Charles Ellicott Commentary Isaiah 53:8

"By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who [among them] considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living for the transgression of my people to whom the stroke [was due]?" — Isaiah 53:8 (ASV)

He was taken from prison ... —The Hebrew preposition permits this rendering, which is adopted by many commentators as describing the oppression and iniquitous trial which had preceded the death of the servant. It equally permits the sense, through oppression and through judgment; and, on the whole, this gives a preferable sense. The whole procedure was tainted with iniquity.

Who shall declare his generation? —The words are, perhaps, the most difficult of the whole section, and have been very differently explained:

1. “Who shall declare his life, the mystery of his birth, his eternal being?”
2. “Who shall count his spiritual offspring?” as in Psalms 22:30.
3. “As to his generation (i.e., his contemporaries, as in Jeremiah 2:31), who will consider rightly?”
4. “Who shall set forth his generation in all the intensity of their guilt?”

Not to mention other renderings, where the noun is interpreted as “his dwelling” (i.e., the grave), his “course of life,” or his “fate.” Of these interpretations, (3) seems most in harmony with the context. The words that follow point to the fact which ought to have been considered, and was not: that though the Servant of Jehovah was smitten, it was not for his own sins, but theirs.