The prophet is describing a servant who is led "as a sheep to the slaughter," denied justice, and put to death (Acts 8:32-33). Commentators weigh more than one reading. Barnes suggests that "perhaps" the simple idea is, "Who shall stand up for him, declaring who he is? Who will appear for him? Who will vindicate him?" In other words, no one would speak up for Him. Barnes also considers the reading that the wickedness of that generation could not be described. Gill takes "generation" to mean the age in which Christ lived, whose wickedness "cannot be sufficiently described and declared." Either way, the question points to the injustice the servant suffered.

In Acts the question is not answered by the prophet but by what happens in the chariot. The eunuch asked, "of whom speaketh the prophet this? of himself, or of some other man?" (Acts 8:34). "Then Philip opened his mouth, and began at the same scripture, and preached unto him Jesus" (Acts 8:35). If the question asks, as Barnes suggests it may, who will declare who the servant is, Philip did exactly that on the Gaza road.

Luke quotes Isaiah 53:7-8 in the form found in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament. Barnes notes that the wording "varies from the Hebrew, but is copied exactly from the Septuagint." Compare the KJV of Isaiah 53:8: "He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living." In Acts, "humiliation" is tapeinosis, a low estate, and "judgment" is krisis; Barnes explains that justice was withheld from Him and He was delivered to death. "Declare" is diegeomai, to relate in full, and "generation" is genea, which Barnes says properly means posterity, and then an age of people.

Centuries before Jesus, God had Isaiah describe a servant who would suffer silently and unjustly. The surrounding story shows God bringing that word to its fulfillment in a desert. The eunuch happened to be reading this exact passage when Philip arrived (Acts 8:28-32). Matthew Henry writes that the Ethiopian "was convinced by the teaching of the Holy Spirit, of the exact fulfilment of the Scripture."

The question "who shall declare his generation?" sounds like a lament with no answer. But in Acts the answer comes: God sends a messenger who declares Jesus (Acts 8:35). The One whose judgment was taken away is now proclaimed to a traveler from Ethiopia (Acts 8:27, 35).