Chapter 53 is a continuation of the prophet's description of the servant of Hashem - the Jewish people - in its exile among the nations. In the section before us, we arrive at the perspective of the nations themselves: a confession that they are destined to make in the End of Days, when their eyes will be opened and they will realize that all the persecutions, tortures, and murders they inflicted upon the Jew did not stem from any sin they found in him, but rather from the deception of their leaders and their own lust for money. The verses describe the Jew as a sheep led silently to slaughter, the institutionalized judicial system that was transformed into a tool of wickedness, and finally the consolation: that the Holy One, Blessed be He, will appease the downtrodden and sustain their seed forever.
כֻּלָּנוּ כַּצֹּאן תָּעִינוּ אִישׁ לְדַרְכּוֹ פָּנִינוּ וַיהֹוָה הִפְגִּיעַ בּוֹ אֵת עֲוֺן כֻּלָּנוּ׃ - All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way; and Hashem has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
Now it becomes clear: "All we like sheep have gone astray." Radak explains that we were like sheep without a shepherd, which is why it says "like sheep." Malbim explains wherein the straying lay: in that we tormented them unjustly. This refers to the fact that they would force the Jewish people to worship idols, and whoever refused was afflicted and tortured, as occurred during the Inquisition and at other times throughout history. Thus, he was "crushed for our iniquities," while we ourselves had "gone astray like sheep."
And what does the imagery of sheep convey? A sheep that strays does so because the shepherd leads it down the wrong path. The nations say: We have strayed like sheep because our shepherds misled us. And who were the shepherds? The leaders of idolatry, the heads of the Church, those religious leaders who incited their people to persecute and tyrannize the Jewish people so that they would accept the "religion of love," and whoever was unwilling to accept the religion of love - they murdered him with a great deal of love. And so it was with the leaders of idolatry in earlier generations, the leaders of Islam and Christianity, and the various Crusades.
But there was more at play than just the shepherds' deception. "We have turned every one to his own way" - each person sought his own personal gain. Anyone familiar with the Gold Train, the train of millions that departed Hungary, an entire train loaded with millions of dollars plundered from the Jews, understands this well. The Jews were bankers, they were wealthy, they possessed capital. Thus, part of the persecution did not stem merely from the desire to make them idolaters like us, but from personal calculation: What will I gain from this?
So too with the pogroms against the Jews of Europe: many of them stemmed from the fact that Jews were barred from engaging in almost any trade, leaving money-lending as the only profession available to them. And no one likes paying interest; hence, there was immense hatred from the Gentile toward the Jew who was his creditor and demanded repayment. Since murdering the Jew erased the debt, they would periodically organize a pogrom and eliminate the Jews. This is what is meant by "He was wounded for our transgressions" - everything we inflicted was due to our own crimes, because we sinned against them to seize their money, for "we have turned every one to his own way," each person pursuing his own profit.
"And Hashem has laid on him the iniquity of us all" - he was the target for the arrows of our sins. Our sins were the pain and affliction we caused him without cause, until all of our sins struck him. That is to say: all the evil deeds we committed were what harmed, ruined, and caused suffering to the Jew.
נִגַּשׂ וְהוּא נַעֲנֶה וְלֹא יִפְתַּח־פִּיו כַּשֶּׂה לַטֶּבַח יוּבָל וּכְרָחֵל לִפְנֵי גֹזְזֶיהָ נֶאֱלָמָה וְלֹא יִפְתַּח פִּיו׃ - He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; as a sheep that is led to the slaughter, and as a ewe that before her shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth.
"Niggas" (he was oppressed) - from the language of taskmasters (nogeshim), as in the verse "he shall not exact (lo yigosh) of his fellow." Some read it as "niggash" (he approached), and this is implied in the Targum, but according to our text found in all the books, it is an expression of extortion and oppression. Radak explains: he was oppressed financially - they would come and demand money from him and plunder him. "And he was afflicted" (vehu na'aneh) - bodily affliction, for they afflicted him not only in his wealth, but with actual beatings. Rashi explains "and he was afflicted" as referring to verbal abuse (ona'at devarim): they were not satisfied with torment and beatings, but created a demonic, monstrous image of him, as a subhuman, as something harmful from which one must keep away. That is to say, we were not satisfied with extorting his money, but also "and he was afflicted" with verbal abuse.
