Crushed or Cleansed? Isaiah 53:10 and Two Ancient Theologies of Atonement
Part 2: The Most Controversial Verse in Isaiah 53
Hello brothers and sisters.
In Part 1, we explored how the Dead Sea Scrolls preserve an explicit resurrection prophecy in Isaiah 53:11 (”he will see light”) that was accidentally lost in the medieval Masoretic Text. Now we turn to what might be the single most theologically significant textual difference in the entire chapter: Does God desire to crush the Suffering Servant, or to cleanse him? The answer depends on which ancient Bible you’re reading; and the implications for atonement theology are staggering…
This dichotomy creates a theological civil war that’s hiding in plain sight in your English Bible.
It’s buried in Isaiah 53:10, in a single Hebrew word that gets translated one way in the Masoretic Text and an entirely different way in the Septuagint. Most Christians have never noticed it. But once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
The question is simple: What did God want to do to the Suffering Servant?
According to the Hebrew Masoretic Text, God wanted to crush him.
According to the Greek Septuagint, God wanted to cleanse him.
These aren’t synonyms. They’re not even in the same ideological or idiomatic universe.
And yet both claim to be translating the same Hebrew text, written by the same prophet, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
Welcome to Isaiah 53:10, the verse that forces us to ask hard questions about substitutionary atonement, the nature of God’s justice, and what exactly happened on the cross.
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The Tale of Two Texts
Let me show you the stark difference. Here’s Isaiah 53:10 in two ancient witnesses:
The Masoretic Text (Hebrew, c. A.D. 1000):
וַיהוָה חָפֵץ דַּכְּאוֹ הֶחֱלִי
“Yet the LORD was pleased to crush him; he has put him to grief...”
English translations following the MT:
ESV: “Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him“
NASB: “But the LORD was pleased to crush Him“
NIV: “Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush him“
NKJV: “Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise Him“
The Septuagint (Greek, c. 250-150 B.C.):
καὶ κύριος βούλεται καθαρίσαι αὐτὸν τῆς πληγῆς
“And the Lord desired to cleanse (or purify) him from his wound“
English translation of the LXX:
Brenton: “The Lord also is pleased to purge him from his stroke”
NETS: “And the Lord wishes to cleanse him of his blow”
In the Masoretic tradition, God’s intent is punitive crushing, active infliction of suffering, expressed in strong judicial/penal language.
In the Septuagint tradition, God’s intent is therapeutic cleansing. Healing and purification from a wound already suffered, expressed in medical/restorative language.
These are fundamentally different visions of atonement.
The Hebrew Behind the Divide
To understand what’s happening here, we need to look at the Hebrew verbs involved.
The MT Reading: דָּכָא (dakah) = “to crush, bruise, oppress”
The Masoretic Text uses the verb דָּכָא (dakah), which consistently means “to crush” or “to oppress” throughout the Hebrew Bible:
Psalm 34:18 - “The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit”
Psalm 51:17 - “a broken and contrite [lit. crushed] heart, O God, you will not despise”
Isaiah 57:15 - “to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite [crushed]”
Psalm 143:3 - “he has crushed my life to the ground”
The word carries connotations of violent breaking, oppressive weight, judicial punishment. When the MT says “the LORD was pleased to dakah him,” it’s saying God actively willed to break and crush the Servant.
This fits perfectly with penal substitutionary atonement: God’s wrath against sin must be satisfied, so He crushes the innocent substitute (Christ) in place of the guilty (us).
The LXX Reading: καθαρίζω (katharizō) = “to cleanse, purify, heal”
The Greek Septuagint, however, uses an entirely different verb: καθαρίζω (katharizō), which means “to cleanse” or “to purify”:
Leviticus 16:30 (LXX) - “For on this day atonement shall be made for you to cleanse you from all your sins”
2 Kings 5:10 (LXX) - “Wash in the Jordan... and your flesh will be restored, and you will be clean“
Ezekiel 36:25 (LXX) - “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses”
Matthew 8:2-3 - “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean... ‘I will; be clean‘”
This is medical/therapeutic language, not judicial/penal language. It’s the vocabulary of healing, restoration, and purification. Not of punishment.
When the LXX says “the Lord desired to katharizō him from his wound,” it’s saying God wanted to heal and cleanse the Servant who had been wounded (by others, for our sins).
This fits naturally with what we might call medical substitutionary atonement or healing substitution: Christ takes on our sickness/sin-disease, and God heals/purifies Him, thereby accomplishing our redemption through His restoration rather than His punishment.
How Did This Happen?
The million-dollar question: How did two different verbs end up in these two ancient traditions?
