For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, [there is] no beauty that we should desire him.
2. The verse seems to take us back to the origin of the Servant’s career, in order to account for the powerful prejudices with which his contemporaries regarded him. From the first he had been mean and unprepossessing in appearance, like a stunted shrub struggling for existence in an arid soil. To this corresponded the first impressions of the people, which were mainly of a negative kind; they found in him nothing that was attractive or desirable. Beyond this the verse does not go.
For he shall grow up ] Lit. And he grew up. It is not easy to make out such a connexion between this sentence and the last as would naturally be expressed by “and.” If what is here stated were the explanation of the unbelief confessed in Isa 53:1, the proper conjunction would be “for,” and so the word is by many rendered. Others take it as the “and” of consequence (= and so), but the clause is not a statement of what the people thought of the Servant in consequence of their unbelief, but of what he actually was. The phrase “before him” seems decisive on that point, unless with Ewald and others we change the reading to “before us.” With that alteration the whole verse speaks of the impressions men formed of the Servant, and these impressions might readily be regarded as the result of their want of spiritual insight. But if the received text be retained (and there is no sufficient reason for departing from it) the description begins with a statement of fact and then proceeds to the effect on the mind of the people. It is probable that no logical connexion with the preceding is intended. The conjunction may mark the commencement of the narrative, in accordance with a tendency to begin a speech with “and” (Jos 22:28; Jer 9:11; cf. ch. Isa 2:2).
as a tender plant ] a sapling. Cf. Eze 17:22; Job 14:7.
a root (cf. ch. Isa 11:10) out of a dry ground ] The “dry ground” might, on some theories of what is meant by the Servant, symbolise the Exile with its political hardships and lack of religious advantages, but it is doubtful if the figure should be pressed so far. The Servant is compared to a plant springing up in such a soil, but whether the prophet thought of his lowly growth as due in any degree to unfavourable circumstances is uncertain.
In what follows hath should be had, and comeliness, majesty. The words for form and beauty are the same as those rendered “form” and “aspect” in Isa 52:14. Both are here used in the sense of “pleasing form” &c.; comp. “a man of form “in 1Sa 16:18, and the Latin formosus from forma, or “shapely” from “shape.”
and when we shall see him ] Rather, when we saw him. The clause, however, might (disregarding the accents) be read with what precedes: “ and no majesty, that we should look upon him and no aspect that we should desire him” (see R.V. marg.). This at least yields a more perfect parallelism in the last two lines.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
For he shall grow up before him – In this verse, the prophet describes the humble appearance of the Messiah, and the fact that there was nothing in his personal aspect that corresponded to the expectations that bad been formed of him; nothing that should lead them to desire him as their expected deliverer, but everything that could induce them to reject him. He would be of so humble an origin, and with so little that was magnificent in his external appear ance, that the nation would despise him. The word rendered he shall grow up ( vayaal, from alah), means properly, to go up, to ascend. Here it evidently applies to the Redeemer as growing up in the manner of a shoot or sucker that springs out of the earth. It means that he would start, as it were, from a decayed stock or stump, as a shoot springs up from a root that is apparently dead. It does not refer to his manner of life before his entrance on the public work of the ministry; not to the mode and style of his education; but to his starting as it were out of a dry and sterile soil where any growth could not be expected, or from a stump or stock that was apparently dead (see the notes at Isa 11:1). The phrase before him ( lepanayv), refers to Yahweh. He would be seen and observed by him, although unknown to the world. The eyes of people would not regard him as the Messiah while he was growing up, but Yahweh would, and his eye would be continually upon him.
As a tender plant – The word used here ( yoneq, from yanaq, to suck, Job 3:12; Son 8:1; Joe 2:16), may be applied either to a suckling, a sucking child Deu 32:25; Psa 8:3, or to a sucker, a sprout, a shoot of a tree Job 8:16; Job 14:7; Job 15:30; Eze 17:22; Hos 14:7. Jerome here renders it, Virgultum. The Septuagint renders it, anengeilamen hos paidion enantion autou – We have made proclamation as a child before him. But what idea they attached to it, it is impossible now to say; and equally so to determine how they came to make such a translation. The Chaldee also, leaving the idea that it refers to the Messiah, renders it, And the righteous shall be magnified before him as branches which flourish, and as the tree which sends its roots by the fountains of water; thus shall the holy nation be increased in the land. The Syriac translates it, He shall grow up before him as an infant. The idea in the passage is plain. It is, that the Messiah would spring up as from an ancient and decayed stock, like a tender shoot or sucker. He would be humble and unpretending in his origin, and would be such that they who had expected a splendid prince would be led to overlook and despise him.
And as a root – ( vekashoresh). The word root here is evidently used by synecdoche for the sprout that starts up from a root (see the notes at Isa 11:10, where the word is used in the same sense).
Out of a dry ground – In a barren waste, or where there is no moisture. Such a sprout or shrub is small, puny, and withered up. Such shrubs spring up in deserts, where they are stinted for want of moisture, and they are most striking objects to represent that which is humble and unattractive in its personal appearance. The idea here is, that the Messiah would spring from an ancient family decayed, but in whose root, so to speak, there would be life, as there is remaining life in the stump of a tree that is fallen down; but that there would be nothing in his external appearance that would attract attention, or meet the expectations of the nation. Even then he would not be like a plant of vigorous growth supplied with abundant rains, and growing in a rich and fertile soil, but he would be like the stinted growth of the sands of the desert. Can anything be more strikingly expressive of the actual appearance of the Redeemer, as compared with the expectation of the Jews? Can there be found anywhere a more striking fulfillment of a prophecy than this? And how will the infidel answer the argument thus furnished for the fact that Isaiah was inspired, and that his record was true?
He hath no form – That is, no beauty. He has not the beautiful form which was anticipated; the external glory which it was supposed he would assume. On the meaning of the word form, see the notes at Isa 52:14. It is several times used in the sense of beautiful form or figure (Gen 29:17; Gen 39:6; Gen 41:18; Deu 21:11; Est 2:17; compare 1Sa 16:18). Here it means the same as beautiful form or appearance, and refers to his state of abasement rather than to his own personal beauty. There is no evidence that in person he was in any way deformed, or otherwise than beautiful, except as excessive grief may have changed his natural aspect (see the note at Isa 52:14).
