What Isaiah 53, Psalm 22, Daniel 9, Zechariah 12, Exodus 12 Really Say?
To support the idea that the death of Jesus was an atoning sacrifice required by God, many have appealed to various Old Testament texts. However, a careful analysis of these texts shows that they do not speak about a ritual blood sacrifice imposed or required for the forgiveness of sins, but about the suffering of a Righteous One, unjustly treated and rejected by people.
We will examine the most important texts that are usually invoked and see what they actually say.
1. Isaiah 53 – The Suffering Servant
Isaiah 53 is often cited as proof that the death of Jesus was a sacrifice. The text indeed speaks about a servant of the Lord who suffers for others. But the meaning has to be understood correctly.
Isaiah 53:4 says:
“Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.”
And in Isaiah 53:12:
“He bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors.”
Here, “to bear sins” does not mean “to pay for them ritually,” but to bear their consequences: rejection, suffering, and death brought about by the evil of others.
Isaiah does not say that God demanded the Servant’s blood as payment for sins. On the contrary, the chapter presents the image of a Righteous One who suffers in solidarity with people and who, through this suffering, brings light and change.
This suffering is the result of human wickedness, not of a divine ritual of sacrifice.
2. Psalm 22 – The Text Used to Manufacture the Cry
Psalm 22 begins with the lament:
“My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?”
The psalm describes the anguish of a righteous sufferer surrounded by enemies. Yet it does not end in abandonment. The sufferer declares that God has heard him, moves from lament into praise, and announces God’s name to others. Even within the psalm itself, the opening question is not the final theological verdict. God has not abandoned the righteous one.
Christianity connected this psalm directly with Jesus primarily because Matthew and Mark place its opening words in His mouth at the cross. Once that Gospel cry is treated as authentic, Psalm 22 appears to become a prophetic script for the crucifixion. The conclusion is then circular: the psalm proves the Gospel scene, while the Gospel scene proves that the psalm was about Jesus.
The comparison between the Gospels breaks that circle. Luke preserves the original final declaration: “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit.” Jesus dies addressing God as Father and entrusting His life confidently into His hands. Matthew and Mark originally ended the scene with the same declaration and contained no “Eli/Eloi” episode.
Their present forms retain the fingerprints of the alteration. Mark preserves a final loud cry but no longer gives its words, revealing that the authentic declaration was removed while its narrative frame remained. Matthew says that Jesus cried out “again,” exposing the duplication created when the Psalm 22 cry and the accompanying Elijah misunderstanding were inserted before the original final declaration was suppressed.
John independently confirms the character of the older ending. Jesus remains lucid, speaks to His mother and the beloved disciple, acknowledges His thirst, receives the sour wine, declares “It is finished,” bows His head, and gives up His spirit. Luke preserves the words of final trust; John preserves the composure and clarity of the moment. The sour wine belongs to this original event and was later appropriated into the fabricated Elijah scene.
The inserted cry did not merely create an apparent fulfillment of Psalm 22. It changed the identity of the one who had abandoned Jesus. Historically, Jesus was abandoned by disciples, rejected by His society, condemned by religious leaders, surrendered by political authority, and killed by Roman executioners. The Father did not abandon Him. The interpolation transfers that human abandonment into the relationship between Jesus and God and makes the victim appear to declare that the Father has forsaken Him.
This supplied the narrative evidence required by Paul’s theology of curse. Paul had declared that Christ became “a curse for us,” but he possessed no saying from Jesus confirming divine abandonment. Later editors placed the opening of Psalm 22 in the mouth of the crucified Melek and constructed the Elijah misunderstanding around it. The theological doctrine acquired an apparent historical scene.
Psalm 22 therefore did not predict that God would abandon Jesus as part of an atoning sacrifice. Its opening words were used retrospectively to rewrite the crucifixion and to transform human rejection into divine necessity. The authentic Gospel ending agrees with the moral movement of the psalm itself: the righteous one suffers because of human enemies but remains heard and vindicated by God.
3. Daniel 9:26 – The Anointed One Will Be Cut Off
Daniel 9:26 says:
“After the sixty-two weeks, the Anointed One shall be cut off and shall have nothing.”
The text speaks about the death of an anointed one (a messiah), but it does not say that this death is a ritual sacrifice.
The term “cut off” means eliminated, killed, removed, without the text implying any idea of a sacrifice required by God.
It is simply a prophecy about the unjust killing of a chosen person.
4. Zechariah 12:10 – They Shall Look on the One They Have Pierced
Zechariah 12:10 states:
“They will look on Me whom they have pierced.”
This prophecy describes the moment when the people will repent as they look upon the one whom they rejected and pierced.
It does not speak about sacrifice, nor about atonement through his blood, but about regret and turning back to God as a result of recognizing the crime committed.
The piercing is a crime, not a liturgical act.
5. Exodus 12 – The Passover Lamb
In Exodus 12, God commands the Israelites to sacrifice a lamb without blemish and to put its blood on the doorposts of their houses. This was the Passover (Pesach), the marking of the families who were to be protected on the night of judgment over Egypt.
Exodus 12:13 explains:
“The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are.”
The Passover lamb was not a sacrifice for sins.
It was a sign of protection, a measure of physical deliverance on that night, not a moral atonement.
Therefore, the direct association of Jesus’ death with the Passover lamb must be handled carefully: the Passover lamb protected, it did not pay for sins.
6. Leviticus 16 – The Day of Atonement
Although the Day of Atonement involved sacrifices for sins, it must be emphasized that:
- The sacrifice was annual and repeated,
- Animals were brought, not human beings,
- It was an act of ritual purification for the camp, not a total penal substitution of one person.
Thus, Leviticus 16 also does not provide a basis for the idea that a man – namely Jesus – had to be sacrificed in the sense of the Jewish ritual of atonement.
Conclusion
The Old Testament texts, carefully examined, do not support the idea that God demands the blood of a righteous man for the forgiveness of other people’s sins.
They describe:
- The suffering of a Righteous One, rejected and persecuted by people,
- The deliverance granted by God,
- The call to repentance and sincere turning back,
- The protection and salvation offered through faith and relationship, not through a blood ritual.
This correct reading of Scripture confirms that the death of Jesus must be understood as a confrontation with evil and as the supreme proof of love and truth, not as a bloody ritual imposed by God.