Theory 1: The LXX Translators Interpreted Freely
Some scholars argue the Septuagint translators, working 150-250 years before Christ, deliberately chose katharizō (cleanse) instead of translating dakah (crush) literally because they found the idea of God crushing the righteous Servant theologically problematic.
In other words: They softened the harsh MT reading to make it more palatable.
Problem with this theory: The Septuagint translators weren’t typically shy about harsh language. They translated plenty of difficult passages literally. Why would they suddenly go interpretive here?
Theory 2: Different Hebrew Vorlage (Parent Text)
A more likely explanation: The Hebrew text the LXX translators were working from was slightly different than the text that became the Masoretic tradition.
Remember, the MT manuscripts we have are from roughly A.D. 1000. The Septuagint was translated around 250-150 B.C. That’s over a millennium of separation.
During that time, Hebrew manuscripts were copied and recopied by hand. Small variations crept in. The question is: Which reading preserves what Isaiah originally wrote?
Here’s where it gets interesting: The LXX’s katharizō could reflect a Hebrew parent text that read either:
טָהֵר (taher) = “to cleanse, purify” (the most likely candidate)
רָפָא (rapha) = “to heal”
These Hebrew verbs are thematically consistent with the LXX reading, and either could have been in the original text.
Theory 3: Deliberate Alteration
A third (more controversial) possibility: What if one of the copyists across the 9-13 centuries before the MT was codified were the ones who changed the text?
Think about it: By the time the Masoretic Text was being standardized (7th-10th century A.D.), there had been centuries of Jewish-Christian debate over Isaiah 53. Jewish interpreters increasingly argued that the “Suffering Servant” was corporate Israel, not an individual Messiah.
And certainly not Jesus.
Reading “the LORD desired to cleanse him” supports a messianic, vicarious-suffering interpretation.
Reading “the LORD was pleased to crush him” could more easily be applied to Israel’s national suffering under divine judgment (exile, dispersion).
The problem with this view is that we have several ancient sources that support the Masoretic reading of the passage (The Great Isaiah Scroll— 1QIsa —of the Dead Sea Scrolls, dated to around 125 B.C. And in fact, there are 4 other fragmentary Isaiah scrolls from Qumran that contain this verse and they all support the “crush/bruise” reading. Also, Jerome’s Latin Vulgate, translated mainly from the Hebrew between 382 and 405 A.D. supports the Masoretic reading).
All this essentially means that if it was not a translational choice for the Septuagint alone, then either it was changed in the (at the absolute most) 100 years between the translation of the Septuagint and the copying of the scrolls at Qumran, or there was an alternate textual tradition that the LXX was translated from. One that has not had any other surviving manuscripts.
Unlikely barely scratches the surface of the issue here. But, of course, unlikely does not mean impossible.
What the Church Fathers Read
Here’s where things get decisive: Every single early Church Father who quotes Isaiah 53:10 uses the LXX reading (”cleanse/purify”), not the MT reading (”crush”). Which is all the more provocative when we remember that
Let me show you the evidence:
Clement of Rome (c. 35-99 A.D.)
Writing in the late first century— possibly overlapping with the Apostles —Clement quotes Isaiah 53:10 as:
“And the Lord is pleased to purify him by stripes. If ye make an offering for sin, your soul shall see a long-lived seed.”
(First Epistle to the Corinthians, Chapter 16)
Notice: “purify,” not “crush.”
Justin Martyr (c. 100-165 A.D.)
Justin, in both his First Apology and Dialogue with Trypho, repeatedly quotes Isaiah 53:10 from the LXX:
“And the Lord is pleased to cleanse Him from the stripe.”
(First Apology, Chapter 51)“And the Lord wills to purify Him from affliction.”
(Dialogue with Trypho, Chapter 13)
Again: “cleanse,” “purify”—never “crush.”
Athanasius of Alexandria (c. 296-373 A.D.)
The great defender of Nicene orthodoxy quotes Isaiah 53:10 in his classic work On the Incarnation:
“The Lord desired to cleanse him from his wound.“
(De Incarnatione, 34.3)
Augustine of Hippo (354-430 A.D.)
Augustine, arguably the most influential theologian in Western Christianity, also follows the LXX:
“The Lord is pleased to purge Him from misfortune.“
(Harmony of the Gospels, Book 1, §47)
And:
“The Lord is pleased to clear [Purgare] Him in regard to His stroke.“
The Pattern is Unmistakable
Every major ante-Nicene and early post-Nicene Church Father who cites Isaiah 53:10 reads it as “cleanse/purify,” not “crush.”
