Isaiah 53:11
He Shall See Light
Messiah removedA scroll buried before Messiah was born agrees with the Greek. Your Bible is missing one word.
Side by Side
The Older Text
Septuagint, translated before Messiah
The Lord also is pleased to take away from the travail of his soul, to shew him light, and to form him with understanding; to justify the just one who serves many well; and he shall bear their sins.
The Later Text
Masoretic, finished about 1,000 years after the cross
He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities. (No light.)
Your KJV reads: the later Hebrew, with no light in the verse.
See what changed and why ↓What Your Bible Says
He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.
Isaiah 53:11 KJV
Verse 10 has just said the servant’s soul is made an offering for sin. Verse 11 turns to what follows. In the King James, he sees the results of his suffering and is satisfied.
What the Older Text Says
The Lord also is pleased to take away from the travail of his soul, to shew him light.
Isaiah 53:11, Septuagint
In the Greek, after the travail of his soul, he is shown light. The one who was cut off from the land of the living in verse 8 sees light in verse 11. The verse looks past the grave.
Isaiah has already said the servant would be “cut off out of the land of the living” (verse 8) and buried “with the rich in his death” (verse 9). Light after that is not a figure of speech. It is life on the far side of the grave.
What Changed
One word: light. The older witnesses say the servant will see light after his suffering. The later Hebrew says only that “he shall see,” and never says what. The KJV joins “see” to the words after it: “of the travail of his soul.”
Light after death is the language of rising again. A servant who is cut off and then sees light points to a servant raised from the dead.
Which One Is Right?
The Greek Bible, translated before Messiah, has light.
The Great Isaiah Scroll, a Hebrew copy of the whole book found in the caves by the Dead Sea and copied before Messiah was born, reads “he shall see light.”
Other Hebrew scrolls of Isaiah from the same caves agree.
The Masoretic text is the one without it.
Purpose of the Change
The effect is that one of the plainest hints of the servant’s rising in Isaiah 53 is lost. The one cut off from the land of the living no longer sees light.
The Bottom Line
The Hebrew scrolls and the Greek agree: after his suffering, he shall see light.
In the city to come, the light is the Father’s glory carried by the Son: “for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof” (Revelation 21:23).
Dig Deeper The evidence, for anyone who wants it
The Scroll from Cave 1
The Great Isaiah Scroll was found in 1947 in a cave near Qumran. It is about a thousand years older than the oldest complete Masoretic Bible. At Isaiah 53:11 it reads “he shall see light.” A second Isaiah scroll from the same cave, and a fragment from Cave 4, read the same. This is not a Greek idea. It was in the Hebrew.
Modern Bibles Agree
Many modern translations now put the word back. Some read “he will see the light of life.” Others read simply “he shall see light.” They follow the scrolls and the Greek over the later Hebrew. The King James was made long before the scrolls were found.
The Lamb Is the Lamp
The word the KJV renders “light” in Revelation 21:23 is the Greek word for a lamp. The glory of Elohim is the light; the Lamb is the lamp that carries it. The servant who was shown light becomes the bearer of His Father’s light. He does not replace the Source.
An Honest Note
The Greek of this verse is worded differently from the Hebrew in other places too, and it is not a smooth word-for-word match to any Hebrew copy. The point here is narrow: on the single word “light,” the Greek and the oldest Hebrew scrolls stand together against the Masoretic.