Passage

Isaiah 53.7

Book: Isaiah · NASB95

Verse

"He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He did not open His mouth; Like a lamb that is led to slaughter, And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, So He did not open His mouth." (Isaiah 53:7, NASB95)

Immediate context (±2 verses)

NASB95 (NASB95)

"5. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed."

"6. All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way; But the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all To fall on Him."

"7. He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He did not open His mouth; Like a lamb that is led to slaughter, And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, So He did not open His mouth."

"8. By oppression and judgment He was taken away; And as for His generation, who considered That He was cut off out of the land of the living For the transgression of my people, to whom the stroke was due?"

"9. His grave was assigned with wicked men, Yet He was with a rich man in His death, Because He had done no violence, Nor was there any deceit in His mouth." (Isaiah 53:5-9, NASB95)

The poetic structure is striking: the sheep metaphor in v. 6 (us, gone astray) reverses in v. 7 (Him, the lamb led to slaughter). The straying flock and the silent lamb are the same image inverted, humanity wanders, the Servant submits.

Setting

Speaker: Isaiah the prophet, continuing the corporate confession begun in v. 1 ("Who has believed our message?"). The voice is repentant Israel recognizing what they failed to perceive at the time.
Audience: 8th-century BC Judah immediately; the prophetic Servant Songs (52:13-53:12) speak past the immediate audience to a future suffering figure.
Location: Jerusalem / Judah.
Time period: Isaiah's ministry c. 740-686 BC. Preserved at Qumran in 1QIsaa (paleographically c. 125 BC), settling any post-Christian-retrojection challenge for this verse as for the rest of Isaiah 53.

Theological reading

The verse is the silent-sufferer locus of the Servant Song and Christianity's primary "Lamb of God" prophetic anchor.

Patristic reception is unanimous on Christological reference. Justin Martyr (Dialogue with Trypho 89, 111, c. AD 160), Tertullian (Adversus Marcionem 3.7), Origen (Contra Celsum 1.55, 7.16), and Eusebius (Demonstratio Evangelica 3.2) all treat the silent-lamb imagery as fulfilled in Christ's silence before His accusers.
The lamb imagery anchors the New Testament's Christological vocabulary. John the Baptist's identification, "Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world" (John 1:29), draws directly from this verse, fusing it with Passover-lamb (Exodus 12) and Servant typology. The Apocalypse extends the same imagery: the Lamb is on the throne (Rev 5:6), the Lamb who was slain (Rev 5:12; 13:8), the wedding feast of the Lamb (Rev 19:7-9).
Acts 8:32-35, when Philip encounters the Ethiopian eunuch, the eunuch is reading exactly this verse (Isaiah 53:7-8 in the LXX), and Philip "preached Jesus to him" beginning from these words. The verse is the apostolic-evangelistic launching point for explaining the gospel from the Hebrew Scriptures.
1 Peter 2:21-23 explicitly applies the silence-clause: "while being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats", Peter is reading Isaiah 53:7 onto the historical passion. The silent-sufferer pattern is presented as not merely fulfilled prophecy but as a moral pattern for persecuted Christians to imitate.
The four passion-narrative silences (Matt 26:62-63 before the Sanhedrin; Matt 27:12-14 before Pilate; Mark 14:60-61 before the Sanhedrin; Mark 15:4-5 before Pilate; Luke 23:9 before Herod) all echo the Isaian silence. The Gospel writers are not ad-libbing, they are deliberately framing the passion in Servant-Song terms.
Athanasius (De Incarnatione 35) and Cyril of Alexandria (Commentary on Isaiah III.5, c. AD 425) both use the verse against docetism: the suffering and oppression are real; the silence is a moral-volitional act, not the inability of a phantasm.
Calvin (Commentary on Isaiah 53:7) draws the practical-Christian application Peter implies: the Servant's silence in injustice is the model for the believer who suffers wrongly, patience under unjust suffering, refusal of revenge, entrustment to "Him who judges righteously" (1 Peter 2:23).

The substitutionary structure is reinforced by the chiasm with v. 6: we like sheep have gone astray (active wandering); He like a lamb is led to slaughter (passive submission). The straying gets transferred onto the silent one.

Key words (Hebrew)

was oppressed, נִגַּשׂ / niggaś, niphal of nāgaś (H5065): the verb of taskmaster oppression, the same root used of Egypt's slave-drivers in Exodus 3:7. The Servant suffers under coercive authority.
was afflicted, נַעֲנֶה / naʿaneh, niphal of ʿānāh (H6031): humbled, bowed down. The same root produces ʿānāwāh (humility), the Servant's affliction is also self-humbling.
did not open His mouth, לֹא יִפְתַּח־פִּיו / lōʾ yiphtaḥ pîw: not "could not" but "did not", silence as deliberate, not incapacity. The clause is repeated at the verse's end, framing the lamb-imagery as bookends of voluntary silence.
lamb, שֶׂה / śeh (H7716): the standard sacrificial lamb of the Pentateuchal cult; the same word as Genesis 22:7-8 ("where is the lamb for a burnt offering?... God will provide for Himself the lamb"). The verse activates the Akedah resonance.
silent before its shearers, נֶאֱלָמָה לִפְנֵי גֹזְזֶיהָ: ʾālam (H481, "be silent / dumb") + gāzaz (H1494, "shear"). The shearing-image is the non-fatal complement to the slaughter-image, both about voluntary submission to indignity.

Cross-references

John 1.29, "Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world" (Baptist's lamb-of-God identification draws from this verse)
John 1.36, "Behold, the Lamb of God!" (repeated)
Acts 8.32-35, Ethiopian eunuch reading exactly this verse in LXX; Philip's gospel-from-Isaiah-53 sermon
1 Peter 2.21-23, explicit citation; Christ's silence as moral pattern for the persecuted believer
Revelation 5.6, "a Lamb standing, as if slain", eschatological extension of the imagery
Revelation 13.8, "the Lamb who has been slain from the foundation of the world"
Genesis 22.7-8, "where is the lamb?... God will provide for Himself the lamb" (Akedah anticipation)