This includes:
Clement of Rome (late 1st c.)
Justin Martyr (mid 2nd c.)
Irenaeus of Lyon (late 2nd c.)
Athanasius of Alexandria (4th c.)
John Chrysostom (4th-5th c.)
Augustine of Hippo (4th-5th c.)
These aren’t marginal figures. These are the theological giants who shaped Christian orthodoxy, defined the Trinity, defended the deity of Christ, and established the canon of Scripture.
And they all used the LXX reading.
However, an astute reader will note that none of these men would have been able to read the Hebrew original or Jerome’s Latin Vulgate, so it’s unsurprising that they used the LXX as that would have been the only version of Scripture that they had access to and were able to read fluently. So the textual value of their contributions is somewhat limited in this regard.
The Apostolic Witness: What Did Paul Read?
This is an interesting point, however: The Apostle Paul used the Septuagint as his primary Old Testament text.
We know this because when Paul quotes the Old Testament in his epistles, he almost always follows the LXX wording, even when it differs from the Hebrew MT. And he most certainly would have been familiar with the Hebrew original and what the differences between them were. Yet the Spirit almost always led him to quote from the Septuagint.
Example: In Romans 11:26-27, Paul quotes Isaiah 59:20 according to the LXX reading:
“The Deliverer will come from Zion, he will banish ungodliness from Jacob“
The MT of Isaiah 59:20 says:
“The Redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who turn from transgression”
Paul follows the LXX (which has “from Zion” and active language about the Redeemer removing sin), not the MT.
This matters for Isaiah 53:10 because if Paul knew Isaiah 53 (and he clearly did; see Romans 4:25, 5:6-8, 8:32, 1 Cor 15:3), we have every reason to believe that he would have sided with its LXX form: “the Lord desired to cleanse him.”
Paul’s atonement theology, clearly, was shaped by a version of Isaiah 53 that emphasized God’s desire to heal and purify the Servant, not to crush Him punitively.
This doesn’t mean Paul rejected the idea of Christ bearing God’s wrath (Romans 3:25 speaks of Christ as a hilastērion, a propitiation). But it does mean his primary understanding of Isaiah 53 was therapeutic/cleansing language, not penal/crushing language.
Two Models of Atonement
The difference between “crush” and “cleanse” in Isaiah 53:10 maps onto two different models of how the atonement works:
Model 1: Penal Substitutionary Atonement (MT Reading)
Core idea: Sin incurs a debt of punishment. God’s justice demands that sin be punished. Christ, as our substitute, receives the punishment we deserved. God “crushes” Christ in our place, pouring out His wrath on the innocent one so that He can justly forgive the guilty.
Key texts: Romans 3:25-26; 2 Corinthians 5:21; Galatians 3:13; 1 Peter 2:24
MT Isaiah 53:10 fits this perfectly: “Yet it pleased the LORD to crush him.” Here God actively wills the penal suffering of the substitute.
Strengths:
Takes sin’s gravity seriously
Explains Christ’s cry of dereliction (”My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”)
Accounts for language of propitiation/wrath-bearing in NT
Emphasizes God’s justice alongside His mercy
Potential weaknesses (critics argue):
Can suggest the Father and Son are at odds (”cosmic child abuse” objection)
May downplay Christ’s active obedience in favor of passive suffering
Focuses heavily on judicial categories (courtroom) over relational/covenantal ones
Model 2: Medical/Healing Substitution (LXX Reading)
Core idea: Sin is a corrupting disease that infects humanity. Christ, as our healer, takes on our sin-sickness, descends into our death, and emerges victorious, cleansed and resurrected. God “cleanses” Christ from the wound He bore for us. We are healed by union with Him in His resurrection life.
Key texts: Isaiah 53:4-5 (”by his wounds we are healed”); Matthew 8:17 (quoting LXX Isa 53:4); 1 Peter 2:24 (”by his wounds you have been healed”)
LXX Isaiah 53:10 fits this perfectly: “The Lord desired to cleanse/purify him from his wound.” Thereby, God wills the therapeutic healing of the one who bore our sins.
Strengths:
Emphasizes healing and restoration, not just legal acquittal
Maintains God’s unity of purpose (Father and Son working together)
Fits the Incarnation (Christ fully assumes human nature to heal it)
Explains resurrection as the climax of atonement (healing completed)
Potential weaknesses (critics argue):
May not adequately account for God’s wrath against sin
Can seem to minimize the justice/legal aspect of redemption
Requires careful articulation to avoid semi-Pelagianism
Can Both Be True?
Here’s the real question: Do we have to choose between these two readings?
