Isaiah 53:5 — Chastisement, not penal satisfaction

“But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed.”

Isaiah 53:5

Context

Isaiah 53:5 belongs to the fourth Servant Song (Isa 52:13–53:12), which speaks of the suffering Servant of YHWH. The song is a key text of the christological reading of the Old Testament — in the New Testament it is consistently applied to Christ (Acts 8:32–35; Matt 8:17; 1 Pet 2:21–25; Rom 4:25). The christological reading itself is not disputed by Socinians; what is disputed is whether the penal-substitutionary narrowing really corresponds to Hebrew usage and to the inner logic of the song.

The rhetorical structure of the song follows a movement from humiliation to exaltation: vv.1–3 describe the contempt shown toward the Servant, vv.4–6 his vicarious suffering, vv.7–9 his patient self-giving, vv.10–12 his reward and glorification. V.5 stands at the centre of this movement — but precisely because of this central position the verse demands not to be torn from its overall connection and turned into an isolated doctrinal formula.

The key terms are Hebrew: musar (v.5: “chastisement”), hiphgiá (v.6: Hiphil of paga', “to make meet, cause to encounter”), nirpa' lanu (v.5: “healing has come to us”), shalom (“peace”) and nasa'/sabal (vv.4, 11: “to carry, bear”). None of these terms is unambiguously forensic-juridical in the Old Testament; they belong to the semantic fields of solidarity, restoration and shared life.

In the background stands the Day-of-Atonement ritual of Leviticus 16: the scapegoat, upon which the sins of the people are symbolically laid, is sent into the wilderness — not killed, not punished, but carried away. Sozzini takes up this parallel deliberately: what the Servant in Isaiah 53 does with the sins is the same as what the goat does: he carries them away, he does not pay them off. A forensic penal execution of the goat would be alien to the ritual and untenable linguistically.

In Christian reception history Isa 53:5 became the dogmatic core text of Anselm's satisfaction theory and later of Reformed penal-substitution doctrine. Sozzini disputes neither the christological reference nor the salvifically meaningful depth of Christ's suffering — he disputes only the penal narrowing of the Hebrew key terms and the juridical logic derived from them.

The Socinian core thesis

Socinianly, Isa 53:5 is read christologically, but not as penal substitution. Musar in Hebrew primarily denotes “chastisement, discipline, affliction” (cf. Prov 1:2–7; 3:11; 5:12) — not a forensic punishment intended to placate God's wrath. The antithesis in the text is “affliction — peace,” not “punishment — forgiveness.” That is the decisive linguistic-philological observation.

The verb hiphgiá in v.6 (“to lay upon” in the traditional rendering) is the Hiphil form of paga'. In the basic stem it means “to meet, encounter, fall upon”; in the causative it means “to cause to meet” and in the figurative sense “to intercede, to make intercession.” The same verb occurs at the end of the same chapter (v.12: “he made intercession for the transgressors”) unambiguously in the sense of intercession. A meaning “to charge with a penal sum” does not belong to the semantic field of this verb.

As the goat on the Day of Atonement carries the sins away — without being really punished but sent into the wilderness — so the Servant of God bears the sins away. The Hebrew nasa' (vv.4, 11) means “to lift, carry, take away.” Peter consistently renders it with anaphérein (1 Pet 2:24), which likewise means “to bear up, carry away.” The New-Testament language confirms the carrying-away reading and resists penal substitution.

“With his stripes we are healed” is medical, not juridical language. Nirpa' lanu denotes the restoration of life-wholeness, not a forensic acquittal. Peter explains the healing precisely: “For you were going astray like sheep, but you have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls” (1 Pet 2:25). Healing works through the turning to the Shepherd, through existential conversion — not through a penal payment rendered to God.

Sozzini offers an alternative translation of the passage that stands closer to the Hebrew semantics: “He was wounded because of our transgressions and bruised because of our iniquities; and he endured affliction and took upon himself the scourging that procured peace for us, and through his wounds healing comes to us …; but the Lord turned the guilt of us all upon him.” On this reading Christ is bearer and pioneer of our salvation — not the payer of a divine debt-claim.