Nor comeliness – ( hadar). This word is translated honor, glory, majesty Deu 33:17; Psa 29:4; Psa 149:9; Dan 11:20; excellency Isa 35:2; beauty Pro 20:29; Psa 110:3; 2Ch 20:21. It may be applied to the countenance, to the general aspect, or to the ornaments or apparel of the person. Here it refers to the appearance of the Messiah, as having nothing that was answerable to their expectations. He had no robes of royalty; no diadem sparkling on his brow; no splendid retinue; no gorgeous array.
And when we shall see him – This should be connected with the previous words, and should be translated, that we should regard him, or attentively look upon him. The idea is, that there was in his external appearance no such beauty as to lead them to look with interest and attention upon him; nothing that should attract them, as people are attracted by the dazzling and splendid objects of this world. If they saw him, they immediately looked away from him as if he were unworthy of their regard.
There is no beauty that we should desire him – He does not appear in the form which we had anticipated. He does not come with the regal pomp and splendor which it was supposed he would assmne. He is apparently of humble rank; has few attendants, and has disappointed wholly the expectation of the nation. In regard to the personal appearance of the Redeemer, it is remarkable that the New Testament has given us no information. Not a hint is dropped in reference to his height of stature, or his form; respecting the color of his hair, his eyes, or his complexion. In all this, on which biographers are usually so full and particular, the evangelists are wholly silent. There was evidently design in this; and the purpose was probably to prevent any painting, statuary, or figure of the Redeemer, that would have any claim to being regarded as correct or true. As it stands in the New Testament, there is lust the veil of obscurity thrown over this whole subject which is most favorable for the contemplation of the incarnate Deity. We are told flint he was a man; we are told also that he was God. The image to the minds eye is as obscure in the one case as the other; and in both, we are directed to his moral beauty, his holiness, and benevolence, as objects of contemplation, rather than to his external appearance or form.
It may be added that there is no authentic information in regard to his appearance that has come down to us by tradition. All the works of sculptors and painters in attempting to depict his form are the mere works of fancy, and are undoubtedly as unlike the glorious reality as they are contrary to the spirit and intention of the Bible. There is, indeed, a letter extant which is claimed by some to have been written by Publius Lentulus, to the Emperor Tiberius, in the time when the Saviour lived, and which gives a description of his personal appearance. As this is the only legend of antiquity which even claims to be a description of his person, and as it is often printed, and is regarded as a curiosity, it may not be improper here to present it in a note. This letter is pronounced by Calmer to be spurious, and it has been abundantly proved to be so by Prof. Robinson (see Bib. Rep. vol. ii. pp. 367-393). The main arguments against its anthenticity, and which entirely settle the question, are:
1. The discrepancies and contradictions which exist in the various copies.
2. The fact that in the time of the Saviour, when the epistle purports to have been written, it can be demonstrated that no such man as Publius Lentulus was governor of Judea, or had any such office there, as is claimed for him in the inscriptions to the epistle.
3. That for fifteen hundred years no such epistle is quoted or referred to by any writer – a fact which could not have occurred if any such epistle had been in existence.
4. That the style of the epistle is not such as an enlightened Roman would have used, but is such as an ecclesiastic would have employed.
5. That the contents of the epistle are such as a Roman would not have used of one who was a Jew.
See these arguments presented in detail in the place above referred to. It may be added, that this is the only pretended account which bas come down to us respecting the personal appearance of the Saviour, except the fable that Christ sent his portrait to Abgar, king of Edessa, in reply to a letter which he had sent requesting him to come and heal him; and the equally fabulous legend, that the impression of his countenance was left upon the handkerchief of the holy Veronica.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Isa 53:2
For He shall grow up before wire as a tender plant
God accomplishes great things by unlikely means
1.
God prosecuteth and accomplisheth His greatest designs by the most unlikely and despised means. Jesus Christ, the great Saviour of the world, was but a tender plant, which a man would be more apt to tread upon and crush, than to cherish.
2. God cometh in for the deliverance of His people in times of greatest despair and unlikelihood. For when the branches of Jesse were dried up, and had no verdure, even then sprung up the greatest ornament of that stock, although a root out of a dry ground.
3. Mean beginnings may grow up to great matters and glorious successes. Christ, the tender plant, was to be a tall tree. (T. Manton, D. D.)
God to be trusted
You have no cause to distrust God; though He doth not find means, He can create them. The root of Jesse, though there be no branches, it can bear a sprig. God, that could make the world out of nothing, can preserve the Church by nothing. (T. Manton, D. D.)
Christ a tender plant
1. Christ in His humiliation appeared in great feebleness; born a helpless babe, He was in His infancy in great danger from the hand of Herod, and though preserved, it was not by a powerful army, but by flight into another land. His early days were not spent amid the martial music of camps, or in the grandeur of courts, but in the retirement of a carpenters shop–fit place for a tender plant. His life was gentleness, He was harmless as a lamb. At any time it seemed easy to destroy both Him and His system. When He was nailed to the Cross to die, did it not appear as if His whole work had utterly collapsed and His religion would be for ever stamped out? The Cross threatened to be the death of Christianity as well as of Christ; but it was not so, for in a few days the power of the Divine Spirit came upon the Church.
2. At its first setting up, how feeble was the kingdom of our Lord! When Herod stretched out His hand to vex certain of the Church, unbelief might have said, There will he an utter end ere long. When, in after years, the Roman emperors turned the whole imperial power against the Gospel, stretching forth an arm long enough to encompass the entire globe, and uplifting a hand more heavy than an iron hammer, how could it be supposed that the Christian Church would still live on? It bowed before the storm like a tender shoot, but it was not uprooted by the tempest; it survives to this day; and although we do not rejoice at this moment in all the success which we could desire, yet still that tender shoot is full of vitality, we perceive the blossoms of hope upon it, and expect soon to gather goodly clusters of success.
