Intertextuality Pair

Matthew 20:28 → Isaiah 53:10-12

Allusion

Later text

Matthew 20:28BSB

just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.”

Earlier text

Isaiah 53:10-12BSB

Yet it was the LORD's will to crush Him and to cause Him to suffer; and when His soul is made a guilt offering, He will see His offspring, He will prolong His days, and the good pleasure of the LORD will prosper in His hand. After the anguish of His soul, He will see the light of life and be satisfied. By His knowledge My righteous Servant will justify many, and He will bear their iniquities. Therefore I will allot Him a portion with the great, and He will divide the spoils with the strong, because He has poured out His life unto death, and He was numbered with the transgressors. Yet He bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors.

Significance

Jesus's ransom saying — "the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom (lytron) for many (anti pollōn)" — is widely recognized as a direct allusion to Isaiah 53:10-12. Isaiah 53:10 speaks of the Servant making his life a guilt offering (asham), and verse 12 states he "poured out his soul to death" and "bore the sin of many (rabbim)." The Greek anti pollōn ("for many") directly echoes the LXX polloi of Isaiah 53:12. The concept of lytron (ransom price, redemption payment) corresponds to the asham offering — a substitutionary payment that effects release from guilt. Jesus here identifies himself explicitly as the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53, interpreting his approaching death not as tragedy but as the appointed substitutionary sacrifice through which the many will be ransomed. This is one of the clearest self-identifications with the Servant role in the Synoptic tradition.

Found via
Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Reference Type
Allusion
Connection Method(s)
Promise-Fulfillment — Christ is the Servant Isaiah foresaw, not a type of the person; the guilt offering (asham) the Song names at 53:10 is the institutional type, traced at Isaiah 53:10 → Leviticus 5:15

▸ The Suffering Servant

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