July 29 — Wounded for Our Transgressions
SCRIPTURE READING:
Isaiah 49-53
SCRIPTURE:
Isaiah 49:¹ Listen, O isles, unto me; and hearken, ye people, from far; The LORD hath called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name.
Isaiah 49:² And he hath made my mouth like a sharp sword; in the shadow of his hand hath he hid me, and made me a polished shaft; in his quiver hath he hid me;
Isaiah 49:³ And said unto me, Thou art my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified.
Isaiah 49:⁴ Then I said, I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nought, and in vain: yet surely my judgment is with the LORD, and my work with my God.
Isaiah 49:⁵ And now, saith the LORD that formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob again to him, Though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the LORD, and my God shall be my strength.
Isaiah 49:⁶ And he said, It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth.
Isaiah 49:⁷ Thus saith the LORD, the Redeemer of Israel, and his Holy One, to him whom man despiseth, to him whom the nation abhorreth, to a servant of rulers, Kings shall see and arise, princes also shall worship, because of the LORD that is faithful, and the Holy One of Israel, and he shall choose thee.
Isaiah 49:⁸ Thus saith the LORD, In an acceptable time have I heard thee, and in a day of salvation have I helped thee: and I will preserve thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, to establish the earth, to cause to inherit the desolate heritages;
Isaiah 49:⁹ That thou mayest say to the prisoners, Go forth; to them that are in darkness, Shew yourselves. They shall feed in the ways, and their pastures shall be in all high places.
Isaiah 49:¹⁰ They shall not hunger nor thirst; neither shall the heat nor sun smite them: for he that hath mercy on them shall lead them, even by the springs of water shall he guide them.
Isaiah 49:¹¹ And I will make all my mountains a way, and my highways shall be exalted.
Isaiah 49:¹² Behold, these shall come from far: and, lo, these from the north and from the west; and these from the land of Sinim.
Isaiah 49:¹³ Sing, O heavens; and be joyful, O earth; and break forth into singing, O mountains: for the LORD hath comforted his people, and will have mercy upon his afflicted.
Isaiah 49:¹⁴ But Zion said, The LORD hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me.
Isaiah 49:¹⁵ Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee.
Isaiah 49:¹⁶ Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me.
Isaiah 49:¹⁷ Thy children shall make haste; thy destroyers and they that made thee waste shall go forth of thee.
Isaiah 49:¹⁸ Lift up thine eyes round about, and behold: all these gather themselves together, and come to thee. As I live, saith the LORD, thou shalt surely clothe thee with them all, as with an ornament, and bind them on thee, as a bride doeth.
Isaiah 49:¹⁹ For thy waste and thy desolate places, and the land of thy destruction, shall even now be too narrow by reason of the inhabitants, and they that swallowed thee up shall be far away.
Isaiah 49:²⁰ The children which thou shalt have, after thou hast lost the other, shall say again in thine ears, The place is too strait for me: give place to me that I may dwell.
Isaiah 49:²¹ Then shalt thou say in thine heart, Who hath begotten me these, seeing I have lost my children, and am desolate, a captive, and removing to and fro? and who hath brought up these? Behold, I was left alone; these, where had they been?
Isaiah 49:²² Thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, I will lift up mine hand to the Gentiles, and set up my standard to the people: and they shall bring thy sons in their arms, and thy daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders.
Isaiah 49:²³ And kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers: they shall bow down to thee with their face toward the earth, and lick up the dust of thy feet; and thou shalt know that I am the LORD: for they shall not be ashamed that wait for me.
Isaiah 49:²⁴ Shall the prey be taken from the mighty, or the lawful captive delivered?
Isaiah 49:²⁵ But thus saith the LORD, Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible shall be delivered: for I will contend with him that contendeth with thee, and I will save thy children.
Isaiah 49:²⁶ And I will feed them that oppress thee with their own flesh; and they shall be drunken with their own blood, as with sweet wine: and all flesh shall know that I the LORD am thy Saviour and thy Redeemer, the mighty One of Jacob.
Isaiah 50:¹ Thus saith the LORD, Where is the bill of your mother’s divorcement, whom I have put away? or which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you? Behold, for your iniquities have ye sold yourselves, and for your transgressions is your mother put away.
Isaiah 50:² Wherefore, when I came, was there no man? when I called, was there none to answer? Is my hand shortened at all, that it cannot redeem? or have I no power to deliver? behold, at my rebuke I dry up the sea, I make the rivers a wilderness: their fish stinketh, because there is no water, and dieth for thirst.
Isaiah 50:³ I clothe the heavens with blackness, and I make sackcloth their covering.
Isaiah 50:⁴ The Lord GOD hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary: he wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned.
Isaiah 50:⁵ The Lord GOD hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back.
Isaiah 50:⁶ I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting.
Isaiah 50:⁷ For the Lord GOD will help me; therefore shall I not be confounded: therefore have I set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed.
