Isaiah 53:4 · World English Bible
Isaiah 53:4 Meaning Surely He Has Borne Our Sickness
Surely he has borne our sickness and carried our suffering; yet we considered him plagued, struck by God, and afflicted.
What does Isaiah 53:4 mean?
The sickness and suffering here belong to everyone, not to the one who carries them. A group cannot look at its own darkness for long.
From the Psychoanalysis reading below.
Isaiah 53:4 through 1 lens
The same verse, read by one tradition.
Psychoanalysis
PSYCHOANALYSIS
Psychoanalysis
The sickness and suffering here belong to everyone, not to the one who carries them. A group cannot look at its own darkness for long. It grows too heavy, too shameful, so the crowd picks one person and lays the whole weight on him. Then they tell themselves God has done it, that he must have earned such a fate.
Nothing was earned. He simply became the place where the crowd set down what it could not admit was its own. He looks cursed because he carries, out in the open, the pain the rest of them refused to hold.
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Psychoanalysis lens
Live Isaiah 53:4 today
- Think of someone you quietly decided deserved what happened to them, and admit to yourself that you do not actually know. Let the verdict go.
- When a group chat or a lunch table turns on one person, be the one who does not join in. You do not have to defend them, just stop adding weight.
- When something goes wrong at work and the room starts looking for someone to pin it on, say out loud what part was yours. One honest line can stop the whole machinery.
Who is carrying something for your group that nobody wants to claim?
The same truth in other traditions
Taoism · Zhuangzi
The crooked tree is left alone while the straight one is cut for timber. A group's judgment says more about what the group needs than about the one it chooses.
Stoicism · Epictetus
The one who is actually making progress blames no one and accuses no one. He has turned every charge back on himself, which is the only place it can do any work.
Judaism · Pirkei Avot
Do not judge your neighbor until you have stood where they stand. The verdict you deliver so easily is usually about your own discomfort.
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