:21–22).

The same verb, pāgaʿ, appears in the last line of the chapter, where the servant “made intercession” (yapgîaʿ) for the transgressors (verse 12). Our iniquity was made to meet him; he in turn meets God on our behalf. The Book of Mormon reads the plural “the iniquities of us all” (Mosiah 14:6).

Sources: Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Donald W. Parry and John W. Welch, eds., Isaiah in the Book of Mormon, Provo, UT: FARMS, 1998.

Verses 7–9

The silent lamb

In plain words

He was mistreated and humbled himself, but he did not open his mouth. Like a lamb led to the slaughter, like a sheep silent before its shearers, he did not open his mouth. He was taken away by a perversion of justice. Who from his generation gave it a thought? He was cut off from the land of the living, struck down for the rebellion of my people. They assigned him a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence and there was no deceit in his mouth.

7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.

Witness of Christ #

The silent lamb

Verse 6 compared the people to sheep that wandered. Verse 7 compares the servant to a sheep that doesn’t: it goes quietly to the shearing and to the slaughter.

Verse 6 compared the people to sheep that wandered. Verse 7 compares the servant to a sheep that doesn’t: it goes quietly to the shearing and to the slaughter. The point of the image is silence. Twice the verse says “he opened not his mouth.” The servant doesn’t protest or defend himself.

The Gospels record that silence. Before the high priest, “Jesus held his peace” (Matt. 26:63). Before Pilate, “when he was accused of the chief priests and elders, he answered nothing,” and “he answered him to never a word” (Matt. 27:12–14). John the Baptist’s title for Him draws on the image: “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). And this is the verse the Ethiopian official was reading when Philip met him (Acts 8:32).

Abinadi paraphrased the verse in his explanation of how God would redeem His people: “he shall be led, yea, even as Isaiah said, as a sheep before the shearer is dumb, so he opened not his mouth. Yea, even so he shall be led, crucified, and slain, the flesh becoming subject even unto death, the will of the Son being swallowed up in the will of the Father” (Mosiah 15:6–7).

Sources: Donald W. Parry and John W. Welch, eds., Isaiah in the Book of Mormon, Provo, UT: FARMS, 1998.

8 He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken.

9 And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.

History & Setting #

With the wicked and with the rich

The Gospels record that Jesus was crucified between two criminals (Mark 15:27) and buried in the new tomb of “a rich man of Arimathæa, named Joseph” (Matt. 27:57–60).

The Gospels record that Jesus was crucified between two criminals (Mark 15:27) and buried in the new tomb of “a rich man of Arimathæa, named Joseph” (Matt. 27:57–60). The correspondence with this verse is striking, and Christians have long noted it.

The Hebrew poses two puzzles. First, in Hebrew parallelism the second line usually restates the first, so “the rich” may be meant as a synonym for “the wicked,” as in Micah 6:12, where the rich are “full of violence.” On that reading the verse means only that the servant was buried in disgrace. Second, the Masoretic Text reads bĕmōtāyw, literally “in his deaths,” a plural that may be intensive (“in his violent death”). The Great Isaiah Scroll reads bwmtw, which some scholars take as “his burial mound.” The exact sense is uncertain, though the general meaning, a dishonorable burial for an innocent man, is clear.

The innocence is emphasized: “he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.” Peter quotes the second half: Christ “did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth” (1 Pet. 2:22). The Book of Mormon reads “he had done no evil” (Mosiah 14:9), a broader word than “violence” (Hebrew ḥāmās).

Sources: The Great Isaiah Scroll (1QIsaᵃ), The Digital Dead Sea Scrolls, Israel Museum, Jerusalem. Martin Abegg Jr., Peter Flint, and Eugene Ulrich, The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible, San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1999. John N. Oswalt, The Book of Isaiah, New International Commentary on the Old Testament, 2 vols. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986–1998. Donald W. Parry and John W. Welch, eds., Isaiah in the Book of Mormon, Provo, UT: FARMS, 1998.

Verses 10–12

He shall see his seed

In plain words

Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and make him suffer. When he makes his life an offering for guilt, he will see his offspring and live a long life, and the Lord’s purpose will succeed through him. After the anguish of his soul, he will see and be satisfied. By knowing him, My righteous servant will make many righteous, because he will carry their sins. Therefore I will give him a share among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life to death and was counted among the rebels. He carried the sin of many and interceded for the rebels.

10 Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.

Witness of Christ #

“It pleased the LORD”

This is the hardest line in the chapter. “Pleased” is ḥāpēṣ, to delight in or to will.

This is the hardest line in the chapter. “Pleased” is ḥāpēṣ, to delight in or to will. “Bruise” is the same verb as in verse 5, dākāʾ, to crush. “He hath put him to grief” (heḥĕlî) is from the root for sickness, the same word as “grief” in verses 3 and 4. What the people inflicted, the Lord willed.

