Isaiah 53:1
Isaiah 53:11Who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
"Who has put faith in the thing heard from us? And as for the arm of Jehovah, to whom has it been revealed?" (NWT). The Watchtower reads as a lament over Israel's general unbelief in the Messianic message — fulfilled in Israel's failure to embrace Christ in the first century. The "arm of Jehovah" is taken as a metaphor for Jehovah's saving power exercised through Jesus.
quotes as fulfilled specifically in Israel's rejection of Jesus — and verse 41 supplies the inspired commentary: "Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and spoke about him." The "him" is Jesus. So Isaiah's two questions in 53:1 turn out to be one question: who has believed the message about Jesus, and to whom has the saving power of Jehovah (which is Jesus) been revealed? The "arm of Jehovah" is not just a metaphor — it is the figure Isaiah 53 then describes in the chapter, the suffering Servant who is pierced for our transgressions. The Servant is the arm of Jehovah — Jehovah's saving power embodied. Pair with (the apostolic application of alongside , both attributed to Jesus).
The NWT renders the verb "believed" (Hebrew he'emin / Greek episteusen at LXX) as "put faith in" — consistent with the broader NWT pattern of converting the stative "believe" into the dynamic "exercise faith" / "put faith in." The verse- level effect is small but the systemic effect is significant: every passage where Paul or John uses the verb "believe" to describe initial trusting reception is shifted toward an ongoing effortful activity. Standard English translations preserve "believed" because believing is a stative trust-act, not a performance one renews. The NWT's "put faith" subtly aligns the receiving-act with the work-of-faith that Watchtower soteriology demands.