3. Christianity in our own hearts–the Christ within us–is also a tender plant. In its upspringing it is as the green blade of corn, which any beast that goeth by may tread upon or devour. Oftentimes, to our apprehension, it has seemed that our spiritual life would soon die: it was no better than a lily, with a stalk bruised and all but snapped in twain. The mower a scythe of temptation has cut down the outgrowth of our spiritual life, but He who cometh down like rain upon the mown grass has restored our verdure and maintained our vigour to this day. Tender as our religion is, it is beyond the power of Satan to destroy it. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Growth before God
There is one word which marks the difference between the work of God and the work of man. It is the word growth. No human work can grow. For though we speak of a picture growing under the brush of the painter, or of a statue growing under the chisel of the sculptor, this is only a figure of speech.
1. But there is no work of God that cannot grow. This world itself grew into being. It grew up before God as the wild flower does–grew out of chaos, into order and beauty, and we can read on the rocks the story of its growth. There is a greater world than this–the world of Divine truth. And this also has been a growth from the beginning.
2. No wonder, then, that the Son of God grew up before the Lord–that the Lord of nature conformed to the law of nature. The sacred historian is not to be found tripping here, like the medieval romancist. He does not outrage the order of nature by a single story of monstrous precocity. There is not a part of the being of Jesus which he excludes from the order of growth. In body, mind and spirit he declares the child grew up before the Lord.
3. What hope is there here for man! The Son of God had to grow, and the meanest child of man can grow. If we had no power of growth but that which we possess in common with the animal and the tree, then were we of all creatures the most miserable. Because we have in us the power of an endless growth in all that is great and good, we are creatures of the Most Blessed. And we must grow. That is our destiny. Our Christianity is not a piece of mechanism that was finished off at the date of conversion. It is a life that has been born within the soul. We are growing, either upwards or downwards, either better or worse, either to honour or to shame.
4. But how may a noble and Divine growth be ensured? It is a question that is not left unanswered in my text. For we are told that the plant of which it speaks grew up before the Lord. It was the fondest desire of the Hebrew mothers heart that her son should grow up before the Lord. She would rather have him grow up before the Lord in the temple than before the king in the palace. There can be no higher position or nobler prospect for a man than to grow up before his God. The child Samuel and the child Jesus grew up before the same God, but how differently. The former under the very shadow of the altar, under the wing of the old, blind priest, utterly secluded from the common ways of men; but Jesus, at His mother s knee in the village home, in the midst of His little relatives and playmates, among the workmen at the bench, and the old familiar faces in street and synagogue. And so it has become a Christian commonplace that you can grow up before the Lord anywhere.
5. But we are further informed of the special fashion in which Jesus grew up before the Lord. As a tender plant and as a root out of a dry ground, we read. But the Hebrew contains a more explicit meaning. It is this: He grew up before God like a fresh sucker from a root springing out of a dry ground The old plant is the house of David, once so glorious in flower and fruitage, at last cut down and withered. The dry soil is the barren religious life of Israel. The fresh young sucker is the Son of Man. That it did grow to what we see is the supreme miracle of Christianity. Its principal evidence is in its own marvellous growth. This is the dilemma in which Christianity still keeps its foes, and to which all additional thought and investigation can only add strength. From such a root, in such a soil, how did Jesus grow to be the Christ of history? It must either be acknowledged to be the supreme miracle or the supreme mystery of time. And this is the one Christian miracle which keeps repeating itself century after century. From the withered plant, and out of the desert soft, God is evermore producing His plants of renown. How was it, for example, that Luther grew to be the man he was, and to wield the power he did? Was it from the withered root of the mediaeval Church or the desert soil of the monastery that he derived his power? Or was he right when he declared the conviction of his heart that it was all by the grace of God through faith? History discloses to us nothing so glorious as these Divine developments of the soul of man. The grace that has achieved these things is in the world as much as ever.
6. Why is it, then, that so many young men are excluding from their ambition in life that of growth in Christ? Why is it that so many of them murmur that the old creeds are dry, and the old Bible and the old familiar Church service, and that even the fountain of private devotion has ceased to water the wilderness? It is because they are not rooted in God and His truth, but are, many of them, like plants thrown out of a country nursery, which lie bleaching in the sun or are blown about by the wind. No wonder that religion seems dry to those who are not rooted in it. Young men! see to it that you go down into the truth which you profess to stand by, whether of creed, of catechism, or Bible, and you will find as much good in it as your fathers did. Thus settled and grounded, seek to grow in everything; put on nothing. All pretence is worse than waste of time and strength. And abjure all forced and unnatural growth, all ambition to fill rapidly a large space. Be content to occupy the ground that God has allotted to you, according to the nature that God has given. (P. J. Rollo.)
As a root out of a dry ground
The root out of a dry ground
Owing to their geographical position, the central and western regions of South Africa are almost constantly deprived of rain. They contain no flowing streams, and very little water in the wells. The soil is a soft and light-coloured sand, which reflects the sunlight with a glaring intensity. No fresh breeze cools the air; no passing cloud veils the scorching sky. We should naturally have supposed that regions so scantily supplied with one of the first necessaries of life, could be nothing else than waste and lifeless deserts: and yet, strange to say, they are distinguished for their comparatively abundant vegetation, and their immense development of animal life. The evil produced by want of rain has been counteracted by the admirable foresight of the Creator, in providing these arid lands with plants suited to their trying circumstances. The vegetation is eminently local and special. Nothing like it is seen elsewhere on the face of the earth. Nearly all the plants have tuberous roots, buried far beneath the ground, beyond the scorching effects of the sun, and are composed of succulent tissue, filled with a deliciously cool and refreshing fluid. They have also thick, fleshy leaves, with pores capable of imbibing and retaining moisture from a very dry atmosphere and soil; so that if a leaf be broken during the greatest drought, it shows abundant circulating sap. Nothing can look more unlike the situations in which they are found than these succulent roots, full of fluid when the surrounding soil is dry as dust, and the enveloping air seems utterly destitute of moisture; replete with nourishment and life when all within the horizon is desolation and death. They seem to have a special vitality in themselves; and, unlike all other plants, to be independent of circumstances. Such roots are also found in the deserts of Arabia; and it was doubtless one of them that suggested to the prophet the beautiful and expressive emblem of the text, He shall grow up before him as a root out of a dry ground. (H. Macmillan, LL. D.)
