Translation: The New International Version (NIV) renders this passage: “By oppression and judgment, he was taken away. And who can speak of his descendants? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was stricken.”
Gileadi’s translation reads: “By arrest and trial he was taken away. Who can apprise his generation that he was cut off from the land of the living for the crime of my people, to whom the blow was due?”
The New English Bible (NEB) reads: “He was arrested and sentenced and taken away, and who gave a thought to his fate—how he was cut off from the world of the living, stricken to death for my people’s transgression?”
All renditions of the verse agree on judgment. Most agree that he was taken away by judgment, but the KJV has him taken from prison. It would appear that it is a better translation to have the judgment applied against him, rather than the judgment removing him from prison. Blenkinsopp notes: “The phrase describing how he was taken away… is difficult; in the only other occurrence of me’oser, the preposition signifies instrumentality (Ps. 107:39 “brought low by oppression”).” Blenkinsopp therefore renders the phrase: “By oppressive acts of judgment he was led away.… ”
The next focal point of translation differences is the concept of “generations.” The NEB reads “generations” as focusing on the future and therefore on the fate of the servant. Blenkinsopp uses the same translation. The KJV assumes that “generations” refers to forebears, while the NIV assumes descendants. Gileadi interprets “generations” to mean his contemporaries. That is a wide range of possibilities.
Based on the question in which this critical term appears, and the correlation to Isaiah 53:1 that began with a question, we may assume that Isaiah intends that we see parallels in his prose. Since the first rhetorical question dealt with the past (past prophets who made declarations but who were not believed) this reference may be the reversal, referring to descendants (or the genericized “fate”), LDS scholar Sidney Sperry opts for the interpretation of “generations” as descendants.
The final point of the verse is dramatically clear. This suffering servant will be put to death for the sins of the people. Even the KJV’s somewhat oblique “cut off out of the land of the living” is still recognizable as a metaphor for death.