Isaiah 53:11

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Eyedoc84

Puritan Board Sophomore
KJV: “By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many”
Tanakh: “My righteous servant makes the many righteous”
NLT: “And because of his experience, my righteous servant will make it possible for many to be counted righteous”

Is there any justification from the Hebrew for the NLT to say that justification will simply be made “possible”?
 
The Hiphil of tsadaq normally means to justify, vindicate, acquit or similar. So there is plenty of warrant for the traditional translation, represented here by KJV and Tanakh, but also by most modern translations as well. Frankly, I can't see how you get "will make it possible for many to be counted righteous" out of a Hiphil verb. To get such a construction in Hebrew, I suspect you would need to say something like "through his work many will be able to be counted righteous", which would require the addition of the verb yakal to an infinitive Hiphil of tsadaq. But there are no text critical issues that affect the standard reading.
 
I see the senior translator for Isaiah is a Wesleyan, so maybe this is an intrusion of his theology? This verse was an “aha” moment for me when coming to a reformed view of the atonement. I was surprised when I saw the NLT here.
 
I see the senior translator for Isaiah is a Wesleyan, so maybe this is an intrusion of his theology? This verse was an “aha” moment for me when coming to a reformed view of the atonement. I was surprised when I saw the NLT here.
I must say I had the same thought when I saw the translation. But if you are referring to John Oswalt, he adopts a much more conventional translation in his NICOT commentary, "He will make many to be righteous". So it doesn't seem to be coming from him, though given his expertise in Isaiah, it is surprising that such a translation would slip past him. Nor does it come from the original Living Bible. From my own experience in translations, it's possible that the final editors changed some things due to their own preferences, but it's a bit of a mystery.
 
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