Christs growth before God
Commentators usually connect these words with the next clause of the verse, and regard them as implying that the promised Messiah would have no form or comeliness in the estimation of men, no outward beauty, that they should desire Him. This, I think, is a wrong interpretation. The words of the text are complete and separate. They speak not of the appearance of Christ to men, but of His growth in the sight of God. They refer not to His attractiveness, but to His functions; and the point that seems to be most insisted upon is, that His relation to the circumstances in which He should be placed would be one of perfect independence and self-sufficiency. (H. Macmillan, LL. D.)
The root out of a dry ground
In the light of this explanation let us look at the three ideas which the subject suggests to us–
1. The living root.
2. The dry ground.
3. The effect of the living root upon the dry ground. (H. Macmillan, LL. D.)
Christ the living root
1. This emblem is peculiarly appropriate when applied to Christ. He is called the Branch, to show that He is a member of the great organism of human life, in all things made like unto His brethren, yet without sin. He is a branch of the tree of humanity, nourished by its sap, pervaded by its life, blossoming with its affections, and yielding its fruits of usefulness. But He is more than the Branch. There shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots, is the spiritual language of prophecy relative to the coming of the Messiah; but the figure is speedily changed, and the Branch is also called the Root of Jesse. This language is most strange and paradoxical. It reveals the mystery of godliness, God manifest in the flesh. Jesus is at one and the same time the Branch and the Root, the root of Jesse and the offspring of Jesse, Davids Lord and Davids son, because He is Emmanuel, God with us, God and man in two distinct natures and one person for ever; deriving His human life by natural descent from man, and possessing Divine life in Himself, and the author of spiritual life to others. The root of plants growing in a dry ground is the most important part of their structure. It lies at the basis of, and involves the whole plant. The whole growth of a lily, for instance, lies folded up within its bulb. And so Christ lies at the basis of, and involves the whole spiritual life.
2. It is assuredly the most precious, as it is the most distinguishing, feature of the Christian religion, that it places the foundation of eternal life in living relations with a living Person, rather than in the profession of a creed or the practice of a duty.
(1) One of the principal functions which the root performs in the economy of vegetation is to attach the plant to the soil, and prevent it from moving hither and thither at the mercy of the elements. So Christ is the living root of our spiritual life, connecting it with the whole system of grace, the whole economy of redemption. It is only when united to Christ by a living faith that the soul can lay hold on heaven and immortality.
(2) Another purpose which the root serves in the economy of vegetation is to feed the plant. Through the spongioles of the root, the plant imbibes from the soil in which it is placed the needful sap by which it is sustained; and in this simple way the whole important and complicated processes are carried on, by which crude soil is converted into the needful constituents of vegetable matter. For this purpose the root possesses certain structural peculiarities adapting it to its special functions. Just as there is provision made for the growth of the germ in the starchy contents of the seed, until it has attained an independent existence; so there is provision made in the nutritive tissue of the bulb or tuber for the support of the plant which it produces. This function also the Root of Jesse performs in the case of those who are rooted in Him. He is the mediator of the New Covenant; the only channel by which spiritual blessings can be communicated to us. (H. Macmillan, LL. D.)
The unfoldings of the Root of Jesse
All the individual life of the Christian, with its blossoms of holiness and its fruits of righteousness; all the Christian life of society, with its things that are pure, and honest, and lovely, and of good report, is but a development and a manifestation of the life of Christ in the heart and in the world; a growth and unfolding of the power, the beauty, and the sweetness that are hid in the Root of Jesse. (H. Macmillan, LL. D.)
The dry ground
There is usually a very intimate connection between a plant and the circumstances in which it grows. Modifications of specific character are produced by varieties of soil; and the wide difference between a wild flower or fruit, and a garden flower or fruit, is entirely owing to the difference between rich cultivated soil and the poor untilled soil of nature. The plants of a dry ground, however, are less dependent upon the nature of their soil than others; they receive from it, in most cases, mere mechanical support and room to expand in, while their means of growth are derived entirely from the atmosphere. Looking at the emblem of the text in this light, we may suppose the dry ground here to mean–
I. THAT HUMANITY OUT OF WHICH CHRIST SPRANG. There are many who regard Jesus as the natural product of humanity–the highest development of human nature, the blossom, so to speak, of mankind. But we look upon Him as a Divine germ planted in this wilderness, a Divine Being attaching Himself to men, wearing their nature, dwelling in their world, but still not of them–as distinct from humanity as the living root is distinct from the dry ground in which it grows. The soil of humanity is indeed dry ground. Sin has dried up its life, its fertility, turned its moisture into summers drought, and reduced it to perpetual barrenness. By the law of natural development, mankind could never have given birth to a character in every way so exceptional as that of Christ. It is true indeed that a few individuals have ever and anon emerged from the dark chaos of fallen humanity, and exhibited a high type of intellectual and moral worth; but such individuals have been completely identified with the human race, and have shared in its sins and infirmities. In Jesus, on the contrary, there was a remarkable remoteness and separateness from men his life ran parallel with mans, but it was never on the same low level. He was independent of worldly circumstances, and superior to worldly conventionalities. He had no joys on earth save those He brought with Him from heaven. He was alone, without sympathy, for no one could understand Him; without help, for no mortal aid could reach the necessities of His case. Like a desert well, He was for ever imparting what no one could give Him back.
