Isaiah 53:6 vs. “Man of Sorrows”

Hillsong Worship · checked 2026-08-21

What we checked

PassageIsaiah 53:6 chapter ↗ 2 more proofs on Isaiah 53 →

Translation shownBSB (Berean Standard Bible)

Presents itself asinspired-by

Categorynot a quote

AlbumGlorious Ruins · 2013

Words addressed toGod, person unspecified

Teaching or experienceteaching (states truths)

Graded against the standard

Quotation criteria not graded: this song never presents its words as scripture

Applies to every song the Name held holy · God shown holy · true of God · the standard

✓Reverent treatment

✓ What's good

Carries the verse's actual construction, not just its subject: the sin is laid on him, which is what Isaiah 53:6 says the LORD did, rather than something the servant merely suffered
Christ is the subject of all four verses. The singer appears only in the chorus and the bridge, and appears there as a beneficiary rather than as the point
The third verse says he came to reconcile the people responsible for killing him, which runs the same direction Isaiah 53 runs when the wanderers turn out to be the ones the servant bore
Goes past the cross to the empty tomb, and the chapter goes past death too, when it says the servant will see his offspring and prolong his days
The trail back to the chapter can actually be followed. The publisher's own song page names Isaiah 53, which is more than many worship songs offer
Two published texts of the lyric agree, and the copyright line appears on the standard chart, so what a congregation sings is a fixed and checkable text

⚠ Cautions

The first verse puts two things on Jesus. Isaiah 53:6 puts one. The wrath language comes from a reading of the chapter and of the New Testament, not from this verse, so sing it knowing which of the two words is Isaiah's
The verse's confession is plural and comes first. This lyric contains no "we", "us" or "our" in any section. The remedy is sung in the verse's grammar and the diagnosis is not sung at all
The publisher cites "Isaiah 53" with no verse numbers, so nothing points a singer at verse 6 in particular, and the song's most quotable phrase is actually from verse 3
A different and much older hymn carries the same title. Philip Bliss wrote "Man of Sorrows! What a Name" in 1875, and Hymnary indexes it as a separate text with a separate tune
The title phrase is King James wording from Isaiah 53:3, kept by the BSB. The WEB reads "a man of suffering" there, so the name at the top of the song belongs to particular translations

Verse Proof

Isaiah 53:6

The text in BSB (Berean Standard Bible)

“We all like sheep have gone astray, each one has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid upon Him the iniquity of us all.”

Isaiah 52:13 to 53:12 is one unit about the LORD's servant, and verse 6 sits at its hinge. The speakers are a group looking back at themselves, and the verse is a single sentence in two halves. The first half is their confession: all of them wandered, and each one went the way he chose. The second half is God's action: the LORD laid on the servant what the wanderers had earned. The subject changes mid-sentence, from the people to the LORD, and the word "all" brackets both ends, opening with "we all" and closing with "us all". Every pronoun for the people is plural. There is no singular anywhere in the verse. The unit goes on to say the crushing was the LORD's own will, and it ends with the servant given a portion with the great.

What the song says, described not quoted

A 2013 Hillsong congregational song in four verses with a chorus and a bridge, sung on the live album by Jad Gillies and Annie Garratt. The first verse names Christ with the King James phrase from Isaiah 53:3 and with John the Baptist's title for him, notes that one of his own handed him over, and then states that human sin and God's wrath were placed on Jesus. The second verse walks through the trial: silence under accusation, beating and mockery, submission to the Father's will, the crown of thorns. The third says he was sent from heaven as God's own Son to purchase, redeem and reconcile the very people responsible for his death. The fourth reaches the moved stone, the empty tomb and the resurrection. The chorus is the singer's response to the cross, and it is the only place in the song that speaks to God rather than about him; it uses second person but names no one there. The bridge states that the debt is paid in full by Christ's blood, that sin's curse no longer holds, and closes on a line from John 8:36. No verse is cited in the sung text and nothing is framed as a quotation.

One countable fact matters for this proof. The lyric contains no first-person plural at all. Not "we", not "us", not "our", in any section. That was checked against two independently published texts of the song: the lyric printed in the official YouTube upload's description, and the lyric on Hillsong's own site.

What travels from Isaiah 53:6 is the second half of the verse, and it travels with its grammar intact. Isaiah says the LORD laid it on him. The song says it has been laid on Jesus. That is the passage's own construction, and it is the reason this song lands on this verse rather than merely near it. Two things shifted. The first is what gets laid. Isaiah 53:6 puts one thing on the servant, the iniquity of us all. The song's first verse puts two, human sin and God's wrath. Wrath is not a word in this verse. It is drawn from a reading of the chapter, which does say the crushing was the LORD's will, and from New Testament texts about the same death. That reading is what a great many churches mean by the line. It is still a reading, and verse 6 is not where it comes from. The second shift is the whole first half. Isaiah's speakers name the sin before they name the remedy, and they name it as drift: sheep wandering, each one going his own way. Nothing in the song does that. Its account of human guilt is the crucifixion, stated in the third person about the people who nailed him. Its first-person material is singular and sits on the far side of the cross: a debt paid, a curse lifted, love received. So the song has a confession of need, and it is a real one, but it is not the confession this verse makes. The listing trail is worth stating. Worship Together, the Capitol CMG site that carries Hillsong's charts, lists the song's scripture reference as Isaiah 53, with no verse numbers. The standard SongSelect chord chart names no scripture and no translation at all, only the writers, the copyright and the CCLI number.

· Not a quote: The song cites nothing and presents nothing as a quotation. From Isaiah 53:6 it carries the second half, sin laid on him in the passage's own passive construction. The first half's plural confession of straying appears nowhere. The lyric contains no "we", "us" or "our".

