Well, good effort at least at putting 3 verses together. That is progress. Plus I appreciate the Hebrew. I don't have exegetical commentaries for Isaiah, so having the definitions, even if they refer back to the KJV, which is only a translation, instead of saying how many occurrences there are in the Hebrew Bible is better than nothing. (Because the KJV is not always translated properly!)
I found this in verse 4 interesting, considering I was looking at the NET translation, which was not the usual translation. This word stuck out for me:
nâśâ' nâsâh
naw-saw', naw-saw'
A primitive root; to lift, in a great variety of applications, literally and figuratively, absolutely and relatively: - accept, advance, arise, (able to, [armour], suffer to) bear (-er, up), bring (forth), burn, carry (away), cast, contain, desire, ease, exact, exalt (self), extol, fetch, forgive, furnish, further, give, go on, help, high, hold up, honourable (+ man), lade, lay, lift (self) up, lofty, marry, magnify, X needs, obtain, pardon, raise (up), receive, regard, respect, set (up), spare, stir up, + swear, take (away, up), X utterly, wear, yield.
Net uses "lift" rather than "he bore," so now I know why. Because it is better. So thanks for that! I find it interesting that different versions really do differ in their approach to translating these words. Unfortunately, you have not posted which words in the OP go with which verses in the second reply. So here is NET. Please note, I am going to extend these verses from 1-6, simply because I want to point out what gets lost in word studies, and not having context.
1. Who would have believed what we just heard?
When was the Lord’s power revealed through him?
2 2. He sprouted up like a twig before God,
like a root out of parched soil;
he had no stately form or majesty that might catch our attention,
no special appearance that we should want to follow him.
3 3. He was despised and rejected by people,
one who experienced pain and was acquainted with illness;
people hid their faces from him;
he was despised, and we considered him insignificant.
4 4. But he lifted up our illnesses,
he carried our pain;
even though we thought he was being punished,
attacked by God, and afflicted for something he had done.
5 5. He was wounded because of our rebellious deeds,
crushed because of our sins;
he endured punishment that made us well;
because of his wounds we have been healed.
6 6. All of us had wandered off like sheep;
each of us had strayed off on his own path,
but the Lord caused the sin of all of us to attack him. Isa. 53:1-6
Here is NASB which looks a bit different in places.
"Who has believed our message?And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
2 For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot,
And like a root out of parched ground;
He has no stately form or majesty
That we should look upon Him,
Nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him.
3 He was despised and forsaken of men,
A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;
And like one from whom men hide their face
He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
4 Surely our griefs He Himself bore,
And our sorrows He carried;
Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten of God, and afflicted.
5 But 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.
6 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." Isa. 53:1-6
So, quite a difference, but still, the point of the passage is the same. My challenge is to read the passage, from beginning to end, and then tell me what it is about. Is it about us? Is it about what we get? Is it about what we can claim?
Or is this passage about Jesus? Here is my answer. The Jews will not let Isaiah 53 be read in their synagogues to this day. Why do you think that might be? Is it because we get healing? Or is because it describes a perfect picture of the Suffering Messiah, or Suffering Servant?
Verses 1-3, are about the rejection of the Servant. "He was despised and forsaken of men." "He was despised we did not esteem him." Jesus does not have "stately form or majesty." The King has no majesty! I guess not, on the cross, first having a crown of thorns on his head, then being beaten, then dragged to Golgatha and finally crucified.
This is the SUFFERING Messiah. Jesus takes on the pain and suffering of the world!
Then verses 4-6 we see all those words about sin/transgressions, iniquity, rebellious deeds, sins, "our punishment" which he suffered in our place. We had all wandered off like stupid sheep, gone astray.
And if there is any doubt about why he did this - why was he afflicted by God, he suffered for OUR iniquities, OUR sin, and in OUR place! So, this is the part where we come in. Did Jesus suffer so we could be healed? Well, the verse says,
He lifted up our illnesses and carried our pain OR Our griefs he himself bore, and our sorrows he carried.