II. THE EXPECTATIONS OF THE JEWS REGARDING THE MESSIAH. There are scientific men who believe in the doctrine of spontaneous or equivocal generation. And so there are theologians who assert that Christ was merely the natural product of the age and the circumstances in which He lived; the mere incarnation, so to speak, of the popular expectation of the time. In all their attempts to account for His life, without admitting Him to be a Divine person, they bring prominently into view whatever there was in Jewish history, belief, and literature, to prepare for and produce such a personality and character as those of Jesus; they endeavour to show that the condition of the Jewish world, when Christ appeared, was exactly that into which His appearing would fit; and that all these preparatory and formative conditions did of themselves, by a kind of natural spontaneous generation, produce Christ. In reply to these views, it may be admitted as an unquestionable historical fact, that the expectation of a Messiah ran like a golden thread throughout the whole complicated web of the Hebrew religion and polity. The expectations of the Jews did no more of themselves produce the Saviour, than the soil and climate produce, of their own accord, any particular plant. There was nothing in the age, nothing in the people, nothing in the influences by which he was surrounded, which could by any possibility have produced or developed such a remarkable character as He exhibited. There was no more relation between Him and His moral surroundings, than there is between a succulent life-full root and the arid sandy waste in which it grows. The counterfeit Messiahs were not roots out of a dry ground, but, on the contrary, mushrooms developed from the decaying life of the nation. There was a complete harmony between them and their moral surroundings. They were really and truly the products of the popular longing of the time; they agreed in every respect with their circumstances. The prevailing notions concerning the Messiah were worldly and carnal.
III. THE CHARACTER OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE. Nothing can be more marked and striking than the contrast between the character of Christ and the general character of the Jewish nation–between the excellences which He displayed and those which they held in most esteem. It is said that a man represents the spirit and character of the age and the race to which he belongs. He seldom rises above their general level. But here we have a man who not only rose high above the level of his age and nation, but stands out, in all that constitutes true moral manhood, in marked and decided contrast to them. He was descended from the Jewish people, but He was not of them. He was rooted in Jewish soil, but His life was a self-derived and heavenly life. This is a great and precious truth. Something has come into this world which is not of it. A supernatural power has descended into nature. A man has lived on our earth who cannot be ranked with mankind. A Divine Being has come from God, to be incarnate with us, and to lift us up to God. (H. Macmillan, LL. D.)
Christ binds humanity into a brotherhood
The roots of the desert, by their extensive ramifications, fix the constantly shifting sands, and prevent them from being drifted about in blinding clouds by every wind that blows. So the Root of Jesse binds the dry ground of humanity by its endless fibres of benevolence and love. The despised and apparently feeble Jesus of Nazareth was lifted up on the Cross, and then followed–according to His own prophecy–the drawing of all men to Him and to one another. Sin is selfishness and isolation; the love of Christ is benevolence and attraction. Jesus unites us to the Father, and therefore to one another. The love of Christians is not to be confined to their own society and fraternity. In Christ they have received expansion, not limitation–universal benevolence, not mere party spirit. (H. Macmillan, LL. D.)
A root out of a dry ground
I. THE HISTORICAL MEANING OF THIS METAPHOR. It applies to the person of the Lord, and also to His cause and Kingdom: to Himself personally and to Himself mystically. A root which springs up in a fat and fertile field owes very much to the soil in which it grows. Our Saviour is a root that derives nothing from the soil in which it grows, but puts everything into the soil.
1. It is quite certain that our Lord derived nothing whatever from His natural descent. He was the Son of David, the lawful heir to the royal dignities of the tribe of Judah; but His family had fallen into obscurity, had lost position, wealth, and repute.
2. Nor did our Lord derive assistance from His nationality; it was no general recommendation to His teaching that He was of the seed of Abraham. To this day, to many minds, it is almost shameful to mention that our Saviour was a Jew. The Romans were peculiarly tolerant of religions and customs; by conquest their empire had absorbed men of all languages and creeds, and they usually left them undisturbed; but the Jewish faith was too peculiar and intolerant to escape derision and hatred. After the siege of Jerusalem by Titus, the Jews were hunted down, and the connection of Christianity with Judaism so far from being an advantage to it became a serious hindrance to its growth.
3. Nor did the Saviour owe anything to His followers. Shall a world-subduing religion be disseminated by peasants and mariners? So did He ordain it.
4. Our Saviour is a root out of a dry ground as to the means He chose for the propagation of His faith.
5. Neither did the Saviour owe anything to times in which He lived. Christianity was born at a period of history when the world by wisdom knew not God, and men were most effectually alienated from Him. The more thinking part of the worlds inhabitants were atheistic, and made ridicule of the gods, while the masses blindly worshipped whatever was set before them. The whole set and current of thought was in direct opposition to such a religion as He came to inculcate. It was an age of luxury.
6. Neither did the religion of Jesus owe anything to human nature. It is sometimes said that it commends itself to human nature. It is false: the religion of Jesus opposes unrenewed human nature.
II. OUR KNOWLEDGE OF ITS TRUTH EXPERIMENTALLY. You remember your own conversion. When Jesus Christ came to you to save you, did He find any fertile soil in your heart for the growth of His grace?
III. This whole subject affords much ENCOURAGEMENT to many.
1. Let me speak a word to those who are seeking the Saviour, but are very conscious of your own sinfulness. Christ is all–does that not cheer you?
2. The same thought ought also to encourage any Christian who has been making discoveries of his own barrenness. When at any time you are cast down by a sense of your nothingness, remember that your Lord is a root out of a dry ground.
3. The same comfort avails for every Christian worker. When you feel you are barren, do not fret or despair about it, but rather say, Lord, here is a dry tree, come and make it bear fruit, and then I shall joyfully confess, from Thee is my fruit found.
4. Ought not this to comfort us with regard to the times in which we live? Bad times are famous times for Christ.
5. And thus we may be encouraged concerning any particularly wicked place. Do not say, It is useless to preach down there, or to send missionaries to that uncivilized country. How do you know? Is it very dry ground? Well, that is hopeful soil; Christ is a root out a dry ground, and the more there is to discourage the more you should be encouraged.