Isaiah 50:⁸ He is near that justifieth me; who will contend with me? let us stand together: who is mine adversary? let him come near to me.
Isaiah 50:⁹ Behold, the Lord GOD will help me; who is he that shall condemn me? lo, they all shall wax old as a garment; the moth shall eat them up.
Isaiah 50:¹⁰ Who is among you that feareth the LORD, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness, and hath no light? let him trust in the name of the LORD, and stay upon his God.
Isaiah 50:¹¹ Behold, all ye that kindle a fire, that compass yourselves about with sparks: walk in the light of your fire, and in the sparks that ye have kindled. This shall ye have of mine hand; ye shall lie down in sorrow.
Isaiah 51:¹ Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek the LORD: look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged.
Isaiah 51:² Look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that bare you: for I called him alone, and blessed him, and increased him.
Isaiah 51:³ For the LORD shall comfort Zion: he will comfort all her waste places; and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the LORD; joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody.
Isaiah 51:⁴ Hearken unto me, my people; and give ear unto me, O my nation: for a law shall proceed from me, and I will make my judgment to rest for a light of the people.
Isaiah 51:⁵ My righteousness is near; my salvation is gone forth, and mine arms shall judge the people; the isles shall wait upon me, and on mine arm shall they trust.
Isaiah 51:⁶ Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look upon the earth beneath: for the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment, and they that dwell therein shall die in like manner: but my salvation shall be for ever, and my righteousness shall not be abolished.
Isaiah 51:⁷ Hearken unto me, ye that know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law; fear ye not the reproach of men, neither be ye afraid of their revilings.
Isaiah 51:⁸ For the moth shall eat them up like a garment, and the worm shall eat them like wool: but my righteousness shall be for ever, and my salvation from generation to generation.
Isaiah 51:⁹ Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the LORD; awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. Art thou not it that hath cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon?
Isaiah 51:¹⁰ Art thou not it which hath dried the sea, the waters of the great deep; that hath made the depths of the sea a way for the ransomed to pass over?
Isaiah 51:¹¹ Therefore the redeemed of the LORD shall return, and come with singing unto Zion; and everlasting joy shall be upon their head: they shall obtain gladness and joy; and sorrow and mourning shall flee away.
Isaiah 51:¹² I, even I, am he that comforteth you: who art thou, that thou shouldest be afraid of a man that shall die, and of the son of man which shall be made as grass;
Isaiah 51:¹³ And forgettest the LORD thy maker, that hath stretched forth the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth; and hast feared continually every day because of the fury of the oppressor, as if he were ready to destroy? and where is the fury of the oppressor?
Isaiah 51:¹⁴ The captive exile hasteneth that he may be loosed, and that he should not die in the pit, nor that his bread should fail.
Isaiah 51:¹⁵ But I am the LORD thy God, that divided the sea, whose waves roared: The LORD of hosts is his name.
Isaiah 51:¹⁶ And I have put my words in thy mouth, and I have covered thee in the shadow of mine hand, that I may plant the heavens, and lay the foundations of the earth, and say unto Zion, Thou art my people.
Isaiah 51:¹⁷ Awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem, which hast drunk at the hand of the LORD the cup of his fury; thou hast drunken the dregs of the cup of trembling, and wrung them out.
Isaiah 51:¹⁸ There is none to guide her among all the sons whom she hath brought forth; neither is there any that taketh her by the hand of all the sons that she hath brought up.
Isaiah 51:¹⁹ These two things are come unto thee; who shall be sorry for thee? desolation, and destruction, and the famine, and the sword: by whom shall I comfort thee?
Isaiah 51:²⁰ Thy sons have fainted, they lie at the head of all the streets, as a wild bull in a net: they are full of the fury of the LORD, the rebuke of thy God.
Isaiah 51:²¹ Therefore hear now this, thou afflicted, and drunken, but not with wine:
Isaiah 51:²² Thus saith thy Lord the LORD, and thy God that pleadeth the cause of his people, Behold, I have taken out of thine hand the cup of trembling, even the dregs of the cup of my fury; thou shalt no more drink it again:
Isaiah 51:²³ But I will put it into the hand of them that afflict thee; which have said to thy soul, Bow down, that we may go over: and thou hast laid thy body as the ground, and as the street, to them that went over.
Isaiah 52:¹ Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city: for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean.
Isaiah 52:² Shake thyself from the dust; arise, and sit down, O Jerusalem: loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion.
Isaiah 52:³ For thus saith the LORD, Ye have sold yourselves for nought; and ye shall be redeemed without money.
Isaiah 52:⁴ For thus saith the Lord GOD, My people went down aforetime into Egypt to sojourn there; and the Assyrian oppressed them without cause.
Isaiah 52:⁵ Now therefore, what have I here, saith the LORD, that my people is taken away for nought? they that rule over them make them to howl, saith the LORD; and my name continually every day is blasphemed.
Isaiah 52:⁶ Therefore my people shall know my name: therefore they shall know in that day that I am he that doth speak: behold, it is I.