Some would say yes, suggesting that they’re mutually exclusive. If God desired to crush the Servant, He didn’t desire to cleanse Him. If He desired to cleanse Him, He didn’t desire to crush Him. Pick one.
But there’s a more generous reading: Both capture different aspects of the same multi-faceted reality.
Consider this theological synthesis:
The Servant bore our sins. In doing so, He came under the weight of divine judgment that our sins deserved (MT: “crushed”). He experienced the full horror of sin’s consequences (separation from the Father, the anguish of death, the cosmic weight of humanity’s rebellion).
But God’s ultimate purpose wasn’t punitive, it was restorative. The Father didn’t crush the Son out of vindictive wrath, but allowed the Son to experience the crushing weight of sin and death so that He could emerge victorious, cleansed, resurrected (LXX: “cleansed from his wound”). The goal wasn’t punishment for punishment’s sake, but healing through substitutionary descent into our condition.
In this synthesis:
The MT captures the subjective experience of the Servant under the weight of sin (”crushed”)
The LXX captures God’s ultimate intention and the trajectory of the atonement (”to cleanse”)
Both are true. Both are necessary. The crushing was real, but the cleansing was the goal.
What Matthew Knew
Here’s a fascinating detail that often gets overlooked: Matthew explicitly quotes the LXX version of Isaiah 53 when describing Jesus’s healing ministry.
In Matthew 8:16-17, after Jesus heals many who were sick, Matthew writes:
“This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah: ‘He took our illnesses and bore our diseases.’”
Matthew is quoting Isaiah 53:4, but he’s quoting it from the Septuagint, not the Masoretic Text.
LXX Isaiah 53:4:
“He carries our sins and suffers pain for us”
(τὰς ἁμαρτίας ἡμῶν φέρει καὶ περὶ ἡμῶν ὀδυνᾶται)
MT Isaiah 53:4:
“Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows”
Matthew’s application is therapeutic/medical: Jesus fulfills Isaiah 53 by healing the sick, not (yet) by dying for sin. This makes perfect sense if Matthew knew Isaiah 53 in its LXX form, where the atonement language is medicinal and restorative.
The implication? The early Church understood Isaiah 53 through the lens of the Septuagint, where God’s purpose was “to cleanse” the Servant, and the result was healing for the people.
What About the Dead Sea Scrolls?
As I mentioned above, the Great Isaiah Scroll (1QIsaª) doesn’t help us adjudicate this particular textual issue because it agrees with the MT here: it reads dakah (”crush”).
However, this doesn’t settle the question, because:
The LXX represents an older Hebrew tradition than the Qumran scrolls (translated c. 250-150 B.C. vs. copied c. 125 B.C., so although that could be a period of as little as 25 years, there is no clear winner on the issue).
Textual criticism isn’t a democracy. We don’t just count manuscripts. We weigh the witnesses. And although it brings complications, the unanimous patristic testimony to the LXX reading is significant. Just as the Dead Sea Scrolls and Latin Vulgate siding with the Masoretic is significant.
The LXX reading makes better sense of the context: The surrounding verses in Isaiah 53 use medical metaphors (”wounded,” “bruised,” “stripes,” “healed”). The LXX’s “cleanse him from his wound” fits this semantic field perfectly, while “crush him” introduces a jarring shift to judicial punishment language.
This last could be considered the proverbial nail in the coffin if one were to insist that only one reading can be correct.
My tentative conclusion:
Although I hesitate a bit to weigh in with my personal perspective on this, I have to admit that I think the LXX likely preserves the original reading (or at least a very early, equally valid tradition). It’s possible the MT reading may reflect later scribal harmonization toward a more juridical understanding of atonement. But I believe both readings are valid and correct, and express different sides of the divine perspective.
So even if the MT is original, the LXX reading was the one that shaped apostolic and patristic theology. To my mind, this means it has a certain amount of theological authority, even if it’s considered a “translation variant.”
The Theological Stakes
Why does this matter? Can’t we just say “both traditions are inspired” and move on?
We could. But the difference between “crush” and “cleanse” has massive implications for how we preach the gospel and understand God’s heart in redemption.