6. The same is true of individual men; you should never say, Well, such a man as that will never be converted.
IV. THE GLORY WHICH ALL THIS DISPLAYS. Christs laurels at this day are none of them borrowed. When He shall come in His glory there will be none among its friends who will say, O King, Thou owest that jewel in Thy crown to me. Every one will own that He was the author and the finisher of the whole work, and therefore He must have all the glory of it, since we who were with Him were dry ground, and He gave life to us but borrowed nothing from us. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Christ not the product of Palestine
According to Renan, the excellence of Jesus was due to the climate and soil of Palestine! But he forgets to ask how it is that the climate and soil of Palestine have never produced such another! (C. Clemance, D.D.)
He hath no form nor comeliness
Christs humble appearance
While we see no necessity for the Saviour of the world appearing in pomp and splendour, we can point out many important ends that may be answered by His having been made humble and of no reputation.
1. In this state His all-perfect example was of the most extensive benefit. He could exhibit virtues more in number, more difficult to practise, and more generally necessary, than there could have been room for in a higher rank and in less trying circumstances. And the virtues which such a state required from Him, as they are the most difficult to practise, so are they those which are universally useful. The virtues which belong to sovereign power and regal dignity a few only have occasion to exercise. The virtues of that station which He assumed are useful for all to acquire.
2. By His appearing in the humble, suffering state He teaches us how very insignificant in the sight of God, and in the eyes of true wisdom, are all the possessions of this world and all the flattering distinctions of a present state.
3. By appearing in a humble, suffering state He shows us that earthly distress is no proof of a bad character; that suffering is no sure intimation of God s displeasure at the sufferer.
4. By appearing in this state He shows us that it was only the force of truth that engaged and influenced His followers. So strongly are men impressed by the circumstances of high birth, of eminent rank, of great power, the splendid acts of a monarch or a conqueror, that wherever these are found they are eager to show deference and respect. But Jesus had none of these worldly attractions. (R. Bogg, D.D.)
The real character of the Messiah
I. AS TO THE OBJECTION, that Jesus was not the true Messiah, because He did not answer the universal expectation which the Jews had of His being a mighty temporal prince. Considering the natural temper of mankind, and how strongly addicted they are to their worldly interests, and how jealous of everything that thwarts and opposes them, we must allow it to be a prejudice not easy to overcome. It requires a greater zeal for the honour of God and religion than most men are possessed of, to adhere to truth when we are likely to be losers by it. Few there are that have resolution enough to abide by a religion in which they have been educated, when once it comes to be opposed by the secular powers, and the profession of it to be attended with nothing but poverty and affliction: how much more courage then, and firmness of mind, is necessary to make men enter into a religion newly set up, and that is attended with the like disadvantages? But can any one seriously think this excuse of any force? Let him urge it in its true light, and thus must he plead when arraigned at the tribunal of God for unbelief: I would willingly have embraced the religion of Jesus Christ had it been made more suitable to my carnal inclinations and interests; had the rewards it promises been temporal instead of eternal, none should have more industriously and cheerfully sought after them; but when He told me that His kingdom was not of this world, and that I could not follow Him without taking up the cross; without losing, or being in danger of losing, everything that was valuable in life, nay, life itself, for His sake–my flesh trembled at the thought, and human nature, directed me to take care of myself, and to run no hazards for the sake of religion. What sentence can such an one expect but this: Thou hast preferred thy temporal to thy eternal interest, thou hast had thy reward on earth, and canst therefore expect no other in heaven? But the Jew perhaps thinks he has somewhat further to say in behalf of his unbelief–that he was persuaded, from the predictions of the prophets, that the Messiah would really be, what the Gentiles might only wish Him to be, a temporal prince; and, finding Jesus not to be so, they thought it a good reason for rejecting Him. But was this (supposing it true) the only mark by which the Messiah was to be known? How often do we read of His sufferings and ill-usage in the world? Did anybody appear that answered the character of the Messiah, in any one instance, so exactly as Jesus did? The Jews made another objection against Him of much the same kind: that He was brought up, and, as they supposed, born at Nazareth, in Galilee; a country much despised by the Jews, as if there was anything in the nature of the soil or air of the country that rendered the inhabitants of it less acceptable to God than they might otherwise be, and He could not, if He would, produce eminent and bright spirits out of the most obscure parts of the world. The Chaldees were an idolatrous people, and yet God made choice of Abraham, a man of that country, with whom to establish an everlasting covenant, and in whose seed to bless all the nations of the earth. The prophet Jonah, a type of Christ, was born at a place called Gath-hepher, a town of the tribe of Zebulon, in Galilee itself, though no prophet is said by the Jews to come from thence: and Isaiah moreover plainly declares to us, in the description he is giving of the universal joy and comfort that will be occasioned by the birth and kingdom of Christ, that in Galilee of the nations this shall be seen. The people (says he) that walked in darkness, have seen a great light; they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined. So that this objection is as groundless as it is weak and foolish.
II. APPLICATION to ourselves.
1. It greatly behoves us to take care that worldly interest and advantage be not the principal motive that engages us to perform our duty; lest, after the example of the Jews, we fall away from it, when that motive fails; lest, being disappointed of the hopes we had conceived from our attachment to religion and religious men, we become enemies instead of friends.
2. How hard it is for truth to prevail over the prejudices and settled notions of men. (C. Moore, M. A.)
Religion a weariness to the natural man
Putting aside for an instant the thought of the ingratitude and the sin which indifference to Christianity implies, let us, as far as we dare, view it merely as a matter of fact, after the manner of the text, and form a judgment on the probable consequences of it.
1. Religion is a weariness; alas! so feel even children before they can well express their meaning. Exceptions, of course, now and then occur. I am not forgetful of the peculiar character of childrens minds: sensible objects first meet their observation; it is not wonderful that they should at first be inclined to limit their thoughts to things of sense. A distinct profession of faith, and a conscious maintenance of principle, may imply a strength and consistency of thought to which they are as yet unequal. Again, childhood is capricious, ardent, light-hearted; it cannot think deeply or long on any subject. Yet all this is not enough to account for the fact in question–why they should feel this distaste for the very subject of religion.
