Objection: Isaiah 1:5 and Hosea 5:13 Prove that Isaiah Used Sickness Only as a Metaphor for the Bad Condition of Israel
The objector is actually ahead of many other objectors in that he admits that the word for griefs in Isaiah 53:4 DOES literally mean sicknesses—the same conclusion any unbiased Bible scholar would reach. It is even a footnote in many modern Bibles, while other modern Bibles just use the word sicknesses there. The Reina-Valera Translation, a standard in the Spanish-speaking world, uses the Spanish word for sicknesses there. This is a proof, not a disproof, that Jesus bore our sicknesses, so a healing objector must find a way to explain away this verse despite its obvious meaning. This objector states that sickness is used as a metaphor in two specific verses, so therefore, Isaiah had to be talking about the bad condition of Isreal and not to LITERAL sicknesses. Let’s look at the verses he cites in their contexts, the first with the verses around it to show the context.
Isaiah 1:4-7:
Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the LORD, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward.
Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.
From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment.
Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire: your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers.
Hosea 5:13:
When Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah saw his wound, then went Ephraim to the Assyrian, and sent to king Jareb: yet could he not heal you, nor cure you of your wound.
The objector is obviously correct that sickness is used as a metaphor in these passages.
The issue is whether this proves that Isaiah 53:4 also uses sickness as a metaphor.
When Job was afflicted with sores, they were not metaphors. When the king of Israel was wounded by a random arrow hit, it was not a metaphor. There are more verses than I will list here where the same Hebrew word for sickness obviously refers to a literal sickness. So the use of something as a metaphor in one place above does not mean it must always be a metaphor! Egypt was referred to as a bruised reed, which it was not in a literal sense, but that doesn’t take away the literal meaning of reed when the mockers put a reed in Jesus’ right hand and offered Him vinegar on a reed.
So that weak argument fails for that reason, but it isn’t the only reason. Jesus bore OUR sicknesses according to Isaiah 53:4, and it makes no sense to claim that He bore the deplorable state of any country in His body. Furthermore, Isaiah 53:10 literally says that God made Jesus sick, and it makes no sense to assert that God put the deplorable state of any country on Jesus. What would that mean, anyway?
A look at the Hebrew word for bore (nasa) in Isaiah 53:4 shows that it refers to bearing something for someone else as a substitute in order to take it away from someone else. The same word describes what Jesus did with our sin in Isaiah 53:12. It is obviously not a metaphor; it is something He literally did.
If you don’t like Hebrew word meanings, you can bypass all the Hebrew and just read God’s take on Isaiah 53:4 in Matthew 8:17. It would be ridiculous to say that Jesus healed all that were sick, that it might be fulfilled that Jesus bore the sorry condition of Israel. Matthew’s assertion that Isaiah was talking about sicknesses being removed is all the proof you need that there was nothing metaphorical about Isaiah's prophecy.