Isaiah's Prophecy about Jesus: Bible Verse & Fulfillment
Written by Marko Marina, Ph.D.
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Author | Historian | BE Contributor
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Date written: June 22nd, 2025
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily match my own. - Dr. Bart D. Ehrman
The first time I encountered Isaiah’s prophecy about Jesus was more than a decade ago. I was reading The Case for Christ, an apologetic book by Lee Strobel, a journalist formerly with the Chicago Tribune. In it, Strobel passionately argued that Jesus fulfilled dozens of Old Testament prophecies, which, he claimed, were written hundreds of years before Jesus’ birth.
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Among the most striking, he said, was Isaiah’s prophecy about Jesus’ suffering and death. I was so taken aback by what seemed like ironclad evidence for the truth of Christianity that I immediately messaged my brother, telling him that we could finally prove our faith. Wouldn’t that be something?!
Little did I know that my future academic journey would complicate that picture in ways I couldn’t have imagined. As I dove into biblical studies, I began to understand that ancient prophecies were far more embedded in their own historical contexts than I had once believed.
The deeper I studied, the more I realized how differently biblical scholars, historians, and theologians approach these famous passages.
And yet, the fascination remained. Isaiah’s prophecy about Jesus continues to play a central role in many modern Christian beliefs about who Jesus was and why he matters. For many believers, these texts aren’t just inspiring, they are clear and undeniable proof.
So, what exactly does Isaiah say? How did his words come to be linked so intimately with the life of Jesus? And do those ancient verses actually predict the coming of the Messiah?
In what follows, we’ll explore what Isaiah’s prophecy actually says, examine how Christians have traditionally interpreted it, and take a closer look at how modern scholars understand these texts in light of history, language, and literary context.
Prophecy in Isaiah About Jesus: A Brief Overview of Key Verses
The Book of Isaiah is one of the most captivating (and complicated) volumes in the Hebrew Bible. Its poetic oracles thunder against injustice, promise liberation, and speak of a future steeped in divine hope.
For Jews, it remains a cornerstone of prophetic literature; for Christians, it supplies some of the most cherished passages interpreted as foretelling Jesus’ life and mission. This dual importance, coupled with its literary richness, makes Isaiah a focal point whenever Isaiah’s prophecy about Jesus surfaces in popular or scholarly discussions.
For most of Jewish and Christian history, readers assumed a single author: the prophet Isaiah ben Amoz (8th century B.C.E.), who delivered God’s warnings to Judah under kings Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. Furthermore, that traditional (religious) view treated the 66 chapters as a unified work.
Modern critical scholarship, however, has painted a far more layered picture. Already in the late 18th century, scholars noticed that the second half of the book addresses exiles in Babylon (people living two centuries after the time of Isaiah).
As consensus shifted, researchers proposed multiple hands behind the final text. John J. Collins sums up the prevailing view:
Only a small part of the book of Isaiah, however, can be associated with the prophet of the eighth century. Chapters 40-66 clearly relate to the Babylonian exile and its aftermath. Cyrus of Persia, who lived in the sixth century B.C.E., is mentioned by name in Isa. 44:28 and 45:1. With the rise of critical scholarship in the late eighteenth century, scholars were unwilling to believe that a prophet who lived in the eighth century would have prophesied so specifically about the sixth… At the end of the nineteenth century, the German scholar Bernhard Duhm argued that chapters 56-66 should be distinguished as the work of a third prophet, dubbed ‘Third Isaiah’ or ‘Trito-Isaiah.’ For the last century or so, it has been customary to refer to chapters 1-39 as ‘First Isaiah.’”
Against that backdrop of multiple Isaiahs, several passages have become flashpoints for messianic expectation.
Most famous is Isa. 7:14, where a young woman (or “virgin,” in later Greek translation) will conceive and bear a son named Immanuel, which means “God with us.” A few chapters later, Isa. 9:6-7 celebrates the birth of a royal child called “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace,” whose peaceful reign will extend David’s throne forever.
Other key oracles shift the spotlight from royal imagery to the figure of a divinely chosen servant. Isa. 42:1-4 introduces this servant as upheld by God to bring justice to the nations, gentle enough not to break a bruised reed.
The most evocative servant portrait, however, unfolds in Isa. 52:13-53:12: he is marred in appearance, “despised and rejected,” yet by his wounds others find healing; though silent before his accusers, he is assigned a grave with the wicked before being “exalted and lifted up.”