2. Religion is a weariness I will next take the case of young persons when they first enter into life. Is not religion associated in their minds with gloom and weariness? This is the point that the feelings of our hearts on the subject of religion are different from the declared judgment of God; that we have a natural distaste for that which He has said is our chief good.
3. Let us pass to the more active occupations of life. The transactions of worldly business, speculations in trade, ambitious hopes, the pursuit of knowledge, the public occurrences of the day, these find a way directly to the heart; they rouse, they influence. The name of religion, on the other hand, is weak and impotent.
4. But this natural contrariety between man and his Maker is still more strikingly shown by the confessions of men of the world who have given some thought to the subject, and have viewed society with somewhat of a philosophical spirit. Such men treat the demands of religion with disrespect and negligence, on the ground of their being unnatural. The same remark may be made upon the notions which secretly prevail in certain quarters at the present day, concerning the unsuitableness of Christianity to an enlightened age. The literature of the day is weary of revealed religion.
5. That religion is in itself a weariness is seen even in the conduct of the better sort of persons, who really on the whole are under the influence of its spirit. So dull and uninviting is calm and practical religion, that religious persons are ever exposed to the temptation of looking out for excitements of one sort or other, to make it pleasurable to them.
6. Even the confirmed servants of Christ witness to the opposition which exists between their own nature and the demands of religion. Can we doubt that mans will runs contrary to Gods will–that the view which the inspired Word takes of our present life, and of our destiny, does not satisfy us, as it rightly ought to do? That Christ hath no form nor comeliness in our eyes; and though we see Him, we see no desirable beauty in Him? Light is come into the world, and men love darkness rather than light. If our hearts are by nature set on the world for its own sake, and the world is one day to pass away, what are they to be set on, what to delight in then? What are to be the pleasures of the soul in another life? Can they be the same as they are here? They cannot; Scripture tells us they cannot; the world passeth away–now what is there left to love and enjoy through a long eternity? It is then plain enough, though Scripture said not a word on the subject, that if we would be happy in the world to come, we must make us new hearts, and begin to love the things we naturally do not love. He hath no form nor comeliness, etc. It is not His loss that we love Him not, it is our loss. (J.H. Newman, B.D.)
The love of beauty (in art)
Let us fix our thoughts on one example of that contrast which inspired prophecy and the life of Christ have agreed to reconcile. It is decisively expressed in the contradictory words of Zechariah and Isaiah: the former heralding the King of Sion as one whose beauty should surpass the utmost praise of human words or thoughts Zec 9:7); the latter declaring that those who should see that self-same Christ should find in Him no beauty that they should desire Him. I would try to suggest something in regard to the actual fulfilment of both prophecies in the claims addressed to our sense of beauty, by the revelation of Christianity; believing that there is a deep meaning in that strange and blended force of stern restraint and irresistible charm which this sense has so often owned in the presence of the Crucified; and hoping to show that this too is an instinct of our human nature, which, if we suffer it to act in sincerity and truth, will find its rest for ever in the Person of its Redeemer. Let us, then, notice first that the prophecy of Isaiah is, if we take it alone and superficially, in accord with much that has been written or implied about the influence of Christianity upon the genius of Art. For we are sometimes told, and more often made to feel, that there is something irksome and hindering to the free appreciation and enjoyment of beauty, in those dogmas about the conditions and issues of human life, which are inseparable from the work of our Lord. In various ways it is suggested or proclaimed that Christianity has unduly and too long presumed to thrust its doctrines between the human soul and the beauty which is about it, and disturbed that free entrance into the pleasures of sight and sound, through which every energy might go out to find its satisfaction and its rapture. And so some have already returned feed and foster their sense of beauty by the works and thoughts of those who lived before this tyrannous restraint was preached; others are looking forward to a time when Art may avail itself of the triumph of scepticism, and renounce all hindering allegiance and regard to the discredited formulae of religion; while many more are conscious of a vague expectation that the life of passion henceforward will and should be fleer and fuller than it has been: that hitherto we have been unnecessarily cautious and sober in our pleasures, and timidly patient of undue restrictions; but that now all is going to be much more passionate and unfettered and absorbing, and that, by the pursuit of Art for Arts sake, we enter into an earthly paradise, which has at length been relieved from certain gloomy and old-fashioned regulations, and in which it may now be hoped that our sense of beauty will be a law unto itself. And in this temper very many who little know the consistent significance of their choice are falling in with a course of life and thought which has, as a whole, turned away from the Cross of Jesus Christ: turned away to seek elsewhere the full desire of their eyes, because He hath, as He dies for us, no form nor comeliness, and when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. For in truth there is a challenge and a law with which Christianity must ever meet the lover of beauty as he goes out to seek by whatever way the gratification of this sense. The Church of Christ cannot, while she remembers His message, her Master, and her trust, consent to be dismissed from the sphere of taste, or let it be thought that she has no counsel for her sons, as they turn to those high and thrilling pleasures, no means or right of judging the tone and the ideals of contemporary Art. (J. H.Newman, B. D.)
