Isaiah 53:1
Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
Isaiah 53:1 (NKJV)
Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
Isaiah 53:1 (NIV)
Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?
Isaiah 53:1 (KJV)
Who has believed our message? To whom has the Lord revealed his powerful arm?
Isaiah 53:1 (NLT)
Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
Isaiah 53:1 (ESV)
Who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
Isaiah 53:1 (NASB)Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.lockman.org
Who has believed [confidently trusted in, relied on, and adhered to] our message [the good news of salvation]? And to whom has the arm [and the power] of the Lord been revealed?
Isaiah 53:1 (AMP)Scripture quotations taken from the Amplified® Bible (AMP), Copyright © 2015 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.lockman.org
Who has believed (trusted in, relied upon, and clung to) what we have heard and reported? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
Isaiah 53:1 (AMPC)Scripture quotations taken from the Amplified® Bible (AMPC), Copyright © 1954, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.lockman.org
Who believes what we've heard and seen? Who would have thought God's saving power would look like this?
Isaiah 53:1 (MSG)Scripture quotations from The Message. Copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress. All rights reserved. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers.
New Covenant Meaning
The Shock of the Gospel: Salvation Through a Suffering Servant
Isaiah 53:1 opens with a rhetorical question that carries the weight of the entire chapter. The prophet anticipates the stumbling block. Who is going to believe this? The arm of the Lord, the symbol of divine power and deliverance (Exodus 6:6, Psalm 44:3), is about to be revealed not through military conquest or overwhelming display of might, but through a servant who is despised, rejected, and crushed. This is the offense of the gospel. God's saving power looks nothing like what human beings expect saving power to look like. Paul quotes this verse in Romans 10:16 as the explanation for why Israel did not receive the message: the form of the salvation was too unexpected, too humiliating, too contrary to what they were looking for.
The Arm of the Lord Is Jesus
The arm of the Lord throughout Isaiah is the instrument of God's redemption (Isaiah 40:10-11, 52:10). In Isaiah 53, that arm is identified with the Suffering Servant. John 12:38 quotes Isaiah 53:1 directly after recording the unbelief of the crowd following Jesus's signs, then adds: "These things Isaiah said when he saw His glory and spoke of Him." The arm of the Lord revealed in Isaiah 53 is the glory of Christ, made visible in suffering, death, and resurrection. This is the message that demands a response: will you believe it? The question has not changed. The arm of the Lord has been revealed in the crucified and risen Jesus. The question is still: who has believed our report?
Romans 10:14-17 builds an entire theology of proclamation around Isaiah 53:1. Paul asks: how will they believe in the one they have not heard? How will they hear without someone preaching? And how will they preach unless they are sent? The chain from sending to preaching to hearing to believing ends with a quotation of Isaiah 53:1: "But not all have obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, 'Who has believed our report?'" The report is the gospel. Believing it is the hinge on which salvation turns. The verse is not a despairing question. It is an invitation. Someone has believed. Someone will believe. The arm of the Lord has been revealed, and it is the job of those who have seen it to say so.
Application for Your Life
The Gospel Is Still Unexpected
Isaiah 53:1 prepares you for the reality that the gospel will not always be received the way you expect. The message of a God who saves through a crucified servant, who gives grace to the undeserving, who justifies the ungodly, is an offense to human pride and human religious expectation. When people reject the gospel, they are often rejecting it for the same reason the original hearers rejected it: it does not look like what they think divine power should look like. Your confidence is not in whether the message seems credible to the listener. Your confidence is in the arm of the Lord, which has already been revealed in Christ and is not made more or less powerful by whether someone believes it.
You Are Someone Who Has Believed the Report
Isaiah 53:1 asks "who has believed our report?" as if very few would. Yet you are one of those who has. You heard the message of Christ crucified for your sins, raised for your justification, and you believed it. That is not a small thing. Romans 10:17 says faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. God sent the message to you. You heard. You believed. The arm of the Lord was revealed to you personally. Live from that reality. You are not still waiting to find out if the report is true. You have believed it, and it has become the foundation of everything.
Prayer Based on This Verse
Father, I am one who has believed the report. I have seen the arm of the Lord revealed in Jesus and I have staked my life on it. I ask for boldness to keep reporting what I have seen, knowing that the gospel does not require the world's validation to be true. Where the message is rejected, I trust that You are still working. Where it is received, I rejoice. Keep me faithful to the report. The arm of the Lord has been revealed. In Jesus name. Amen.