I did not say it wasn't relevant because it talks about suffering. I said that it doesn't fit with the comforting passages selected in the lead up to Yom Kippur, when we focus on our own sins for a 26 hour fast. So the weeks leading up to it, we focus on some comforting passages. As for you asserting it's the real one because of the Messiah, prove it. Show me where the people who selected these said "nope, not this one, people will see it's about Jesus!".
I'm not convinced by your explanation about Yom Kippur and the comforting passages but I will give my reason later.
Because of. The Hebrew says "because of" not "for" in the same way I might die because of the negligence of another, not for the negligence of another.
I researched this and you are right. The prefix is mem which is "because of" and the prefix for "for" is lamed. I could interpret it as because of our sins, Jesus was put to death. It is because we are sinful that Jesus had to die. Now I give this explanation because there are some points that seriously undermine the explanation that Israel is the suffering servant.
Isaiah 53:9
He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.
- We know that Israel was violent. It was because sheer violence that Israel was established in the first place. Israel is not blameless.
Isaiah 1:4
Woe to the sinful nation, a people whose guilt is great, a brood of evildoers, children given to corruption! They have forsaken the LORD; they have spurned the Holy One of Israel and turned their backs on him.
- So Israel spurned God but later because his suffering servant?
He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.
Isaiah 53:7
7He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.
- You cannot tell me Israel suffered in silence.
9: He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.
- The whole of Israel died with the wicked yet Israel was wicked herself? Israel was not peaceful and was deceitful. The whole of Israel did not die.
10Yet it was the LORD's will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspringand prolong his days, and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.
11After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light [of life] and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities.
- So Isaiah says that the suffering servant was offered as a guilt offering for sin. Since Israel was full of sin, it could not be Israel that is the guilt offering. The suffering servant has killed and brought back to life because of the sins of transgressors. Sounds like Jesus.
I appears as if this idea of it being Israel is a recent thing. Here are ancient rabbinic sources that say the suffering servant is a messiah.
Babylonian Talmud: "The Messiah --what is his name?...The Rabbis say, The Leper Scholar, as it is said, `
surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him a leper,
smitten of God and afflicted...'" (Sanhedrin 98b)
Rabbi Moses Maimonides: "What is the manner of Messiah's advent....there shall rise up one of whom none have known before, and signs and wonders which they shall see performed by him will be the proofs of his true origin; for the Almighty, where he declares to us his mind upon this matter, says, `Behold a man whose name is the Branch, and he shall branch forth out of his place' (Zech. 6:12). And Isaiah speaks similarly of the time when he shall appear, without father or mother or family being known,
He came up as a sucker before him, and as a root out of dry earth, etc....in the words of Isaiah, when describing the manner in which kings will harken to him,
At him kings will shut their mouth; for that which had not been told them have they seen, and that which they had not heard they have perceived."(From the Letter to the South (Yemen), quoted in
The Fifty-third Chapter of Isaiah According to the Jewish Interpreters, Ktav Publishing House, 1969, Volume 2, pages 374-5)
Rabbi Mosheh Kohen Ibn Crispin: This rabbi described those who interpret Isaiah 53 as referring to Israel as those: "having forsaken the knowledge of our Teachers, and inclined after the `stubbornness of their own hearts,' and of their own opinion, I am pleased to interpret it, in accordance with the teaching of our Rabbis, of the King Messiah....This prophecy was delivered by Isaiah at the divine command for the purpose of making known to us something about the nature of the future Messiah, who is to come and deliver Israel, and his life from the day when he arrives at discretion until his advent as a redeemer, in order that if anyone should arise claiming to be himself the Messiah, we may reflect, and look to see whether we can observe in him any resemblance to the traits described here; if there is any such resemblance, then we may believe that he is the Messiah our righteousness; but if not, we cannot do so." (From his commentary on Isaiah, quoted in
The Fifty-third Chapter of Isaiah According to the Jewish Interpreters, Ktav Publishing House, 1969, Volume 2, pages 99-114.)
abbi Mosheh Kohen Ibn Crispin: This rabbi described those who interpret Isaiah 53 as referring to Israel as those: "having forsaken the knowledge of our Teachers, and inclined after the `stubbornness of their own hearts,' and of their own opinion, I am pleased to interpret it, in accordance with the teaching of our Rabbis, of the King Messiah....This prophecy was delivered by Isaiah at the divine command for the purpose of making known to us something about the nature of the future Messiah, who is to come and deliver Israel, and his life from the day when he arrives at discretion until his advent as a redeemer, in order that if anyone should arise claiming to be himself the Messiah, we may reflect, and look to see whether we can observe in him any resemblance to the traits described here; if there is any such resemblance, then we may believe that he is the Messiah our righteousness; but if not, we cannot do so." (From his commentary on Isaiah, quoted in
The Fifty-third Chapter of Isaiah According to the Jewish Interpreters, Ktav Publishing House, 1969, Volume 2, pages 99-114.)
When did this happen? Not to harp on it, but you know... the 1940s is a good example. 6 million died because of the transgressions of Germany.
The state of Israel did not exist during the Holocaust. There were Jews put to death like Poland, for example. You can't lump all Jews with Israel.