NT Text: Matthew 26:28
OT Source(s):
Source: Beale & Carson (eds.), Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (2007); Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Reference Type: Allusion
Connection Method(s): Promise-Fulfillment
Anchor Text: Isa 52:13-53:12 — The Suffering Servant
Significance: At the cup-word Jesus interprets his coming death with the Servant Song's signature phrase: "My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins." "Poured out" (ekchynnomenon) renders Isaiah 53:12's "He poured out His life unto death" (heʿĕrāh lammāwet napšô), and "for many" (peri pollōn) reproduces the Servant's rabbîm — "He bore the sin of many... He was numbered with the transgressors" (53:11-12). Matthew's "for the forgiveness of sins" makes explicit what 53:12 implies: the pouring out of the Servant's life accomplishes the removal of the many's sin. The cup-word fuses Isaiah 53 with the covenant blood of Exodus 24:8 and the new covenant of Jeremiah 31:31 (the latter already IP'd from this verse), so that the Servant's vicarious death inaugurates the promised covenant. The telos is the Supper itself: every time the cup is taken, the believer is invited not to a memorial of grim duty but to drink the forgiveness purchased by the Servant's poured-out life, savoring Christ as the host whose own blood is the covenant feast that makes sinners his own.