The line cannot mean that God enjoyed His servant’s pain. The rest of the verse gives the reason: it was the Lord’s purpose because of what the suffering would accomplish. “The pleasure of the LORD” (ḥēpeṣ, the same root) “shall prosper in his hand.” The will that required the suffering is the will that brings about salvation.

It was also the Son’s will. In Gethsemane Jesus prayed, “nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done” (Luke 22:42), and Abinadi described “the will of the Son being swallowed up in the will of the Father” (Mosiah 15:7).

“An offering for sin” is ʾāšām, the guilt offering or reparation offering of Lev. 5:14–6:7. Unlike other sacrifices, the guilt offering was tied to restitution: it was brought when someone had wronged God or a neighbor, along with repayment of what was owed. The servant’s life is the payment of a debt.

Restoration Insight #

“Who shall be his seed?”

This line is the turning point of the song. The servant has been “cut off out of the land of the living” (verse 8) and buried (verse 9).

This line is the turning point of the song. The servant has been “cut off out of the land of the living” (verse 8) and buried (verse 9). Yet he “shall see his seed” and “prolong his days.” A dead man can do neither. Many interpreters who do not read the song as messianic nonetheless see here an expectation that the servant will be vindicated beyond death. For Christians it points to the Resurrection.

Abinadi read this line together with verse 8’s “who shall declare his generation?” (the Hebrew is obscure; modern translations often have “who gave a thought to his fate?”). He asked the court, “who shall declare his generation? Behold, I say unto you, that when his soul has been made an offering for sin he shall see his seed. And now what say ye? And who shall be his seed?” (Mosiah 15:10). His answer: “all those who have hearkened unto their words, and believed that the Lord would redeem his people, and have looked forward to that day for a remission of their sins, I say unto you, that these are his seed” (Mosiah 15:11). And he gave the reason: “For these are they whose sins he has borne; these are they for whom he has died” (Mosiah 15:12).

Abinadi’s reading makes the servant a father. The servant had no children and died young, but those whose sins he carried become his offspring. King Benjamin taught the same thing a generation later: “because of the covenant which ye have made ye shall be called the children of Christ, his sons, and his daughters” (Mosiah 5:7). One of those who heard Abinadi, Alma, became his first spiritual child (Mosiah 17:2).

11 He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.

Word & Language #

He shall see light

The Masoretic Text reads, literally, “From the anguish of his soul he shall see; he shall be satisfied.”

The Masoretic Text reads, literally, “From the anguish of his soul he shall see; he shall be satisfied.” “See” has no object. The Great Isaiah Scroll (1QIsaᵃ), a second Isaiah scroll from the same cave (1QIsaᵇ), another Qumran manuscript (4QIsaᵈ), and the Septuagint all supply one: “he shall see light.” With three Hebrew manuscripts and the Greek agreeing, most textual critics think “light” is original and was accidentally dropped. Many modern translations adopt it (the NRSV: “Out of his anguish he shall see light”). The Book of Mormon reads “He shall see the travail of his soul” (Mosiah 14:11), following the KJV’s interpretation.

“Light” after “the anguish of his soul” strengthens the sense of the previous verse: after death, the servant sees light, a return to life. In the Old Testament, to see light is to be alive (Job 33:28; Ps. 49:19).

“By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many” is also ambiguous. It can mean by the servant’s own knowledge (of God or of God’s purpose), or by others’ knowledge of him. “Justify” (yaṣdîq) is the legal verb for declaring someone in the right, the same word the servant used for his own vindication in Isa. 50:8. The one who was vindicated now vindicates many.

Sources: The Great Isaiah Scroll (1QIsaᵃ), The Digital Dead Sea Scrolls, Israel Museum, Jerusalem. Martin Abegg Jr., Peter Flint, and Eugene Ulrich, The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible, San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1999. Emanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, 3rd ed. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2012. Donald W. Parry and John W. Welch, eds., Isaiah in the Book of Mormon, Provo, UT: FARMS, 1998.

12 Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

Witness of Christ #

Counted among the rebels, praying for them

The song ends with a victory image: the servant will “divide the spoil with the strong,” like a general sharing plunder after a battle.

The song ends with a victory image: the servant will “divide the spoil with the strong,” like a general sharing plunder after a battle. But the reason given is not a military triumph. It is that he “poured out his soul unto death” and let himself be counted with criminals.

Jesus quoted this verse about Himself on the night of His arrest: “this that is written must yet be accomplished in me, And he was reckoned among the transgressors” (Luke 22:37). The author of Hebrews echoes “he bare the sin of many”: “So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many” (Heb. 9:28).

The last words are about intercession. The verb, yapgîaʿ, is the same one used in verse 6 for the iniquity the Lord “laid on” him (see that note). On the cross Jesus prayed for the people who put Him there: “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). Abinadi taught that His victory over death gave “the Son power to make intercession for the children of men” (Mosiah 15:8). Latter-day revelation lets us hear that intercession: “Listen to him who is the advocate with the Father, who is pleading your cause before him—Saying: Father, behold the sufferings and death of him who did no sin” (D&C 45:3–4).

