The Messiah would suffer and be rejected

The prophet Isaiah, in Isaiah 52:13-53:12, foreshadowed the life and mission of Jesus, including the detail that he would be rejected and despised (see Isaiah 53:3).

Jesus was indeed rejected by many people living in the land of Israel, and He was later crucified by the Romans.

It has been claimed by some scholars that Isaiah 52:13-53:12 actually refers to Israel as a nation and not to an individual Messiah. But, at least some of the ancient Rabbis believed that this passage from Isaiah is indeed about an individual Messiah. Hal Lindsey, in his book, "The Promise of Bible Prophecy," wrote the following: Rabbi Moshe Alshekh, one of the great seventeenth-century expositors from Safed, Israel, said "Our Rabbis with one voice accept and affirm the opinion that the prophet is speaking of the King Messiah, and we shall ourselves also adhere to the same view."

Here's another example of a Rabbi, referring to a prophecy by Isaiah, stating that it refers to an individual - the Messiah - rather than to a nation of people:

"But he was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities, the meaning of which is that since the Messiah bears our iniquities which produce the effect of his being bruised, it follows that whoso will not admit that the Messiah thus suffers for our iniquities, must endure and suffer for them himself." - Rabbi Eliyyah de Vidas, who wrote during the 16th century.

One source for the two quotations is The Fifty-Third Chapter of Isaiah According to the Jewish Interpreters, translated by S.R. Driver and A.D. Neubauer, KTAV publishing House, New York, 1969.



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