Isaiah 53:4 — people thought he was stricken by God, but he was actually suffering for others

Mike reads Isaiah 53:4 carefully: 'we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.' This is the crowd's mistaken perception — they saw him suffering and assumed he must have sinned. But the very next verse (53:5) corrects this: 'he was pierced for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities.' The text explicitly says the crowd's perception was wrong. Ra has misread the passage — it is not claiming God struck him in punishment for his own sin, but that observers wrongly assumed that. The actual point is substitutionary suffering.