Isaiah 52:13-15

Introduction

“Behold, my servant shall deal prudently, he shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high. As many were astonished at thee; his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men: So shall he sprinkle many nations; the kings shall shut their mouths at him: for that which had not been told them shall they see; and that which they had not heard shall they consider.”  

May the Lord bless the reading of His Word. 

There are many who believe that Isaiah 53 actually begins at verse 13 of chapter 52 (see Isaiah 52:13). This assumption is not without good reason. It was not until the year 1207 A.D. that the Bible, as we know it, was divided into chapters. This was done by a very famous archbishop, Steven Langton. He was the man who prepared the Magna Carta. It was not until 350 years after this man had divided the books up into chapters that a printer called Robert Stevens came along and began to divide the Scriptures up into verses. And that is how we have our Bible divided into chapters and verses today. 

Now I take it, and say with good authority, that while most of God’s servants believe it is the divinely inspired Word of God, we do not believe that the divisions that have been made by those two well-meaning men are inspired. And there are times that we can obviously see, as we read, that the divisions of the chapters and the verses are just not correct. Now here is an example of what I’ve just been saying, because as we read the Scriptures we can see that these verses really belong to chapter 53.