Exegesis: key terms and semantic field

Five Hebrew key terms decide the interpretation of Isa 53:5 linguistically and philologically:

musar — chastisement / affliction, not punishment

The Hebrew musar derives from the root jasar and in the Old Testament predominantly denotes pedagogical chastisement: educating through affliction, the purifyingly instructive. Prov 1:2–7 sets the term in the horizon of wisdom teaching: “to know wisdom and musar.” Prov 3:11 entreats: “Do not despise the musar of YHWH.” Job 5:17 marvels: “Blessed is the man whom God chastens through musar.” Musar is not juridical punishment but fatherly discipline.

In Isa 53:5 the word stands in the genitive-construct musar shalômênu — “the chastisement of our peace,” that is, the affliction that effects peace for us. This is not a commercial payment but a causal-instrumental relation: through the affliction, peace is wrought. A penal sum does not fulfil this semantic function; an instructive, purifying affliction fulfils it precisely.

Sozzini takes up this point centrally: the Latin castigatio, by which the Vulgate renders musar, does not mean “penal execution” but “affliction and chastisement.” As evidence he points to Ps 73:14: “I was scourged all the day, and my tochechah came every morning” — a lament of Asaph that obviously does not describe a legally enacted penalty but a suffered affliction. Musar in Isa 53 stands in this line.

shalom — “peace” as wholeness and well-being

Shalom in Hebrew usage is not primarily juridical “peace-relation” (reconciliation after conflict) but comprehensive well-being: bodily, social, spiritual. Jer 29:11: “Thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope” — shalom means total salvific existence, not juridical status repair.

With this the penal-substitutionary reading of Isa 53:5 collapses upon itself: the antithesis in the text is not “punishment vs. forgiveness” but “affliction vs. salvation-in-the-fullest-sense.” Christ endures affliction so that we may have shalom — salvific being, covenant life, restoration. That is a covenant-theological, not a forensic statement.

Sozzini observes sharply: “peace” here means “as is customary among the Hebrews, not the friendship of reconciliation with someone …, but designates only the marks of peace, pardon, and happiness.” The juridical reconciliation-language is therefore read into the text retrospectively.

hiphgiá — to lay upon, or to make meet?

V.6 is traditionally rendered: “The Lord laid upon him the guilt of us all.” The verb is the Hiphil form of paga'. In the basic stem it means “to meet, encounter” (Gen 28:11; Judg 8:21). In the causative Hiphil it means “to cause to meet, to make approach,” in the figurative sense “to intercede for, to intervene.”

Exactly the same verb-form occurs at the end of the same chapter in v.12: we-laposche'im japhgiá — “and for the transgressors he interceded” (KJV: “and made intercession for the transgressors”). No one renders v.12 as “he took the punishment upon himself.” The rhetorical bracket of the chapter (v.6 and v.12) suggests a consistent intercession-reading.

Sozzini writes: “The verb hiphgia does not properly mean 'to lay' or 'to throw' but either 'to meet' or 'to cause to meet,' and in the transferred sense 'to ask and to intercede' for someone else or because of something.” If this is correct, v.6 reads in the sense: “The Lord caused him (the Servant) to meet the sins of us all” — an image of intercession and solidarity, not an image of penalty.

nasa' / anaphérein — to bear as to carry away

V.4 says: achen cholayênu hu' nasa' — “surely our sicknesses he bore.” The Hebrew nasa' means “to lift, carry, take away, remove.” It is the same verb with which Lev 16:22 says that the scapegoat carries away the sins into an uninhabited land. The image is not “to discharge a penalty” but “to bear a burden away.”

Peter cites Isa 53 with anaphérein (1 Pet 2:24): “He himself bore our sins in his body up upon the tree.” The Greek anaphérô means primarily “to bear up, carry away” (Heb 9:28 uses it exactly in the Lev-16 sense). Peter therefore reads Isa 53 as a carrying-away text, not as a penal-execution text.

Matt 8:17 likewise cites Isa 53:4 (“he carried our weaknesses”) and applies it to Jesus' healing activity, not to his death as punishment. The New-Testament interpretative profile is therefore clear: Isa 53 is a carrying-away, solidarity and healing text — not a penal-substitution text.

nirpa' lanu — “healing has come to us”

The phrase uba-chaburato nirpa' lanu means literally: “and through his wounds healing has come to us.” Rapha' is medical, not juridical language: to heal, to restore, to make whole. YHWH is the healer of Israel (Exod 15:26: YHWH rofecha).

