[1] Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. [2] Then Paul, as his custom was, went in to them, and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures, [3] explaining and demonstrating that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, and [saying], “This Jesus whom I preach to you is the Christ.” [4] And some of them were persuaded; and a great multitude of the devout Greeks, and not a few of the leading women, joined Paul and Silas. [5] But the Jews who were not persuaded . . .1
See, my servant will prosper and he will be exalted and lifted up, and will be very high. Just as many were astonished at you—so was he marred in his appearance, more than any human, and his form beyond that of the sons of humans—so will he startle many nations. Kings will shut their mouths at him; for what had not been told them they will see; and what they had not heard they will understand. Who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he grew up before him like a tender plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form and he had no majesty that we should look at him, and had no attractiveness that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by others, and a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering; and like one from whom people hide their faces and we despised him, and we did not value him. Surely he has born our sufferings, and carried our sorrows; yet we considered him stricken and struck down by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, and he was crushed for our iniquities, and the punishment that made us whole was upon him, and by his bruises we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, each of us, to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, as a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. From detention and judgment he was taken away—and who can even think about his descendants? For he was cut off from the land of the living, he was stricken for the transgression of my people. Then they made his grave with the wicked, and with rich people his tomb—although he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. Yet the Lord was willing to crush him, and he made him suffer. Although you make his soul an offering for sin, and he will see his offspring, and he will prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will triumph in his hand. Out of the suffering of his soul he will see light, and find satisfaction. And through his knowledge his servant, the righteous one, will make many righteous, and he will bear their iniquities. Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong; because he poured out his life to death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sins of many, and made intercession for their transgressions.9
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.13— John 3:16-17
Endnotes:
1. | NKJV, (Acts 17:1-5a) |
2. | Ref-0617, #1363 |
3. | Ref-0617, #1380 |
4. | Ref-0617, #4192 |
5. | “The Isaiah Scroll, designated 1Qlsa and also known as the Great Isaiah Scroll, was found in a cave near the Dead Sea (Qumran Cave 1) with six other scrolls by Bedouin shepherds in 1947, later known as the Dead Sea Scrolls. The scroll is written in Hebrew and contains the entire Book of Isaiah from beginning to end, apart from a few small damaged portions. It is the oldest complete copy of the Book of Isaiah known, being 1100 years older than the Leningrad Codex, and the most complete scroll out of the 220 found at Qumran. Pieces of the Isaiah Scroll have been carbon-14 dated at least four times, giving calibrated date ranges between 335-324 BC and 202-107 BC; there have also been numerous paleographic and scribal dating studies placing the scroll around 150-100 BC.” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Sea_Scrolls |
6. | Ref-0001, p. 29 |
7. | Ref-0236, 136 |
8. | “Even though the two copies of Isaiah discovered in Qumran Cave 1. . . were a thousand years earlier than the oldest dated manuscript previously known (A.D. 980), they proved to be word for word identical with our standard Hebrew Bible in more than 95 percent of the text, but in 1QIsb, (ca. 75 B.C.) the preserved text is almost letter for letter identical with the Leningrad Manuscript. The five percent of variation consisted chiefly of obvious slips of the pen and variations in spelling.”6 “1QIsa is the usual designation for the great Isaiah Scroll, one of the manuscripts in the first discovery. Dated about 100 B.C. or earlier, it is a complete copy of the Book of Isaiah, except for a few small breaks in the text. For all practical purposes, the text of this ancient scroll reads the same as the standard Massoretic Text printed in current Hebrew Bibles. There are, to be sure, a number of divergent readings represented in it, some of which are worthwhile; but the majority of readings has to do with such things as spelling, grammar, and modifications of vocabulary. Indeed, 1QIsa may be described as a kind of updating of the text whose older form is still retained in the Massoretic Text.”7 |
9. | Ref-0790, 359-360 |
10. | Ref-0011, 54 |
11. | Ref-0011, 127 |
12. | Ref-0011, 128 |
13. | (John 3:16-17), NKJV |
14. | Ref196, 1048 |
15. | Ref-0934, 891-892 |
Sources:
NKJV | Unless indicated otherwise, all Scripture references are from the New King James Version, copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. |
Ref-0001 | Gleason L. Archer, A Survey of Old Testament Introduction (Chicago: Moody Press, 1994). |
Ref-0011 | Arnold Fruchtenbaum, Messianic Christology (Tustin, CA: Ariel Ministries, 1998). |
Ref-0236 | Neil R. Lightfoot, How We Got the Bible, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 2003). |
Ref-0617 | James Swanson, Dictionary of Biblical Languages With Semantic Domains : Greek (New Testament), electronic ed. (Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997). |
Ref-0790 | Martin Abegg Jr., Peter Flint & Eugene Ulrich, The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible (New York, NY: Harper Collins, 1999). |
Ref-0934 | Adele Berlin, Marc Zvi Brettler, The Jewish Study Bible (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2004). ISBN:0-19-529751-2d. |