"Yet he did not open his mouth" - despite all this, he was not permitted to cry out and complain about what was being done to him; rather, he was "like a lamb led to the slaughter," like a lamb led to slaughter that does not open its mouth, and like a ewe led to shearing. The two parables correspond to two types of injury: "like a lamb led to the slaughter" refers to the physical suffering and killing, "and like a ewe that is mute before its shearers" refers to the money that was taken from us, like a ewe whose wool is shorn and cannot open its mouth.
And why specifically a ewe (rachel) rather than a male lamb? Radak explains: because the ewe is weaker, for among all species the female is weaker than the male. Scripture comes to express the weakness of Israel in their exile, who were in such a state of utter weakness that they did not even possess the right to make a plea.
Anyone who has asked grandparents who came from abroad knows this: a Jew could never receive a fair trial before the kadi, before the caliph, in the Arab mahkama (court). The underlying premise was always: you, the Jew, are a swindler, a thief, and an infidel - now let us hear what you have to say. It is almost like a Haredi Jew seeking justice in the Supreme Court. The prominent attorney Yaakov Weinroth once said that if a Haredi client, let alone a Sephardi one, came to him, he would strongly advise him: do not go to court, take a plea bargain, you will not receive justice. That sparked a major uproar, but no one could argue with him, as no one had his level of experience in the courts, representing the biggest sharks. He was a Ponovezh yeshivah alumnus himself, and he remarked that in terms of intellect, analysis, and sharp wit, he could outmatch any Supreme Court judge. And this is what the prophet said: "and like a ewe that is mute before its shearers" - he does not even have the right to plead; even if he comes to justify himself, they will neither listen nor accept it. The Supreme Court ostensibly champions the welfare of all minorities and marginalized groups, unless you happen to be Haredi. As someone once quipped: in the Supreme Court, "justice" is merely the name of a planet (Tzedek - Jupiter).
מֵעֹצֶר וּמִמִּשְׁפָּט לֻקָּח וְאֶת־דּוֹרוֹ מִי יְשׂוֹחֵחַ כִּי נִגְזַר מֵאֶרֶץ חַיִּים מִפֶּשַׁע עַמִּי נֶגַע לָמוֹ׃ - From detention and from judgment he was taken, and of his generation who will speak? For he was cut off from the land of the living; because of the transgression of my people, the plague was upon them.
Rashi explains that the prophet is foretelling what the nations will say in the end of days, when they witness how the Jewish people were held captive and judged in their hands, and now "from detention and from judgment he was taken" - the Holy One, blessed be He, will redeem them and extract them from the imprisonment and judicial oppression they suffered under the nations, and Israel will emerge from exile both physically and spiritually. "And of his generation who will speak?" - who can recount what occurred in his era, the years that passed over him, the troubles and tribulations that befell him throughout history, "for he was cut off from the land of the living" - having been banished from the Land of Israel. "Because of the transgression of my people, the plague was upon them" - through the transgressions of the nations, this plague came upon Israel; or alternatively, "my people" refers to Israel itself, meaning that through the sins of the wicked among them, affliction befell the righteous among them.
Radak does not interpret "and of his generation who will speak" as referring to the past, but rather to the future greatness: what glory his generation will enjoy, who could possibly express it? Who can speak and describe the tremendous magnitude of the splendor destined for the Jewish people? Words will fail, as it were, and it will be impossible to speak of and depict the immense greatness and stature of Israel at the time of redemption.
Malbim explains the verse as a continuation of the description of the nations' injustices, coming to dispel a mistaken notion. One might imagine that all that has been described thus far - the persecutions, "he was wounded because of our transgressions," and all they endured - was carried out by rogue individuals, an outburst of lawless mobs. Not so. "From detention and from judgment he was taken": from where was he taken to be tormented? From the court of law. A distinction must be drawn: if in a particular place a few isolated criminals caused harm, one cannot say that the entire place is evil, or that the government is evil, or that the courts are evil. But when wickedness is institutionalized, when it originates from the power of the courts and the government, and they carry out these actions through legal mechanisms - that is an incomparably greater corruption and perversion. This is the meaning of the verse: after detaining him, they brought him to the place of judgment and tried him in their courts, and there sentenced him to torture and torment. The courts of the Inquisition were actual courts of law, which tried and condemned Jews to torture and suffering.