A forensic reading would have to say “acquittal” or “cancellation of debt.” The text says “healing.” The image is therapeutic, restorative, life-renewing. Christ's wounds work healing because they make visible a movement of self-giving that calls to conversion and awakens the trust that restores the relationship with God.

Peter explains the healing precisely through the shepherd–sheep image: “you were going astray like sheep, but you have now returned” (1 Pet 2:25). Healing works through conversion — not through payment. This is not moralistically reduced; it is relationally healthy. Healing as restoration of relationship is more, not less, than juridical debt-clearance.

Comparison of interpretations

Reference to Fausto Sozzini

Fausto Sozzini treats Isaiah 53 at length in his main work “On Jesus Christ the Saviour (De Iesu Christo Servatore),” namely in a dedicated section “Isaiah 53 – Punishment for Sin.” He explains three passages of the prophet from which penal substitution is derived; Sozzini shows in detail that the Hebrew semantics does not bear this juridical narrowing.

“The word 'castigatio' is not taken in this passage for a real punishment but for a simple affliction and chastisement. … And that one must in Isaiah take this word simply for scourging or affliction, and not for a real punishment, is required by the word 'peace,' which is placed alongside it as its counterpart. The true antithesis is not between punishment and peace, just as little as between peace and affliction.”

Fausto Sozzini, Part One · Isaiah 53 – Punishment for Sin

Sozzini's argument runs in two steps: first linguistic (what does castigatio mean in Old-Testament usage?), then structural (what is the antithesis within the verse itself?). Both steps lead away from penal substitution. Linguistically: castigatio/musar has in the Old Testament predominantly pedagogical, not juridical meaning. Structurally: the immediate counter-term is “peace” (shalom) — and that is salvation-in-the-fullest-sense, not status repair following a penal payment.

For the elucidation of the sin-bearing Sozzini deliberately reaches back to Lev 16: “As there the goat upon whom the sins of the people were laid was sent by Aaron into the wilderness — so that, as it were, he might bear the punishments which the erring people would have had to pay, because it was supposed that he took them with him upon his head; for there is no evidence that a real punishment was carried out upon him —, so it means that God laid upon Christ the guilt of us all: not that the punishment due for our sins was reckoned to him together with the transgressions, or that he suffered the punishments in place of us all; but because, not otherwise than as if he had taken all our sins and the punishments assigned to them by God upon himself, he carried them far away from us and cast them off from himself.”

Sozzini's own translation of the passage is instructive: “He was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities; and he endured affliction and took upon himself the scourging that procured peace for us, and through his wounds healing comes to us …. But the Lord turned the guilt of us all upon him.” The phrase “turned upon him” is chosen deliberately: it keeps open that God lets the Servant meet the sin without thereby also asserting a forensic imposition of punishment.

Finally, Sozzini draws a linguistic parallel to 2 Cor 8:9: “You have become rich through Christ's poverty.” Paul does not mean that the poverty was a payment, but that through the mediating self-giving of Christ a new relation-of-riches was created. Exactly this instrumental figure of speech also carries Isa 53:5: through Christ's affliction, not through any payment of Christ, peace was prepared for us.

Overview of the writings of Sozzini

Logical arguments

From Isa 53:5 the following logical and linguistic-philological arguments against the penal-substitutionary reading emerge:

1. Argument from the antithesis within the text. The central word-pair of the verse is “affliction — peace” (musar — shalom), not “punishment — forgiveness.” A penal-substitutionary reading must shift or reinterpret this antithesis; an affliction-theological reading reads it directly off the text.
2. Argument from the Hebrew semantics of musar. Musar in the Old Testament is predominantly pedagogical-instructive, not forensic-juridical (Prov 3:11; Job 5:17; Jer 30:14). When Isaiah uses the term for the Servant, he chooses deliberately a pedagogical-purifying vocabulary, not a juridical one.
3. Argument from hiphgiá (v.6 and v.12). The same verb in v.12 means unambiguously “to make intercession.” The rhetorical bracket of the chapter demands a consistent reading also in v.6: “to make meet, intervene” — not “to load on as a penal sum.”
4. Argument from the Lev-16 background. The scapegoat carries the sins away without being punished. If Isaiah 53 speaks with the same vocabulary of sin-bearing, consistency demands that carrying-away is meant here too — not penal execution upon a substitute.
5. Argument from 1 Pet 2:24–25. Peter cites Isa 53 with anaphérein (“to carry away”), not with juridical vocabulary. His own explanation (v.25: “Shepherd and Overseer of your souls”) places the weight on the movement of conversion, not on payment. The New-Testament reading is therefore already anti-substitutionary.
6. Argument from Matthew 8:17. Matthew cites Isa 53:4 (“he carried our weaknesses”) and refers it to Jesus' healing activity in Galilee — not to his death as penal substitution. The New-Testament reception of the Servant Song is broader than the forensic narrowing.
7. Argument from the metonymy chastisement — scourging. Sozzini points to Ps 73:14: “I was scourged all the day, and my chastisement came every morning.” The Hebrew language uses “chastisement” metonymically for suffered affliction — not for forensic punishment of a guilty party.
8. Argument from the healing metaphor. “Through his wounds healing has come to us” is medical language. Healing restores a relationship, a wholeness, a capacity for life — it does not free juridically from a debt. The image-field of the verse is therapeutic, not forensic.
9. Argument from the preposition semantics min / beá. “Because of our sins” is in Hebrew causal-factual: because of, on account of, with regard to. Christ's suffering is caused by our sins — not as a juridical penal payment for them. The preposition semantics does not carry penal substitution.
10. Argument from the resurrection (vv.10–12). The Servant Song closes with glorification, fullness of life, offspring and exaltation. Christ's saving act is not death alone but death and resurrection. Penal substitution hangs on death as a juridical act; the liberation-and-solidarity reading integrates death and resurrection into a single salvific event.

Biblical cross-references

These passages are essential for the correct reading of Isa 53:5, because they either share the same usage or specify the New-Testament reception of the Servant Song:

Leviticus 16:21–22 — the scapegoat

“Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat and confess over him all the guilt of the children of Israel … and so shall he carry all their guilt upon himself to a remote place.” The goat is sent into the wilderness — not punished, not killed, not treated juridically. He carries the sins away. Isa 53 uses exactly the same vocabulary (nasa') and lies within the same image-field.

Sozzini takes up this parallel deliberately: “As there the goat upon whom the sins of the people were laid was sent by Aaron into the wilderness …, so it means that God laid upon Christ the guilt of us all: not that the punishment due for our sins was reckoned to him …, but because he … carried them far away from us and cast them off from himself.”

Proverbs 3:11; Job 5:17 — musar as pedagogical chastisement

“Do not despise the chastisement (musar) of the LORD.” Prov 3:11 uses the word unambiguously in pedagogical sense: chastisement is fatherly education, not juridical retribution. Job 5:17 marvels: “Blessed is the man whom God chastens” — a statement that would be senseless within the penal-substitution framework.

If Isa 53:5 uses the same word musar, it is exegetically inadmissible to give it there a wholly different, juridically retributive meaning. Old-Testament word-usage is the hermeneutically primary bridge.

Psalm 73:14 — metonymy of chastisement

“I was scourged all the day, and my reproof came every morning.” Asaph laments a suffered affliction, not a legally enacted penalty. Sozzini points precisely to this passage in order to show that musar / castigatio can be used metonymically for suffered affliction — without juridical guilt on the part of the bearer.

Jeremiah 29:11 — shalom as salvation-in-the-fullest-sense

“For I know the thoughts I have toward you, says the LORD: thoughts of peace (shalom) and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.” Shalom here is not juridical reconciliation but comprehensive well-being. This meaning also carries Isa 53:5: the shalom wrought through Christ's affliction is new salvific being, not status-cleared forgiveness.

1 Peter 2:21–25 — the New-Testament interpretation of the Song

Peter cites Isa 53 at length and concludes: “For you were going astray like sheep, but you have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.” Healing works through conversion, not through payment. The verb anaphérein (v.24) means “to bear up, to carry away” — precisely in the sense of Lev 16.

Cf. the detailed entry on 1 Peter 2:21–24: there it is shown that Peter himself does not read Isa 53 as penal substitution.