These lines have stirred centuries of Christian reflection on Jesus’ suffering and death. Already in the 2nd century, Justin Martyr wrote:
There were, then, among the Jews certain men who were prophets of God, through whom the prophetic Spirit published beforehand things that were to come to pass, ere ever they happened... In these books, then, of the prophets we found Jesus our Christ foretold as coming, born of a virgin, growing up to man’s estate, and healing every disease and every sickness, and raising the dead, and being hated, and unrecognised, and crucified, and dying, and rising again, and ascending into heaven, and being, and being called, the Son of God. We find it also predicted that certain persons should be sent by Him into every nation to publish these things, and that rather among the Gentiles [than among the Jews] men should believe on Him. And He was predicted before He appeared, first 5000 years before, and again 3000, then 2000, then 1000, and yet again 800; for in the succession of generations prophets after prophets arose.
In an excellent article, Tessa Rajak has shown how Justin Martyr, in his Dialogue with Trypho, used the Jewish Scriptures (especially Isaiah) as a foundational tool for shaping early Christian identity.
Far from simply quoting proof texts, Justin engaged deeply with prophetic literature to craft a Christian pesher (an interpretative method that applies ancient scripture to current events or figures) on Isaiah, transforming Jewish prophecy into theological validation for the emerging Church.
Did You Know?
Ancient Jews Thought Christians Got Isaiah All Wrong
It’s easy to understand why many people today, reading Isaiah 7:14 (see below), instantly think, “Oh, that’s clearly Jesus and his virgin birth!” However, from the earliest days of Christianity, Jewish readers found this interpretation quite baffling.
Already in the 2nd century, a Jewish thinker named Trypho was engaging in lively debates with Justin Martyr, and Trypho just couldn't get what all the fuss was about. In fact, he bluntly pointed out that Isaiah wasn’t talking about a “virgin” at all, but simply a “young woman,” who probably already had a husband and definitely wasn’t miraculously pregnant!
Trypho didn’t stop there. He even offered a straightforward alternative: that the prophecy might simply have referred to the birth of good old King Hezekiah. In other words, for Trypho (and most of his fellow Jews), it was as if Christians were enthusiastically solving a puzzle that no Jew ever considered puzzling.
And while Christians were busy proclaiming a virgin-born Messiah, Trypho and his friends were left scratching their heads, wondering how exactly their ancient texts suddenly became predictions of events centuries later.
Taken together, these verses supply the raw textual material that later readers (from New Testament authors to modern apologists) have woven into claims of prophetic fulfillment. What the original poets may have intended will be the focus of our next section.
Isaiah's Prophecy about Jesus: Table
Before we engage more deeply with Isaiah’s prophecy about Jesus, we thought it might be helpful (and a little fun) to set up a quick reference table.
After all, with all the talk about fulfilled prophecy, many readers might expect Isaiah to have sketched out Jesus’ biography in advance: where he’d be born, how he’d die, maybe even what his disciples would have for lunch.
So we’ve put together a simple table that lists common questions modern readers often ask about Jesus, and whether Isaiah actually addresses them. Some of the answers might surprise you. But don’t worry: in the next section, we’ll dive into why that is and what scholars make of it.
Question | What does Isaiah say? |
|---|---|
What does Isaiah say about Jesus’ birth? | Nothing |
What does Isaiah say about Jesus’ death? | Nothing |
What does Isaiah say about Jesus’ suffering? | Nothing |
What does Isaiah say about Jesus’ resurrection? | Nothing |
What does Isaiah say about Jesus’ healings? | Nothing |
I know. For many of you, the answers above might sound shocking. But that’s exactly why it’s worth taking a closer look. In the next section, we’ll examine the original context of these passages, exploring how contemporary scholars understand these prophecies.
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Isaiah's Prophecies About Jesus: Scholarly Analysis
Detaching ourselves from later Christian and even post-exilic Jewish interpretations is the first responsibility of serious (scholarly) exegesis.
As one of my professors liked to warn, “A text without a context is a pretext for a proof-text.” In other words, if we want to assess Isaiah 7 fairly, we must step back from the magnetism of Isaiah’s prophecy about Jesus in Church tradition and listen to what the oracle meant in its own 8th-century setting.
So, what can we know about this setting? 2 Kings 16 reports that King Ahaz of Judah found himself cornered during the Syro-Ephraimite crisis.
The kings of Aram-Damascus (Rezin) and Israel (Pekah) laid siege to Jerusalem, hoping to force Judah into their anti-Assyrian coalition; if Ahaz refused, they would replace him with a puppet, “the son of Tabeal” (a mocking distortion that reads “good-for-nothing”).
Furthermore, Edomites and Philistines exploited the chaos on Judah’s southern and western flanks (2 Chron. 28:16-18). From inside Jerusalem, the threat looked existential, and the royal court trembled at the prospect of annihilation or vassalage.
Into this maelstrom walks the prophet Isaiah, confronting Ahaz at the conduit of the Upper Pool (Isa. 7:3) and offering a reassuring sign:
Look, the almah is pregnant and will bear a son, and she shall call his name Immanuel (‘God is with us’).
In plain terms, Isaiah points to a young woman (most likely a member of the royal household, perhaps even one of Ahaz’s wives) already expecting a child. The birth will coincide with Judah’s deliverance: before the boy is weaned, the enemy coalition will lie in ruins.
The crux turns on the Hebrew word ‘almah.’ Throughout the Hebrew Bible, as Raymond E. Brown explains, the term denotes a young woman of marriageable age. It doesn’t specify sexual experience (the word for an explicit “virgin” is betûlâ).
When Jewish translators in the 2nd century B.C.E. rendered Isaiah 7:14 into Greek, they chose parthenos — a term that can mean “virgin” but can also carry the broader sense of an unmarried young woman. The author of Matthew 1:22-23 cited the Septuagint verbatim, taking the word in its narrower sense and applying it to Mary’s virginal conception.
Thus, the famous Christian reading hinges on a semantic shift that occurred in translation, not in Isaiah’s Hebrew.
As A. S. Herbert notes in his Commentary on Isaiah:
The point of the oracle is clear. A pregnant woman, probably one of Ahaz’s wives, will bear a son with a name which will give assurance of divine protection, yet, since this sign has been rejected, within a few years this same divine presence will bring the disastrous subservience to Assyria.
Emmanuel’s birth is, therefore, a political timetable. By the time the child can distinguish good from evil (at roughly three years of age), the Syro-Ephraimite threat will have vanished, but Judah’s flirtation with Assyria will usher in its own woes.
John J. Collins drives the conclusion home:
There is no reason to think that Isaiah was predicting a miraculous birth. The sign was simply that the birth of a child in the time of crisis was an assurance of hope for the future of the dynasty. … The most obvious implication of this message is that the crisis will pass within a few years.
In short, Isaiah offered Ahaz a concrete, time-bound pledge of national survival, not a cryptic glimpse of a future Messiah. After all, this word never even occurs in a Bible verse from Isaiah’s book! Is the prophecy about Jesus’ death more credible from a scholarly perspective? Let’s take a look!
Isaiah's Prophecy About Jesus’ Death: The Suffering Servant
Our exploration of Isaiah 53 brings me right back to Lee Strobel's book, which I mentioned in the introduction. Strobel confidently pointed to these famous verses (the “suffering servant” passages) as perhaps the most remarkable Old Testament prophecy fulfilled by Jesus.
On first reading, it's easy to see why! Phrases like “wounded for our transgressions” and “by his bruises we are healed” seem uncannily descriptive of Jesus’ crucifixion.
Yet, when we set aside later Christian interpretations and revisit these poetic lines through the lens of historical scholarship, the clarity quickly dissolves, revealing complexity and ambiguity at every turn.
Isaiah 53 belongs to a series of passages commonly called the “Servant Songs” (Isaiah 42:1-4; 49:1-6; 50:4-9; and 52:13-53:12). These texts revolve around an enigmatic figure known simply as the “Servant of Yahweh.”
Strikingly, this Servant endures suffering, rejection, and humiliation, yet ultimately achieves a purpose tied to redemption and restoration. Due to these vivid descriptions, Isaiah’s Servant became the center of centuries-long debate and polemics, especially regarding his precise identity.
In his Introduction à l'Ancien Testament (Introduction to the Old Testament), Jacques Vermeylen aptly summarizes the scholarly uncertainty around this question:
“The most debated question remains that of the identity of the Servant. He displays both prophetic and royal traits, but this allows for multiple interpretations, and the responses are quite diverse. For some, he is indeed an individual: the Messiah, Deutero-Isaiah himself, another historical figure (Moses, David, Jeremiah, King Jehoiakim, King Zedekiah, Sheshbazzar, Zerubbabel, Cyrus...), or even a fictional character. For others, the Servant represents a collective: Israel (cf. 49:3; although in verse 5 the Servant appears to have a mission directed toward Israel), a group within Israel, or an idealized Israel. According to D.J.A. Clines, the author of the poems deliberately avoids naming the Servant, thereby opening the door to multiple possible interpretations. Finally, some scholars believe that the Servant is not the same figure in all the poems in which he is mentioned. In any case, the poems are open to diverse identifications, as the history of exegesis clearly demonstrates.” (My translation)
Indeed, the poetic ambiguity is precisely what has invited diverse interpretations. However, if we focus on the original context, some of the fog around this issue evaporates.
As it turns out, the “suffering servant” wasn’t originally understood as predicting a future Messiah who must suffer and die. Such an idea was utterly foreign to Jewish messianic expectations prior to the rise of Christianity.
As scholars acknowledge, ancient Jewish hope widely centered around a triumphant, kingly Messiah or a powerful priest, one who would deliver Israel politically and militarily from oppressive foreign powers, and usher in the Kingdom of God. In some cases, this figure was understood to be a heavenly being.
However, there isn’t a single reference about the Messiah who has to suffer and die. At least, not before Jesus’ death and the birth of the Christian movement. To put it more bluntly, the notion of a crucified or suffering Messiah would have been not only unfamiliar but paradoxical, even scandalous, to Jews of the pre-Christian era.
Instead, scholars point toward an original historical context very different from Christian reinterpretations. Joseph Blenkinsopp, for instance, argues for a more immediate, author-oriented interpretation:
While the author of Isa 40-55 could be speaking of himself and his prophetic mission in 49:1-6 and 50:4-9, if the fourth of the servant passages is understood to refer to him, it must have been composed by a disciple. On the whole, this still seems to be the most attractive solution to the problem of the Servant's identity. What is proposed here, then, is that the Servant eulogized in 52:13-53:12 is identical with the one who soliloquizes in 49:1-6 and 50:4-9 and is presented in deliberate contrast to Cyrus, the Servant of Yahveh in 42:1-4. The inclusion of 52:13-53:12 in this section and the links with 49:1-6 and 50:4-9 favor the view that the Servant is none other than the author of the core of these chapters, the so-called Deutero-Isaiah.
Blenkinsopp's proposal aligns with a broader scholarly consensus: the Servant most likely represents either the prophet himself or a figure within his immediate historical circle, perhaps a faithful Israelite or prophetic disciple whose suffering exemplified a message of redemptive solidarity during exile.
Deutero-Isaiah, written during or shortly after the Babylonian exile, aimed to comfort and instruct the Jewish community, which was grappling with the trauma of national defeat, exile, and the loss of temple worship.
In this context, the servant's suffering symbolized the collective experience of exile and marginalization, with the hopeful promise of eventual restoration and vindication.
Thus, while Isaiah 53 holds profound theological and literary power, it clearly wasn’t written as a predictive prophecy foretelling Jesus. It was instead a text intimately grounded in the struggles and hopes of its original audience, whose poetic power proved sufficiently flexible to be reinterpreted in ways far removed from its original setting.
As Ulrich Berges and Willem Beuken conclude in Das Buch Jesaja: Eine Einführung (The Book of Isaiah: An Introduction):
“For modern Old Testament exegesis, this interpretation pointing toward Jesus Christ was no longer sufficient, since the historical reference point must have been within reach of the author and the original audience of Isaiah 53 — and certainly not half a millennium later!” (My translation)
Conclusion
The exploration of Isaiah’s prophecies about Jesus in their original contexts offers a powerful reminder of the complexity and depth hidden beneath traditional interpretations.
While these passages have undeniably shaped Christian theology and inspired generations of believers, scholarly analysis reveals a different historical reality: the prophets spoke to their contemporaries, addressing immediate crises and offering hope in their own troubled times.
To put it more bluntly, Isaiah’s words weren’t cryptic predictions meant for readers centuries into the future, but poetic and theological responses to the concrete struggles and aspirations of ancient Israel.
Yet early Christians, grappling with the shocking and unexpected reality of Jesus’ crucifixion and driven by their firm belief in his resurrection, re-read the Hebrew scriptures through entirely new lenses. As Peter Enns insightfully explains:
The New Testament authors were not engaging the Old Testament in an effort to remain consistent with the original context and intention of the Old Testament author… To put it succinctly, the New Testament authors were explaining what the Old Testament means in light of Christ’s coming. One of the main difficulties with these evangelical approaches is that they do not engage the New Testament in the context of the hermeneutical world in which the New Testament writers lived.
In other words, the profound meanings Christians discovered in Isaiah weren’t anchored in the prophet’s original intent but rather emerged from their conviction that Jesus was the Messiah. The Old Testament was thus transformed from a text addressing the past into one illuminating the present.
Understanding this dynamic allows us to appreciate both the original depth of Isaiah’s message and the creative interpretative process that gave rise to the foundational beliefs of Christianity.
To learn more about this interpretative process, I highly recommend Peter Enns' amazing 6-lesson course, Jesus and the Old Testament, available at our Biblical Studies Academy. Check it out! You won’t be disappointed.
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