Malbim continues: And do not say that this occurred because there was iniquity in him, that perhaps they genuinely found fault in him, that perhaps he was a thief, harmed society, or committed wrongdoing. For it says, "and of his generation who will speak?" According to Malbim, the verse is to be read in this manner: of his generation, which due to the transgression of my people was cut off from the land of the living - who will speak that the plague was upon them [justifiably]? Even though through the wickedness of the nations and the false charges fabricated against him, he was cut off from the land of the living and condemned to death through their plots - who can speak and find any cause in his generation to justify their suffering this plague? You cannot claim that this happened because we sinned against them or acted unjustly toward them. No one can speak against his generation to say that guilt lay upon them.
In truth, anyone who examines this will see that it is so. In the terrible and awful Holocaust sixty and seventy years ago - may trouble not arise twice - there was no flaw found in the Jew that warranted killing and destroying him. There was a well-oiled propaganda machine run by Goebbels and his cohort, designed to blacken the Jew's image as a spreader of disease, a parasite, a creature that had to be eliminated. They vilified him and delegitimized him until the most natural reaction upon seeing a Jew was to murder him, since such a person was supposedly entirely vile. And so it was during the Inquisition: there was no genuine defect in the Jew.
Incidentally, ever since the Jews left Spain, Spain steadily declined. The era of the Jews in Spain was a Renaissance, a Golden Age - not only for the Jews, but for all of Spain. Following the expulsion of the Jews, the Spanish economy collapsed, to the point where today it is a bankrupt nation.
Similarly, a letter circulated in hundreds of thousands of copies, written by a European gentile, addressed Europe's severe challenge with the rapid expansion of the Arab population. Out of political correctness, it is considered improper to speak of them as unwelcome guests, so they are allowed to multiply without receiving any rebuke, because they are capable of rioting, torching cars, and setting half the country ablaze; thus, people hold back and stay silent. Yet that man wrote the truth - that they brought it on themselves: Sixty years ago, there was a very wise, educated, broad-minded people living here, who advanced the economy, who headed the banks and theaters. We do not view those pursuits as virtues, but that is how the gentile saw it: educated people of broad horizons. And he wrote: We sent them to Auschwitz, and in their stead we received an ignorant population, lacking knowledge and discernment, unproductive people who drain state subsidies. Since the native European birthrate is very low, the European public is aging, and the new generation consists of Arabs and various immigrants. And what came of this? We expelled brilliant minds, we banished an engine of growth, and we brought in ignorant people who spread terror and death, while we fund them, support them in our universities, and grant them generous welfare stipends. It is simply unbelievable.
This teaches us that when hatred of the Jew burns, all logic and common sense vanish. The Steipler remarked on the verse, "And the frog came up" - the Gemara cites Rabbi Akiva's view that there was originally only a single frog, and as they struck it, it spewed forth swarm upon swarm of frogs. This is puzzling: if you strike it and see it producing swarms, stop hitting it! Why keep striking it when more emerge? Where is the logic? The Steipler explained: this shows the power of irrational hatred. There is a frog irritating me - whack, a blow! Swarms emerge? I do not care, I will strike it again. "Let my soul die with the Philistines." He sees that he harms himself, yet he does not care, for hatred blinds him. So too here: the hatred of the Jew was so immense that the nation knew it was harming itself, yet remained willing to do so as long as the Jew was beaten and tormented. This is what the verse means: come and see, who can recount "the transgression of my people" that brought "a plague upon them"? What plague was there in the Jewish people, what crime was found in them, that warranted pursuing them so ruthlessly?
וַיִּתֵּן אֶת־רְשָׁעִים קִבְרוֹ וְאֶת־עָשִׁיר בְּמֹתָיו עַל לֹא־חָמָס עָשָׂה וְלֹא מִרְמָה בְּפִיו׃ - And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his deaths, though he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.
"And he made his grave with the wicked" - he surrendered himself to be buried in the burial of the wicked. What is the burial of the wicked? Rashi explains: the burial of a donkey, which means being left to the bellies of dogs. When a donkey dies, no funeral is held for it; rather, the dogs consume its flesh. The Jew was willing to be buried like the wicked, suffering the fate of villains, as long as he did not deny the God of Heaven. "And with the rich in his deaths" - he surrendered himself to whatever form of death the ruler decreed upon him. Why does the text say "in his deaths" in the plural, rather than "in his death"? Because the nations were exceedingly inventive, devising numerous forms of execution and slaughter, and whatever death was decreed, the Jew was willing to accept with complete self-sacrifice.