Matthew 8:17 — healing fulfilment of the Servant Song

“That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet: 'He took our weaknesses and bore the diseases.'” Matthew refers Isa 53:4 not to Good Friday but to the healing ministry of Jesus in Galilee. The New-Testament reception of the Song is broader than the penal-substitutionary narrowing.

2 Corinthians 8:9 — linguistic parallel to self-giving

“You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.” This figure of speech is exactly parallel to Isa 53:5: not payment but instrumental self-giving as a means of salvation. Sozzini himself draws this parallel.

If Paul does not mean that the poverty was the payment for the riches, then neither does Isaiah mean that the affliction was the payment for the peace. Both passages formulate a through — by means of model, not a in place of model.

Acts 8:30–35 — christological reading of Isa 53

Philip explains the Servant Song to the Ethiopian eunuch: “He opened his mouth and proclaimed the good news of Jesus to him.” The text stresses the christological reference — but it nowhere says that the gospel is “Christ pays a penal sum to God.” The christological reading of Isa 53 is therefore not identical with the penal-substitutionary narrowing.

Objections and Socinian answers

Objection 1: “'The chastisement was upon him' — that is surely forensic penal substitution”

“Punishment” in English translations renders the Hebrew musar — and that is precisely not juridical-forensic but pedagogical-instructive (Prov 3:11; Job 5:17). The translation imports here a forensic narrowing that is not contained in the Hebrew word itself.

Already the Vulgate sets the right line with castigatio: in Latin the word does not mean primarily “penal execution” but “chastisement, affliction, education.” Sozzini writes clearly on this: “The word 'castigatio' is not taken in this passage for a real punishment but for a simple affliction and chastisement.”

Structurally, the antithesis in the text decides. If the counter-term of musar is shalom (salvation-in-the-fullest-sense), then musar itself is the affliction that paves the way to salvation — not a penal sum. A forensic reading would require as counter-term a “debt-cancellation” or “acquittal”; the text offers no such thing.

Furthermore: if the penal-substitutionary reading were linguistically compelling, v.12 would have to be translated accordingly — and no one renders v.12 as “he took the punishment upon himself,” although there the same verb hiphgiá stands as in v.6. The linguistic consistency speaks clearly against the juridical narrowing.

Objection 2: “V.10 says: 'the LORD willed to crush him' — that is penal execution by God's hand”

V.10 reads in Hebrew wa-YHWH chaphets dakkô — “and YHWH took pleasure in crushing him.” The verb chaphets is, however, ambiguous: it can also mean “it was God's plan to bring him to completion (through affliction).” Already the LXX softens the juridical harshness: kai kýrios bóuletai katharisai autón tês plêgês (“and the Lord wills to cleanse him from his stroke”).

Structurally what is decisive is that v.10 itself goes on at once: “he shall see offspring, he shall prolong his days; and the will of YHWH shall prosper in his hand.” The movement of the verse goes through affliction to exaltation — not to juridical penal execution. The affliction is a passage, not the end-purpose.

Theologically: a “pleasure” of God in a penal execution upon the innocent would not be compatible with the revelation of God in Scripture (Deut 24:16: “Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor children for their fathers; each shall die for his own sin”). God does not delight in the death of the righteous; he opens through the suffering of the righteous the way to the salvation of the many.

Sozzini stresses: the “pleasure” refers to the salvific action of God through Christ, not to a forensic act upon Christ. Christ is mediator and pioneer, not a passive recipient of a divine wrath-penalty.

Objection 3: “'Because of our sins' surely means juridical substitution”

The Hebrew preposition semantics is causal-factual, not necessarily substitutionary: min means “from, away from, on account of”; be- means “in, at, through.” The phrase min-pesha'ênu translates most accurately as “on account of our transgressions, occasioned by our transgressions” — not necessarily “in our place.”

Christ's suffering is caused by our sins because our sins made necessary his self-giving as a means of salvation. This is a causal and solidarity relation, not a substitution-relation in the juridical sense. The phrase “because of our sins” covers both readings; the context decides for the causal-solidarity reading.

Structurally Lev 16 again: the goat suffers because of the sins of the people, but not in place of a juridical imposition of punishment. He carries them away. Exactly this movement also carries Isa 53 — and the New-Testament reception in Heb 9:28 and 1 Pet 2:24 confirms it.