▸ Official upload. Now listen with the proof in mind.

Isaiah 53:6 says we strayed and that the LORD laid it on him. The song sings the second half.

Why it matters

Isaiah 53:6 is one sentence, and the two halves hold each other up. The laying-on is only good news because of what the first clause admits, and the admission is bearable only because of what the second clause reports. A song can carry one half faithfully and leave the other on the page, and nothing about that is dishonest, because the song never said it was the verse. What it does mean is that the singer is being handed the remedy in the verse's own words and the diagnosis in somebody else's. The gap is small and it is worth knowing about, because repetition fills gaps with whatever is nearest.

Is it safe to dwell on?

Sung on repeat, this song fixes your attention on God.

The dwelling tag is God, and the count is not close. Four verses are about Christ from first word to last, and the singer surfaces only in the chorus and the bridge, where he is the one receiving. Sung week after week, what this plants is a finished work in the right order: handed over, silent, condemned, sent for that purpose, paid in full, risen. That is a great deal of true content to have running in someone's head, and the resurrection verse means the loop does not end at the wound.

What repetition will not plant here is the sentence Isaiah's speakers say first. There is no line in this song where the singer admits that he wandered off and picked his own direction. His guilt enters as a debt and as membership in the crowd at the cross, both true, neither the same as drift. Someone who sings this often and reads verse 6 rarely will know exactly what was laid on Jesus and be a little vague about how it got there. The fix is not in the song. Read the verse whole beside it, and let the first clause be as familiar as the second.

Helpful comparison

Two songs on this site now share the title "Man of Sorrows" and they are not related. Philip Bliss wrote his in 1875, words and tune together, and it takes the King James phrase from Isaiah 53:3 and crowns it. The Hillsong song was written by Matt Crocker and Brooke Ligertwood, copyright 2012, first released as a free download before Easter 2013 and then as track nine on the live album Glorious Ruins that July. Hymnary treats them as separate texts with separate tunes. They open on the same three words and go different places: Bliss's hymn answers every scene with a one-line refrain of praise, while this one answers with a chorus about what the cross did for the singer.

The writer billing has moved with the writer's name. The 2013 upload's copyright line and the SongSelect chart both read Matt Crocker and Brooke Ligertwood. Wikipedia's track listing bills her as Brooke Fraser, which is how she was credited at the time, and Hymnary's text page uses Fraser as well. Same person, same song. It is worth knowing because a search under one name will not always find the other.

Announcing "Man of Sorrows" without naming the writers can put two unrelated songs on one screen: Bliss's 1875 hymn, words and tune, and the Crocker and Ligertwood song.

Sources

Hillsong Worship — Man Of Sorrows · (the recording checked for this proof; oEmbed author_name "Hillsong Worship"; the description carries the full lyric, the section list, CCLI 6476063 and a Hillsong Music 2013 copyright line, and names no translation)
Hillsong Worship — Man Of Sorrows, original 2013 upload · (oEmbed author_name "Hillsong Worship", published 23 June 2013, same 5:20 recording; the description gives "Words & Music by Matt Crocker & Brooke Ligertwood, © 2012 Hillsong Publishing (APRA), CCLI# 6476063" and a Hillsong team member's account of first hearing the song at a creative gathering before Easter)
Worship Together — Man Of Sorrows, Hillsong Worship · (the publisher-side song page: writers Brooke Ligertwood and Matt Crocker, CCLI 6476063, original key F, and the scripture reference the rights holder's site gives, "Isaiah 53", with no verse numbers)
SongSelect chord chart for "Man Of Sorrows" (PDF) · (the standard licensed chart: "Words and Music by Matt Crocker and Brooke Ligertwood", "CCLI Song # 6476063", "© 2012 Hillsong Music Publishing", and no scripture reference or translation named anywhere on it)
Hillsong — Man of Sorrows (Live), lyrics · (the artist's own published text of the lyric, used as the second independent source for the pronoun count; it contains no "we", "us" or "our")
Hillsong — Glorious Ruins · (the album, billed to Hillsong Worship, 2013, with "Man of Sorrows - Live" in the track listing)
Wikipedia — Glorious Ruins · (released 2 July 2013 on Hillsong, Capitol and Sparrow; produced by Reuben Morgan and Joel Houston; "Man of Sorrows" track nine, 5:20, lead vocals Jad Gillies and Annie Garratt, writers billed Matt Crocker and Brooke Fraser; released as the album's first single, a free download before Easter)
Hymnary.org — Man Of Sorrows · (the text authority page for this song: Brooke Fraser and Matt Crocker, 2012, CCLI 6476063, indexed separately from Bliss's hymn)
Hymnary.org — tune for "Man of sorrows, Lamb of God" · (a distinct tune entry, composers Brooke Fraser and Matt Crocker, © 2012 Hillsong Music Publishing, appearing in CCLI Top 100 lists from 2016 to 2022)
Word to Worship — Man of Sorrows · (a worship-planning index listing the song's scripture connections as Romans 5:8, Colossians 2:14-15, Isaiah 53:1-7, Luke 19:10 and Matthew 28:6, published 2012 by Hillsong Music Publishing)
The Berean Test — Hillsong Worship, Man of Sorrows · (a 9/10 review that maps each section of the song to scripture, marks it down only for how an outsider would read its language of debt and curse, and whose comment thread argues over whether the song's account of who put Christ on the cross is the emphasis scripture gives)

Corrections

2026-09-06 This entry called worshiptogether.com "the publisher". It is the song-resource platform Capitol CMG Publishing runs, not the song's publisher, and it carries songs Capitol CMG does not publish. The finding is unchanged; only who published the reference.

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