So, quite a difference. The Hebrew, I think, does use the word "sickness." But, what kind of sickness? Sickness in our bodies, or sickness in our souls? Because the entire book of Isaiah, as I have posted before, is about Isaiah being told to go to the nation of Israel, who were diseased with sin! Here is what God says to Isaiah when he first calls him.
"4. The sinful nation is as good as dead,
the people weighed down by evil deeds.
They are offspring who do wrong,
children who do wicked things.
They have abandoned the Lord,
and rejected the Holy One of Israel.
They are alienated from him.
5 5. Why do you insist on being battered?
Why do you continue to rebel?
Your head has a massive wound,
your whole body is weak.
6 6. From the soles of your feet to your head,
there is no spot that is unharmed.
There are only bruises, cuts,
and open wounds.
They have not been cleansed or bandaged,
nor have they been treated with olive oil.
7 7. Your land is devastated,
your cities burned with fire.
Right before your eyes your crops
are being destroyed by foreign invaders.
They leave behind devastation and destruction." Isaiah 1:4-7
This is totally a message to to Isaiah to proclaim to Israel who have been wounded and are weak, because they are wicked, weighed down by evil deeds and a sinful nation. That is the CONTEXT of Isaiah.
Isaiah starts with the wounded, sin-sick metaphor right here in Chapter 1, which I have italicized above, and he keeps it up throughout the book. Israel is going down, if they do not repent. In fact, in Isaiah 6, even Isaiah realizes what a wicked sinner he is.
"I said, “Too bad for me! I am destroyed, for my lips are contaminated by sin, and I live among people whose lips are contaminated by sin. My eyes have seen the king, the Lord who commands armies. 6 But then one of the seraphs flew toward me. In his hand was a hot coal he had taken from the altar with tongs. 7 He touched my mouth with it and said, “Look, this coal has touched your lips. Your evil is removed; your sin is forgiven.” Isaiah 6:5-7
Even Isaiah himself had sin he needed to be burned right out of him.
So, now we get to why some verses say "by his stripes we are healed." It is because we are healed, in the atonement, of sin sickness. In fact, the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Bible, which Jesus and the disciples actually quoted more than the Hebrew Bible, and the Septuagint clearly recognizes Isa. 53:4 as referring to diseased Israel, and translates it as "He himself bore our sins."
Why did the Greek Jews translate it this way? Because they knew that not only did Israel suffer from sin sickness, God took them captive, burned down Solomon's temple, by way of the Babylonians, and these Jews did NOT want Israel to apostasies again.
The first thing in hermeneutics is to look at what some call "the plain meaning of the text." Some might say that means you can take each word literally, and that is the truth. In fact, we need to look at the original meaning, that the AUTHOR plainly intended, and that his AUDIENCE plainly understood. The Bible is a book for all seasons, but it first spoke to the Jews of that century, not to us, in the 21st century, with charlatans teaching things that were never meant to be to either Isaiah, to his audience, and certainly not to God.
This interpretation which the Word Faith and this OP holds is NOT about us claiming healing in the 21st century. It was about a prophecy that the Messiah would come and heal the diseased, sin sick nation of Israel, and when they rejected him, that the Gentiles would be healed of their sin-sickness. This interpretation, in which naming and claiming based on out of context verses (and by out of context, please remember the metaphor that Isaiah himself started with in chapter 1 of this book) which refer to sickness, which in fact is SIN SICKNESS. The Jews knew this in the 3rd century BC when the put the Hebrew into Greek.
Further, if you want to look down to Jesus time, after Christ died on the cross, why were the epistles not written telling people to name and claim their healing? Because, they knew the atonement did NOT contain healing. (Yes, healing happened, but not BECAUSE it was in the atonement). Even if you want to suddenly juxtapose all those verses about Jesus dying on the cross for our sins, our iniquities, with a few weak lines about healing, it simply does not bear the weight of creating an entire doctrine, in fact and entire religious movement, based on healing (and claiming wealth, of course!)
The truth is, Isaiah is about Jesus coming to redeem his people from their sins. That is the meaning of the atonement. No Jew, in Isaiah's day, in Jesus day, or even today would pull healing out of those verses. And no Christian should either.
Pray for healing, and I hope God grants it. But, it is simply NOT part of the atonement.