Sources: Donald W. Parry and John W. Welch, eds., Isaiah in the Book of Mormon, Provo, UT: FARMS, 1998. Shalom M. Paul, Isaiah 40–66: Translation and Commentary, Eerdmans Critical Commentary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012.

Seeing Christ in Isaiah 53

Latter-day Saints read Isaiah 53 as the Old Testament’s clearest prophecy of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, and the Book of Mormon gives them strong grounds to. Abinadi quoted the whole song as proof that “God himself should come down among the children of men” and “be oppressed and afflicted” (Mosiah 13:34–35), and then explained it phrase by phrase. Alma quoted it to teach that the Savior would take on Himself not only our sins but our pains and sicknesses, so that He would know “how to succor his people” (Alma 7:11–12). The risen Lord, walking to Emmaus, began “at Moses and all the prophets” and expounded “the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:27); this chapter must have been among them.

The song’s central claim is exchange. He carried our sickness; we are healed by his wounds. He was counted among the transgressors; he makes intercession for the transgressors. And the verdict that the onlookers passed on him, “smitten of God,” turned out to be true in a way they never imagined: he was smitten, but for them.

Liken it to yourself

The servant had “no beauty that we should desire him.” Whom have I dismissed because they didn’t look like what I expected?
Do I ever assume, like the speakers in verse 4, that people who suffer must have done something to deserve it?
“We have turned every one to his own way.” What is my own way, the particular direction I wander when I leave the path?
Alma says the Savior took on our pains and sicknesses so that He would know how to help us. What pain or sickness am I carrying that I haven’t brought to Him?
Abinadi asked, “who shall be his seed?” and answered that it is those whose sins He has borne. What would it mean for me to think of myself as the Savior’s child in that sense?

Worth exploring next

The whole song. Read Isa. 52:13–53:12 as one poem, noticing who speaks in each stanza.
Philip and the Ethiopian. Read Acts 8:26–40.
Abinadi’s sermon. Read Mosiah 13:33–15:13 and trace how he explains the song.
Pains and sicknesses. Compare verse 4 with Matt. 8:16–17 and Alma 7:10–13.
The Savior’s own account. Read D&C 19:15–20 and D&C 45:3–5.
Peter’s use. Read 1 Pet. 2:21–25, which weaves verses 5, 6, and 9 together.

This chapter elsewhere in scripture

Nephi’s text of this chapter (Mosiah 14) reads differently from the King James Version in 9 verses. The BoM markers show the 6 where more than a small word changes.

Mosiah 14 — Abinadi quotes the whole chapter in his defense before King Noah’s court.
Mosiah 15:5–13 — Abinadi explains the lamb, the intercession, and “who shall be his seed.”
Alma 7:11–12 — Alma quotes verse 4 as “the pains and the sicknesses of his people.”
Acts 8:32–35 — Philip preaches Jesus to the Ethiopian official from verses 7–8.
Luke 22:37 — Jesus applies verse 12 to Himself.
1 Pet. 2:22–25 — Peter weaves verses 5, 6, and 9 into his teaching about Christ’s suffering.
Matt. 8:17 — Matthew applies verse 4 to Jesus’s healings.

Sources & further reading

John N. Oswalt, The Book of Isaiah, New International Commentary on the Old Testament, 2 vols. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986–1998.
Shalom M. Paul, Isaiah 40–66: Translation and Commentary, Eerdmans Critical Commentary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012.
Joseph Blenkinsopp, Isaiah, Anchor Bible, 3 vols. New York: Doubleday, 2000–2003.
Brevard S. Childs, Isaiah, Old Testament Library. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001.
Donald W. Parry and John W. Welch, eds., Isaiah in the Book of Mormon, Provo, UT: FARMS, 1998.
Scripture Central, “Why Did Abinadi Talk About the Suffering Messiah?”, KnoWhy #91, Apr. 24, 2017.
Scripture Central, “Whose “Word” Was Fulfilled by Christ’s Suffering “Pains and Sicknesses”?”, KnoWhy #564, June 2, 2020.
Scripture Central, “Why Did Isaiah Prophesy of a Suffering Messiah?”, KnoWhy #648, Feb. 17, 2023.
The Great Isaiah Scroll (1QIsaᵃ), The Digital Dead Sea Scrolls, Israel Museum, Jerusalem.
Martin Abegg Jr., Peter Flint, and Eugene Ulrich, The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible, San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1999.
Emanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, 3rd ed. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2012.
Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906.
“Atonement”, Bible Dictionary.
Jeffrey R. Holland, Christ and the New Covenant: The Messianic Message of the Book of Mormon, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1997.
Chapter 17: The Gathering of Israel and the Coming of the Messiah (Isaiah 48–54), Old Testament Student Manual: 1 Kings–Malachi (2003).

I’ve studied Isaiah 53