The book of Isaiah was written between 745 and 680 B.C. It was written in Jerusalem to the nation of Juda and the surrounding nations. The book contains 66 chapters that cover many predictions. The Bible contains 66 books with 39 in the Old Testament and 27 in the New Testament. Isaiah was dead long before the events of the New Testament; however, Isaiah wrote about details of how those events would occur.
Just reading chapter 53 of Isaiah, gives you an idea of what God had shared with him about how Jesus would come into this world and how He would be treated. Isaiah tells how Jesus would take on the punishment for our sins. It tells about how Jesus would suffer and die for no fault of His own, that He would be buried in a grave with the wicked and the rich.
During Isaiah’s prophetic ministry, Juda is spiritually destitute, and Israel is even more corrupt. A parallel could be drawn to America and to the rest of the world today. We have the benefit of having the recorded history of Jesus and His message to us about how to live and the values we should hold dear.
Isaiah 53 New International Version
53 Who has believed our message
and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
4 Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
8 By oppression[a] and judgment he was taken away.
Yet who of his generation protested?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
for the transgression of my people he was punished.[b]
9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence,
nor was any deceit in his mouth.
10 Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
and though the Lord makes[c] his life an offering for sin,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.
11 After he has suffered,
he will see the light of life[d] and be satisfied[e];
by his knowledge[f] my righteous servant will justify many,
and he will bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,[g]
and he will divide the spoils with the strong,[h]
because he poured out his life unto death,
and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.
