What is Isaiah 53? Why is it so important?

Isaiah 53 is one of the most important passages in the Hebrew scriptures, and yet it is unknown to most Jewish people.  It clearly speaks of a servant of the Lord who suffers and dies to atone for sin.
 
This chapter sounds so similar to what believers say about Jesus, many Jewish people think it is from the New Testament. On the contrary, the prophet Isaiah wrote this prophecy hundreds of years before Jesus was born!

Isaiah’s description of the Servant of the Lord clearly points to Yeshua, Jesus the Messiah. Let’s read a portion of it.

Isaiah 53 verses five and six.

“He was pierced through for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities.The chastening for our well being fell upon him. And by his scourging we are healed. All of us, like sheep, have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his own way, but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him.”

Through these verses, many Jewish people have begun to seriously consider who Jesus really is.

It is amazing to see the parallels between the story of Jesus and the suffering servant in Isaiah 53. And some people say that it refers to the nation of Israel. How is it possible the text to refer to a nation as opposed to an individual, especially when we read verse eight Isaiah 53:8, where it says that he:

“…was cut off out of the land of the living for the transgression
of my people to whom the stroke was due.”

Clearly it was a person, not a nation. And that person was not Israel. Obviously, it was Jesus.