Objection 4: “1 Peter 2:24 combines penal substitution with Isaiah 53”

Peter uses the verb anaphérein — and that means precisely “to bear up, to carry away,” not “to discharge a penalty.” Heb 9:28 uses the same verb explicitly in the sense of Lev 16 (“offered once to bear up the sins of many”). The New-Testament language is therefore not penal-substitutionary but Lev-16-substitutionary: carrying-away, not punishing.

Peter himself explains what he means by appending v.25: “For you were going astray like sheep, but you have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.” Healing works through the conversion-movement, not through a penal payment. Peter's own theological explanation is therefore not forensic but relational-pastoral.

Within the wider context (1 Pet 2:21: “to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps”), the ethical point is clear: Christ's suffering is example and call to discipleship — which would be senseless if it had been a one-time juridical act of penal substitution that cannot be imitated.

Cf. the detailed entry on 1 Peter 2:21–24: there it is shown that Peter himself reads Isa 53 in the line of carrying-away theology.

Objection 5: “Without substitutionary punishment, Christ's suffering is senseless”

This reduction is false. Christ's suffering is in Socinian soteriology not “a mere example” but a multi-dimensional salvific event: it reveals God's love (Rom 5:8), it seals the new covenant (Matt 26:28), it brings about the carrying-away of sins in the Lev-16 sense (1 Pet 2:24), it calls to conversion and discipleship (1 Pet 2:21–25), and it leads through resurrection to the exaltation of Christ as heavenly high priest (Heb 9:11–14).

None of these aspects requires a penal payment to God. All of them together yield a complete, effective salvific event — without the juridical mechanism of penal substitution. The “mere example” is a polemical caricature of the Socinian position; the real Socinian doctrine of redemption is rich and multi-layered.

Sozzini himself attests this: “It has already been proved that only through the sufferings and the intervening death of Christ could we reach heavenly blessedness and rest.” Christ's death is therefore not salvifically indifferent — it is salvifically constitutive. Only the forensic construction, that it was a penal sum paid to God, is rejected.

Furthermore: the forensic reading itself produces problems. If Christ really bore the punishment, he would have to die eternally — that would be the owed punishment. If he bears only a time-limited punishment, it is not equivalent to ours. The penal-substitution doctrine dissolves at this point; the carrying-away theology does not have this problem.

Theological consequences

Related verses

The following passages support, deepen or contrast the interpretation presented here:

• 1 Peter 2:21-24 — Direct New-Testament reading of Isa 53 with anaphérein (“to carry away”) instead of forensic penal language.
• Mark 10:45 — Lýtron-saying as liberation language; linguistically related to Isa 53:11–12 LXX, but not read as penal substitution.
• Hebrews 9:22 — Purification theology rather than penal-law maxim; the “almost” (schedon) breaks the universal reading.
• Acts 2:23 — God's plan of salvation and human violence: Christ's death by wicked hands, not by God's penal hand.
• Romans 3:25-26 — Hilastêrion as the meeting-place of grace, not as a penal sum.
• 2 Corinthians 5:21 — “Made sin for us” in the sense of sin-offering (LXX chatta't), not in the sense of juridical guilt-imputation.

Summary

Isaiah 53:5 is, in the Hebrew original, a text of solidarity and healing, not a forensic penal-substitution text. The central terms (musar, shalom, hiphgiá, nasa', nirpa') belong to pedagogical, covenant-theological, cultic and medical semantic fields — none of them is primarily juridical. The antithesis of the verse is “affliction — peace,” not “punishment — forgiveness.”

Read Socinianly, Isa 53:5 is the promise of the suffering Servant of God who, like the goat of Lev 16, carries the sins away — through affliction, with a healing consequence for the straying sheep who return to the Shepherd. Christ's self-giving and resurrection bring about salvation as restoration, not as status repair after a payment. The New-Testament reception of the Song (Matt 8:17; 1 Pet 2:24; Acts 8:35) confirms this line consistently.

Sozzini treats the verse at length in “On Jesus Christ the Saviour” and there refutes the penal-substitutionary narrowing at three key points: at the word castigatio/musar (no punishment, but chastisement), at the verb hiphgiá (no loading-on, but intercession), and at the image of the scapegoat (no penal execution, but carrying-away). The christological dignity of the text thereby remains intact — freed from a forensic theology that the Hebrew original does not support.