Radak explains "and he made his grave with the wicked" to mean that they killed him as if he were a criminal. A wicked man deserves death, and the gentiles executed the Jew as though he were guilty of a crime, as if he had committed wickedness. Why does it say "and he made [gave]"? Because he voluntarily surrendered himself to death. The gentile would say to him: If you renounce your God, I will spare you; if you accept the religion of love, I will let you live. Yet the Jew chose to "make his grave with the wicked", surrendering his soul to death rather than denying the God of Heaven, as it is written: "For Your sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter." "And with the rich in his deaths" - they also killed the wealthy Jew because of his wealth, not because of any wickedness. His only "sin" was being rich, and they coveted his money. "In his deaths" - they subjected them to bizarre and cruel executions, some burned, some slain by the sword, some stoned, and through all of this they offered up their lives.
The Malbim explains "and with the rich in his deaths" to mean that they placed the grave of the wealthy Jew alongside the wicked upon his death. Even when they executed a wealthy man, they dug his grave among criminals. The reason for this: when a gentile seeks to kill a Jew, he needs a pretext and a justification. Even if the reason is completely baseless and holds no water, he still requires a narrative. Killing a wealthy man purely to plunder his money looks bad - after all, are you murdering someone just to seize his wealth? Therefore, they would fabricate charges against him and accuse him of treason or crime.
We find a precedent for this with Jezebel: when she coveted Naboth's vineyard, she accused him of having "cursed God" - Naboth allegedly blasphemed, and Heaven's honor was supposedly so dear to her that she brought false witnesses to have him executed. The Malbim explains there that even when gentiles committed an injustice, they cloaked it in a mantle of justice and law, because the public would not tolerate blatant evil or naked oppression. They needed to manufacture a charge and pin a crime upon the victim so the act would appear legitimate. This is the meaning of the verse: "He made his grave with the wicked" - even the grave of the wealthy man upon his death was placed among criminals. Where did they bury the wealthy Jew? In the cemetery of the wicked, among rebels against the king who were executed for their crimes. Then they could say to the public: Do you see? This man was evil; see where we buried him, among the outlaws. True, he had money and we confiscated it, but we did not kill him for his money! In this way they manufactured legitimacy, pretending their deeds stemmed from the need to uphold order and punish offenders. Regarding all of this, the verse proclaims: "Though he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth."
וַיהֹוָה חָפֵץ דַּכְּאוֹ הֶחֱלִי אִם־תָּשִׂים אָשָׁם נַפְשׁוֹ יִרְאֶה זֶרַע יַאֲרִיךְ יָמִים וְחֵפֶץ יְהֹוָה בְּיָדוֹ יִצְלָח׃ - Yet it pleased Hashem to crush him, He put him to grief; if his soul shall make an offering for guilt, he shall see seed, he shall prolong his days, and the purpose of Hashem shall prosper in his hand.
Rashi explains: The Holy One, blessed be He, desired to crush him and bring him back to the good, and therefore He afflicted him with illness. The cantillation mark on hecheli is on the lamed, meaning the Holy One made him ill in order to crush him and return him to the good. "If his soul makes an offering for guilt" - the Holy One says: I will see if his soul is offered up in holiness to return to Me a guilt offering (asham) for all that he trespassed; that is, if the Jewish people do teshuvah, then I will grant him his reward: "He shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days." And what is an asham? Rashi explains that it is an expression of ransom, as was said regarding the Philistines: "Do not send it away empty, but return to Him a guilt offering (asham)" - for they had captured the Ark of Hashem and suffered from tumors and from the mice that ravaged their intestines, not knowing what caused it; so they came to their priests, who told them to return the Ark of the Covenant of Hashem, for they had seen Dagon fallen on the threshold with his hands severed. They were then told: return an asham, for an asham serves as an atonement for what you have done. So too here: if I see that he repents and offers a ransom for his soul for his deeds, through this I will reward him: "He shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days."
The Malbim explains differently from Rashi. Since we have seen that their forefathers in earlier generations were killed for the sanctification of the Divine Name, "yet Hashem desired to crush him, he made him sick" - the Holy One, blessed be He, desired to appease and console for the crushing of that generation. Hecheli comes from the language of appeasement (chiluy panim), like "I will plead for your favor (achaleh fanecha)": the Holy One, as it were, wishes to console the Jewish people for all of their crushing, for everything they suffered throughout the generations, and He will therefore bestow good upon their descendants after them in the final generation. Just as it is written, "As in the days of your coming out of the land of Egypt, I will show him wonders," and as it is written, "Make us glad according to the days wherein You have afflicted us, the years wherein we have seen evil" - corresponding to those days in which You afflicted us, to that same extent shall we rejoice.
