“To Him” Or “To Them”? (Isaiah 53:8)

Sometimes, non-Christian Jews disagree with Christian interpretations of certain biblical passages on the basis of the original Hebrew text of the passage. This is the case for Isaiah 53:8:

Isaiah 53:8 ESV By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people?

The Hebrew expression rendered “stricken for the transgression of my people” is mippešaʿ ʿammiy neḡaʿ lāmōw, which literally translates to:

from the transgression of my people, a stroke to him.

Christian interpreters typically understand the last word, lāmōw “to him” to refer to a singular individual: Jesus of Nazareth. Naturally, non-Christian Jews disagree with this interpretation. They typically argue that lāmōw cannot refer to a singular individual, let alone Jesus of Nazareth. For example, Rabbi Bentzion Kravitz writes:

Here the Prophet makes absolutely clear, to anyone familiar with Biblical Hebrew, that the oppressed Servant is a collective Servant, not a single individual. The Hebrew word [lāmōw], when used in our Scriptures, always means “to them” never “to him” and may be found, for example, in Psalm 99:7 – “They kept his testimonies, and the statute that He gave to them.” (Bentzion Kravitz, “Isaiah 53: An Interpretation”, Source: https://jewsforjudaism.org/knowledge/articles/isaiah-53/)

Rabbi Kravitz claims that “anyone familiar with Biblical Hebrew” would know that lamōw “always means ‘to them’ and never ‘to him’.” The insinuation seems to be that those who claim that lāmōw here in Isaiah 53:8 refers to a single individual either do not really know Biblical Hebrew, or they are not being truthful about the meaning of the original Hebrew text of the verse.

However, Rabbi Kravitz’s claim is mistaken. It is not true that lāmōw “always means ‘to them’ and never ‘to him’.” In actual fact, there are places in the Hebrew Bible where lāmōw means “to him” and not “to them”. For example:

Isaiah 44:15 ESV Then it becomes fuel for a man. He takes a part of it and warms himself; he kindles a fire and bakes bread. Also he makes a god and worships it; he makes it an idol and falls down before it [lāmōw].

Genesis 9:26–27 ESV He also said, “Blessed be the LORD, the God of Shem; and let Canaan be his [lāmōw] servant. May God enlarge Japheth, and let him dwell in the tents of Shem, and let Canaan be his [lāmōw] servant.

So, why does Rabbi Kravitz claim that “anyone familiar with Biblical Hebrew” would know otherwise? Could it be that he himself is not familiar with Biblical Hebrew? Or is he intentionally being deceptive because most people do not know Biblical Hebrew and would not know any better? His motivations are not mine to judge, since I do not know his heart. Nonetheless, it suffices to say that just because someone is a Jewish Rabbi does not mean that whatever he says about Hebrew must be true.