From Reflections to the Image
My dear readers, we continue with the “Hidden Messiah” theme —a theme that, to me, has always felt like a secret thread woven through both Jewish and Christian thought. Much has changed since my first interest in the Hidden Messiah, but this mystery hasn’t gone away. In fact, as I wrote previously, it feels even more urgent today, especially for Israel in the midst of struggle and searching. In this post I want to focus on what I call the hidden prophecy—a prophecy buried in translation, overlooked for centuries, yet crucial for retelling Israel’s story.
In my earlier posts, we’ve seen how Second Temple Jewish writings carried the motif of a Messiah who would be hidden, unrecognized, or silent. These apocalyptic and sectarian texts are not the Word of God, yet they give us precious insights into how Israel understood God’s plan. They are like mirrors reflecting something real, though not yet fully clear. But now it’s time to move from the reflections to the image itself: from human interpretation to Scripture; from echoes of God’s plan to His own Word.
In this post, I want to discuss the idea of the Hidden Messiah in the well-known verse of Isaiah, in what I call the Hidden Prophecy. This is not just about the reflections of Jewish tradition or the echoes in apocalyptic writings. This is about Scripture itself—the Word of God—and how even within the prophetic texts, the Messiah was meant to be hidden.
The Suffering Servant
Isaiah 53 has long been one of the most debated passages in all of Scripture. Christians point to it as a direct prophecy of the Messiah’s suffering and atoning death, fulfilled in Jesus. Many Jews, on the other hand, read it as describing the suffering of Israel as a nation. For centuries, this chapter has been a stumbling block between the two religions.
Yet the truth is more layered. Over the centuries, not only Christians but also many rabbis interpreted Isaiah 53 as referring to the Messiah. Rabbinic writings speak of “the Leper Scholar,” the Messiah who carries Israel’s sickness and pain. The Zohar imagines the Messiah entering the “Palace of Sickness” to take upon himself every suffering of Israel—because otherwise no one could bear the weight.
And if we turn to the Targums—Aramaic translations and interpretations of the Bible used in synagogues—we find that Isaiah’s “Servant” is explicitly understood as the Messiah. Isaiah 43:10, “My servant whom I have chosen,” becomes “My servant, the Messiah.” Isaiah 52:13, “My servant shall prosper,” is rendered “Behold, my servant, the Messiah, shall prosper”.
Even though the Targums were written later, they preserve interpretive traditions that likely go back to the Second Temple period. To translate is to interpret, and here we see that the “Suffering Servant” was already linked with the Messiah.
Lost in Translation
But there is a detail in Isaiah 53 that has been lost in translation for centuries – and I was speechless, when I realized it for the first time.
The Hebrew of Isaiah 53:3 reads:
נבזה וחדל אישים,
איש מכאבות וידוע חלי,
וכמסתר פנים ממנו,
נבזה ולא חשבנהו
A literal rendering would be:
“He was despised and rejected by men,
a man of pains and knowing disease.
And as though hiding his face from us,
he was despised, and we did not esteem him.”
But most translations do not say that. Instead, they read: “We hid our faces from him.”
Do you see the difference? In Hebrew, the Servant himself is the one hiding his face. In translation, it becomes the people who turn away. The subject of the action has been reversed, and the meaning changes entirely.
How did this happen?
First, the Greek Septuagint translated the Hebrew phrase וכמסתר (“as though hiding”) with απεστραπται (“was turned away”). Already the active sense of hiding becomes passive: his face was turned away. However, the main explanation of this switch might be found in Hebrew grammar, in particular, in the Hebrew word ממנו. Later translators were reading the Hebrew ממנו as “from him” rather than “from us,” (in the Hebrew Scriptures, we find both cases), and suddenly the line was no longer about the Servant hiding his face but about us turning ours away.
Thus, this original meaning of this verse: as though hiding his face from us… became completely lost in translation and the prophecy itself became the “hidden prophecy”. The result? The Servant’s hiddenness, his deliberate concealment, disappeared from the view. A prophecy about a Messiah who would deliberately hide his face became a story about people ignoring him. The hidden Messiah was, quite literally, hidden in translation.
For centuries, the translations obscured the truth. But now, as we read it again in Hebrew, the hiddenness re-emerges. It changes how we tell our story, how we understand our past, and how we face our future. Now we understand that, according to Isaiah 53:3, the hiding of the face had to become an important step in the Messianic program—a prominent feature in the “Messianic Servant” image. The “Hidden Messiah” motif we traced in Jewish literature in the previous chapters had in all probability been developed under the strong influence of this verse: if somebody considered himself to be a messiah, he had to be silent about his messiahship till the appointed time. Jesus had to fulfill every single step of the messianic program of Isaiah 53, therefore, the hiding of the face in Isaiah 53:3b was possibly the main reason for him to hide his messiahship. He was supposed to hide the face; His messianic dignity had to be concealed during his life and his ministry.
Why this matters
This shift is not a small detail. If Isaiah’s Servant was meant to hide His face, then hiddenness is not incidental—it is central! The concealment of the Messiah’s dignity is not accidental. It is obedience to God’s plan.
This is a crucially important piece in that retold story of Israel that we are trying to present here. For two thousand years, Israel has been blamed for not recognizing Jesus as Messiah, and this “guilt” has become the defining part of our story—both for our enemies and for our friends. However, if we know that it was God’s plan from the very beginning, that Israel not only could not, but was not meant to, recognize Jesus as Messiah, then this is a very different story indeed. If Isaiah 53:3 originally spoke of the Servant hiding his face, then this hiddenness is not just an accident—it is part of the divine plan.
This gives new weight to everything we have seen in the gospels. Jesus repeatedly forbade people to reveal His identity. He silenced demons, commanded the healed to tell no one, and avoided public declarations. Why? Because He was fulfilling Isaiah 53:3. He was the Suffering Servant, the Messiah who was supposed to hide His face. His hiddenness was part of the messianic program.
Today, Israel is walking through profoundly difficult times. The wounds of history, the threats of the present, the uncertainty of the future—all press heavily upon us. In such a time, the theme of the Hidden Messiah speaks with fresh power.
It tells us that hiddenness does not mean absence. Silence does not mean abandonment. God’s face may be hidden from us (“as though hidden from us”), but He is still here. He is still walking with His people, still bearing our pain, still carrying the weight we cannot carry.
If you like the articles of this series, you might enjoy my book about Hidden Messiah, “As Though Hiding His Face“. You can find it here: books. And, as always, I would be happy to provide more information (and also a teacher’s discount for new students) regarding our wonderful courses (juliab@eteachergroup.com)