According to this, the Holy One, blessed be He, says to the enemy: Even if "his soul makes an offering for guilt," even if you kill the Jew, treat his soul as guilty, and judge him as deserving of death, know this - Hashem desires to appease the one who was crushed. And how? "He shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days." Even if you succeeded in killing this Jew, and even if you thought you finished off the Jewish people, nothing will help you. Throughout history, there were many rulers who made it their hobby or life's goal to eliminate the Jewish people, but through the kindness of Hashem we are not consumed, for His compassions fail not - the nations will never succeed. Hashem will ensure that from that Jew will come offspring who will prolong their days, and "the desire of Hashem will prosper in his hand": what Hashem desires, that the Jewish people endure forever, will succeed through his hand. Even if not through the hand of the Jew who perished, it will be fulfilled through his son and his descendants who survive, and through this the Divine will and purpose shall endure.
מֵעֲמַל נַפְשׁוֹ יִרְאֶה יִשְׂבָּע בְּדַעְתּוֹ יַצְדִּיק צַדִּיק עַבְדִּי לָרַבִּים וַעֲוֺנֹתָם הוּא יִסְבֹּל׃ - From the travail of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge My righteous servant shall justify the many, and their iniquities he shall bear.
Rashi explains "from the travail of his soul" - he would eat from the labor of his soul; he would neither rob nor extort, but ate only of what he had toiled for himself. "By his knowledge My righteous servant shall justify" - My servant would judge with true judgment everyone who came before him for justice, vindicating the righteous and condemning the wicked. "And their iniquities he shall bear" - the righteous bear upon themselves the sins of the generation, as it is written, "You and your sons shall bear the iniquity of the Sanctuary." The tzaddikim suffer for the sake of the generation, and as the Ramchal elaborates in Derech Hashem, detailing how the righteous bear the iniquities of the generation and how this is for their ultimate benefit and a kindness to them, for afterward the Holy One, blessed be He, grants them an immense and magnificent eternal reward in the World of Truth, since the entire existence of the Jewish people and the entire generation is sustained solely in their merit.
The Radak explains "from the travail of his soul he shall see and be satisfied" - from the hardship he suffered in exile, his reward will be that he will see and be satisfied: he will see good, and with that good he will be satisfied. For all that he labored, toiled, and struggled, the kindness that the Holy One, blessed be He, will perform with him is that in the End of Days he will merit to see Hashem's benevolence toward him - how all these afflictions were worthwhile, how they ultimately led to the future redemption, and how through those very sufferings we attained such high spiritual levels. "By his knowledge My righteous servant shall justify the many" - as it is written, "For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of Hashem," and "For they shall all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them." Then My servant Israel, who is righteous - and Hashem knows the way of the righteous - will justify the many, as it is written, "And many peoples shall go and say: Come, let us go up to the mountain of Hashem, to the house of the God of Jacob, and He will teach us of His ways." This righteous servant, through his deeds, will bring about a reality where all the nations take hold of the garment of a Jewish man and say to him: Come, take us to the mountain of Hashem; we want to serve the Holy One, blessed be He. "And their iniquities he shall bear" - in his righteousness he will bear the sins of the nations, and there will be peace for the peoples in their land. In whose merit? In the merit of the tzaddik who bore their iniquity.
In these verses, the prophet places the confession of the End of Days into the mouths of the nations of the world. "All we like sheep have gone astray" - our shepherds, the leaders of our religion and idolatry, led us astray; and also "we have turned every one to his own way" - each person pursued his own unjust gain, hunting the Jew's money and seeking the cancellation of his own debts. "He was oppressed, and he was afflicted" in money, in body, and through hurtful speech, yet he fell silent like a lamb to the slaughter and like a sheep before its shearers, given no opportunity even to argue his case. "From oppression and from judgment he was taken" - not at the hands of isolated lawbreakers, but through the institutionalized malice of courts and governments, with no one able to speak up or find in him any real fault or crime to justify it. "And he made his grave with the wicked" - he gave his life to horrific deaths rather than deny his faith, while they cloaked their greed under the mantle of justice and buried him among criminals. Yet facing all of this comes the consolation: "yet Hashem desired to crush him" - the Holy One desires to console the downtrodden, and even if they kill the Jew, "he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the desire of Hashem will prosper in his hand"; and in the end, "from the travail of his soul he shall see and be satisfied," justifying the many, for all the peace of the nations will be in the merit of the suffering of the righteous.