If you emphasize “the LORD was pleased to crush him”:
Atonement is primarily about satisfying divine justice through punishment
The cross reveals God’s wrath against sin more than His love for sinners
Salvation is forensic/legal: a declaration of “not guilty” based on Christ’s punishment
The resurrection is the Father’s vindication of the Son after His ordeal
If you emphasize “the Lord desired to cleanse him”:
Atonement is primarily about healing fallen humanity through union with Christ
The cross reveals God’s love for sinners and His commitment to restore what sin destroyed
Salvation is participatory/transformative: actual healing and renewal, not just legal acquittal
The resurrection is the completion of the cleansing; the Servant emerges purified and we are healed in Him
Both are biblical. Both are orthodox. But they produce different spiritual fruit:
Penal-emphasis preaching can lead to:
✅ Deep gratitude for Christ’s substitutionary suffering
✅ Sober awareness of sin’s gravity
❌ Fear-based Christianity (”God wanted to crush me, but crushed Jesus instead”)
❌ Difficulty understanding the unity of Father and Son in redemption
Medical/cleansing-emphasis preaching can lead to:
✅ Joyful confidence in God’s restorative love
✅ Understanding of salvation as genuine transformation, not just judicial acquittal
❌ Potential minimizing of God’s holiness and wrath
❌ Risk of therapeutic-only gospel (”Jesus makes you feel better”)
The solution? Preach both. Let the MT and LXX stand in creative tension, each correcting the potential excesses of the other. It is the only solution that solves both sides of the problem, in my view.
What Should We Do With This?
So what’s the practical takeaway? Here are some pastoral reflections:
1. Don’t Ignore the LXX
Most Western Christians have been taught to privilege the Hebrew MT as “more original” or “more inspired.” But the Apostles and Church Fathers used the Septuagint as their Bible. That has to count for something.
When you study Isaiah 53, read both versions. Ask: What does the LXX add? What theological nuance am I missing if I only read the MT-based English translations?
2. Hold Penal and Medical Substitution in Tension
The best theology doesn’t choose between punishment and healing but holds them together.
Yes, Christ bore God’s wrath. Yes, sin deserves punishment. But the goal of that sin-bearing wasn’t punishment for its own sake. Rather, it was redemption, restoration, cleansing, and healing.
The MT preserves the means (crushing).
The LXX preserves the goal (cleansing).
We need both.
3. Preach a Gospel That Heals
If your gospel is all “God was angry, Jesus got punished, now you’re forgiven” without the “and now God is making you whole” part, you’re missing the LXX’s contribution.
Isaiah 53 isn’t just about a legal transaction. It’s about the Great Physician descending into our sickness, taking it upon Himself, and emerging victorious— cleansed from the wound and seeing light (resurrection) —so that by His wounds, we are healed.
That’s a gospel worth preaching.
Coming Up Next
In Part 3, we’ll explore another textual crux in Isaiah 53: the meaning of “sprinkle“ vs. “startle“ in Isaiah 52:15.
The MT says the Servant will “sprinkle many nations.” This is priestly, sacrificial language pointing to atonement.
The LXX says the Servant will “astonish/startle many nations,” which is prophetic, revelatory language pointing to proclamation.
These could be contradictions, or another case of complementary portraits of the Messiah’s work. But understanding the difference will reshape how you read the entire Suffering Servant song.
For Further Study
If you want to dig deeper into the “crush” vs. “cleanse” debate, here are some resources:
Scholarly:
Martin Hengel & Daniel P. Bailey, “The Effective History of Isaiah 53 in the Pre-Christian Period”
Alec Motyer, The Prophecy of Isaiah (defends MT reading)
Emanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible (neutral textual analysis)
Theological:
T.F. Torrance, The Mediation of Christ (advocates “ontological substitution,” similar to LXX reading)
Patristic sources: Clement, Justin Martyr, Athanasius (all use LXX)
Online:
The Anastasis Center: “Atonement in Scripture: Isaiah 53, Part 3” (explores medical substitution in detail)
Nick’s Catholic Blog: “Isaiah 53 - Does it really say God ‘crushed’ Jesus?” (challenges penal substitution from LXX reading)
A Pastoral Word
If you’ve been taught that God’s primary emotion toward sinners is wrath, and that the cross is primarily about punishment, the LXX reading of Isaiah 53:10 might feel destabilizing.
Let me offer a word of pastoral comfort: The cross doesn’t become less glorious if God’s intent was therapeutic rather than penal.
Think about it: A God who enters our sickness to heal us from the inside out, who descends into death to cleanse us, who emerges resurrected so we can be made whole—that’s no less sacrificial, no less loving, no less costly than a God who punishes a substitute.
In fact, it might be more glorious, because it means the Father and Son were never at odds. They were always together, moving toward the same goal: your healing, your restoration, your resurrection with Christ.
The Lord desired to cleanse the Servant from His wound.
And because He was cleansed, because He saw light, because He was raised—you can be healed too.
That’s the gospel according to the Septuagint.
And that’s the gospel the early Church believed.
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