120 Israel Pleads With Jesus

This long section of Isaiah is so clear in its description of the suffering Messiah that the apostles quoted it and most of Judaism's teachers avoid it. The Jews say it is a difficult prophecy; and so it is to them, being contrary to their denial of Jesus as the Messiah, but it is plain and easy, describing the Messiah. They will typically say that this is Israel's suffering in a Gentile world. In order to promote this view successfully they are entirely dependent on the ignorance of their listeners. However, many of the ancient Jewish writings—the Mishnah, the Gemara, (the Talmud), the Midrashim and many others—all regard this portion of Scripture as relating to the Messianic Person. It was not until one influential French rabbi Shlomo Yitzchak also known as Rashi began to see it as the nation Israel in the eleventh century AD that other Jewish writers began to deny the Messianic description found here.