Isaiah 52:⁷ How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!
Isaiah 52:⁸ Thy watchmen shall lift up the voice; with the voice together shall they sing: for they shall see eye to eye, when the LORD shall bring again Zion.
Isaiah 52:⁹ Break forth into joy, sing together, ye waste places of Jerusalem: for the LORD hath comforted his people, he hath redeemed Jerusalem.
Isaiah 52:¹⁰ The LORD hath made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.
Isaiah 52:¹¹ Depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from thence, touch no unclean thing; go ye out of the midst of her; be ye clean, that bear the vessels of the LORD.
Isaiah 52:¹² For ye shall not go out with haste, nor go by flight: for the LORD will go before you; and the God of Israel will be your rereward.
Isaiah 52:¹³ Behold, my servant shall deal prudently, he shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high.
Isaiah 52:¹⁴ As many were astonied at thee; his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men:
Isaiah 52:¹⁵ So shall he sprinkle many nations; the kings shall shut their mouths at him: for that which had not been told them shall they see; and that which they had not heard shall they consider.
Isaiah 53:¹ Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed?
Isaiah 53:² For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.
Isaiah 53:³ He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Isaiah 53:⁴ Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
Isaiah 53:⁵ But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
Isaiah 53:⁶ All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.
Isaiah 53:⁷ He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.
Isaiah 53:⁸ He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken.
Isaiah 53:⁹ And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.
Isaiah 53:¹⁰ Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.
Isaiah 53:¹¹ He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.
Isaiah 53:¹² Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.
DEVOTIONAL:
Isaiah 49 through 53 centers on the Servant of the Lord. The Servant is called from the womb, formed to bring Jacob back, and also given as a light to the Gentiles so that God's salvation may reach the end of the earth. The language is woven with Israel's calling and yet focused on a distinct obedient Servant who restores Israel and blesses the nations. This preserves the covenant story while widening our view of God's saving mission.
Zion fears she has been forgotten, but the Lord answers with maternal tenderness and covenant permanence: a woman may forget her nursing child, yet the Lord will not forget Zion. He has graven her upon His palms. The comfort is not sentimental escape. Exile, shame, and ruins are real. Yet God's memory is stronger than desolation. The nations will see His faithfulness, and those who wait for Him will not be ashamed.
Isaiah 50 and 52 present the Servant as obedient, rejected, and ultimately exalted. He gives His back to the smiters, His cheeks to those who pluck off the hair, and His face to shame and spitting. Then Isaiah 53 unveils the mystery: the despised Servant bears griefs, carries sorrows, is wounded for transgressions, bruised for iniquities, and makes His soul an offering for sin. Substitution stands at the heart of the passage. The innocent Servant suffers for the guilty, and by His stripes healing comes.
The New Testament repeatedly identifies Jesus as this Servant. He is rejected by men, silent before accusers, numbered with transgressors, buried with the rich, and raised to see the fruit of His suffering. The gospel is not merely that Jesus sympathizes with pain, though He does. The gospel is that He bears sin in the place of sinners and justifies many by His knowledge. We are saved by grace through faith in the crucified and risen Messiah, and repentance follows as the fruit of receiving such mercy.
In daily life, Isaiah 49 through 53 calls us to receive salvation before trying to perform usefulness. Families can practice forgiveness because sin has been truly atoned for, workers can endure unjust treatment without surrendering truth, and churches can keep the cross at the center rather than using it as a decorative symbol. The Servant's wounds cure pride, despair, and vengeance. We obey from gratitude, not to purchase acceptance.
In U.S. civic life, the civic virtue tied to this reading is sacrificial mercy. A fitting current prayer focus is for victims of injustice, the falsely accused, prisoners, crime survivors, and those crushed by shame to encounter truth, protection, repentance, and healing. Christians should show up as cross-shaped witnesses who seek justice without cruelty, offer mercy without denying sin, and honor the dignity of sufferers.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
How does the Servant's mission include both Israel's restoration and light for the Gentiles?
What does Isaiah 53 teach about substitution and the bearing of sin?
Why is it important that Jesus fulfills the Servant's suffering and exaltation?
How should the cross shape the way you respond to shame, injustice, or guilt?
PRAYER:
ADORATION: Suffering Servant and exalted Lord, You bear sin, restore the covenant people, and bring salvation to the ends of the earth.
CONFESSION: We confess that we minimize our sin, hide our shame, and resist the humble way of the cross.
THANKSGIVING: Thank You that Jesus was wounded for our transgressions and that His stripes bring healing no self-effort could earn.
SUPPLICATION – GENERAL: Keep the cross central in our homes and churches, forming repentance, forgiveness, endurance, and holy gratitude.
SUPPLICATION – U.S. / CIVIC: Bring truth, protection, repentance, and healing to victims of injustice, the falsely accused, prisoners, crime survivors, and the ashamed.
SCRIPTURE: "with his stripes we are healed"