Christianity and the sensuous
We were going to throw ourselves without reserve into this or that enthusiasm of beauty, to steep our souls in the excitement of music, or poetry, or art, to forget all else in the engrossing delight of their eager sympathy, to lay aside every hindering thought, to trust the strong desire of our heart, and measure our interests by their intensity: and Christianity recalls us to ourselves. It sets before us, in the compass of a single life, the full expression of that deep and marring discord which has broken up the harmony of this world, and it urges us to seek within ourselves for the secret of the disturbance and misery. It shows us the Perfect Love rejected, Perfect Purity reviled, Perfect Holiness blasphemed, Perfect Mercy scorned; God coming to His own and His own receiving Him not; the righteous Judge condemned; the Lord of Life obedient unto death; and it says that the cause of this anomaly, the condition which made this the earthly life of the Incarnate Son of God, is to be found within our own souls; and we know that them is something them which seems at times as though it would crucify the Son of God afresh: something which would distort our choice from the high and spiritual to the bestial and mean: something which has often made us cruel and unjust to other men, and contemptible to ourselves. And as before the Cross which mankind awarded to its Redeemer we feel the havoc and tumult which sin has brought upon the order and truthfulness of our inner life, we must surely hesitate before we say that no restraint shall rest upon our sense of beauty, that there is no need, whatever adversaries may be moving about us, to be sober and vigilant in the world of Art. But for those who humbly take the yoke upon them, who, as they turn to the manifold wealth of beauty, do not thrust away the knowledge of their own hearts and the thought of Him whose death alone has saved them, and whose strong grace alone sustains and shelters them–for those the best delights of Art and Nature appear in a new radiance of light and hope, and speak of such things as pass mans understanding. The moments of quickened and exalted life which music and painting stir within them, the controlling splendour of the sunset, the tender glory of the distant hills, the wonder of a pure and noble face–these no longer come as passing pleasures, flashing out of a dark background, which is only the gloomier when they are gone, half realized and little understood: for now all are linked and held together as consistent tokens of the same redeeming, sanctifying Love; they see the Hand, the pierced Hand, which holds the gift; they know the Love which fashioned and adorned it; they have read elsewhere the thought which is embodied in the outward beauty; for it is He who spared not His own Son who with Him freely gives them all things. And all that He gives them prophesy of Him. (J. H. Newman, B. D.)
Christs beauty
It was not a beauty of form, it was the beauty of expression. It was not the beauty of statuary, it was the beauty of life. It is the purpose of God to disappoint the senses. He has victimized the eyes, and the ears, and the hands of men. (J. Parker, D. D.)
No beauty in Christ
Look not on the pitcher, but on the liquor that is contained within. (J. Trapp.)
Christs meanness on earth no objection against, but confirmation of, Christianity
I. Show against unbelievers, that THE ACCOMPLISHMENT OF THE PROPHECIES WHICH CONCERNED THE MESSIAH ARE A CONVINCING ARGUMENT OF THE TRUTH OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. It is agreed on all hands that there can be no human or natural reason assigned for such future and remote events as have no visible or natural cause to produce them; but are of a contingent nature, and many times depend on the free choice and will of man; and therefore the prediction of such events must be supposed to proceed from some supernatural revelation. It is the argument whereby God proves Himself to be the Lord, and that there is no other Saviour beside (Isa 43:11-12). By the same reason, he proves the gods of the nations to be idols, and no gods (Isa 41:21-22; Isa 41:29). The prophecies of Scripture, which referred to the Messiah, were of things at such a distance, and of such a nature, that there could not be any probable reason assigned, or tolerable conjecture made of them. And yet there was not one tittle of all the prophecies which relate to the manner or design of Christs appearance in the world that fell to the ground.
II. Show against the Jews, that THE MEAN APPEARANCE OF CHRIST IN THE WORLD IS NO GOOD ARGUMENT AGAINST THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION, OR OF ANY FORCE TO PROVE THAT JESUS OF NAZARETH WAS NOT THE CHRIST; and that upon the two following accounts–
1. As the grounds upon which the Jews expected a temporal Messiah, were false and impracticable; false with respect to the spirituality of His kingdom; impracticable with respect to the extent and universality of its blessings and privileges.
2. As the state and condition of life which our Saviour chose in the world was most agreeable to the great ends and design of His coming into it.
(1) It gave a strong confirmation to the truth of that holy religion which He came to plant in the world. Had our Saviour been a victorious prince, that had given laws to the world, and backed the authority of them with the sword, the atheist might then have pretended, that the Christian, as well as other religions in the world, was the daughter of force, and a mere politic invention, contrived by its Author the better to settle and confirm His government to Him, if He should find a favourable juncture to possess Himself of it. But now the effects of the Christian religion on the minds of men, and the methods of propagating it, cannot be ascribed to any human power or authority. Instead of employing the secular arm to compel men to come into the Church, God put a sceptre of righteousness into the hands of Christ: He authorized Him to give such a body of holy and righteous laws to His Church as might be proper to work upon their minds by the gentle methods of reason and persuasion. He made choice of such for His companions and disciples as were men of mean occupations and law fortunes; men as to their natural capacities no ways qualified for so difficult and high an undertaking as the establishing a new religion against the settled laws and powers, the prejudices and passions, the vanities and vices of a corrupt world. The design of the holy Jesus in all this was to show that the excellency of the power which attended Himself and His apostles, in preaching the doctrine of salvation, might not be ascribed unto men, but unto God. He would make way for the reception and establishment of the Gospel in the world by no other means but by the evidence of its truth, the excellency of its morals, the number of the miracles wrought to confirm it, and the simplicity of those who were the first preachers and promoters of it. And, indeed, that the Christian religion, by such mean and unlikely instruments, should in so short a time extend itself so wide, and that they should reap such a harvest of triumphs over so many enemies, seems to have been the greatest miracle of all.
(2) The state and condition of life which our Saviour chose in the world was also a wise and excellent method to recommend the practice of religion to it. The holy Jesus did not think it enough to reveal the will of God to mankind; this He might have done, as God delivered the law in the Mount, by speaking to some extraordinary prophet, and committing what He spoke to a standing writing, without rendering Himself visible. But God gave Him a body, that men might from His own mouth hear the words of eternal life.
(3) The circumstances wherein our Saviour made His appearance in the world were most agreeable to His design of becoming a sacrifice and propitiation for the sins of the world: for though our redemption is attributed more especially to His sufferings and death upon the Cross, as His sacrifice was there finished, yet we ought to look upon it as begun as soon as he was born into the world.
III. PRACTICAL IMPROVEMENT.
1. If the accomplishment of the prophecies concerning our Saviour be an evident proof of His being the great Prophet that was to come into the world, then whatever doctrines He taught are, certainly true and Divinely revealed.
2. From the circumstances of our Saviour s appearance in the world let us learn the duties of patience, charity and humility.
3. In order to humble the pride of our hearts, when we are tempted to bear ourselves high upon any worldly advantages, which give us a superiority above our brethren, let us consider how Jesus Christ, the best and wisest, judged of these things. (R. