January 7, 2004
Reading: Isa 53:1-10
“He was bruised for
our iniquities” (5)
When I read
the account of the manner in which Jesus was mistreated and
tortured, the word bruising does not come close to describing what
actually happened. As children, we all experienced bruises—the result of a
minor mishap while playing with our friends or falling as we learned how to
ride a bicycle. We will understand more clearly what
the bible is saying if we consider the actual word most of our versions
translate as bruising.
Twice in our reading, the word ‘daka’ is used—“He was bruised
for our iniquities” Isa 53:5, and “Yet it pleased the
LORD to bruise Him” Isa 53:10. Other words
used to translate ‘daka’ are: beat to pieces, break (in pieces), crush, destroy,
smite. A few recent versions use crush to translate ‘daka’, which, in my opinion, describes more adequately that which
our Savior experienced when He offered Himself a Sacrifice on our behalf.
‘Crush’ generates a mental picture
of rock being ground into gravel by huge machines, not
a bruised knee because you tripped over a log. It also helps us to understand
more clearly the suffering of Jesus in the Garden
of Gethsemane on the Mount
of Olives. Olives were of major importance to the welfare and
economy of the Jewish people. Olives were the source of cooking oil, skin
salve, food, and many other uses. Before olives could be used
in any of these capacities, they had to be crushed. The result of their
crushing was oil—olive oil. They were crushed under
the weight of huge circular stones, usually three in number each weighing
approximately 350 lbs. The process used to extract olive oil was a laborious
one. Whole olives were
put into a circular stone basin in which a millstone sat. A donkey, ox,
or other animal was then harnessed to the millstone and
walked in a circle, rolling the stone over the olives and cracking them.
The cracked olives were then scooped into burlap bags,
which were stacked and pressed down upon by the weight of the olive press. The
enormous weight forced the oil to drip from the fruit into a groove and into a
pit at the base of the press, from which it was collected.
Three grades of oil are produced as the fruit is
crushed first by one stone and then the next, etc.
The word Gethsemane
means oil press. It was here Jesus suffered immense agony as the ramifications
of becoming sin for us flooded over Him. It would mean separation from His
Father, rejection by the One whom He loved and from whom He had
never been separated. This reality crushed Him to the point where He
sweat blood—Luke 22:44. It was our sin that crushed the Savior, for it was this
that His Father laid on Him—Isa 53:6. Sin is
described as a weight—Heb 12:1—and when it was laid on the sinless Son of God,
it crushed Him as the press crushed olives. This glorious symbol of the
suffering of Jesus does not end here. The product of the crushed olives is oil,
used symbolically throughout scripture as the Holy Spirit. He it is that
anoints us, comforts us, lights our path and feeds us the Word of God. The
coming of the Holy Spirit is the direct result of the death of Jesus—John 16:17. Our salvation is the direct result of
the crushing of Jesus in the oil press, the Gethsemane of God’s Holiness.
O Savior, crushed beneath the
weight of my sin;
Master, who from no sin of Your own, became sin for me;
Sovereign King, who submitted to
the will of Your Father,
Receive my humble thanks, my gratitude,
and adoration.
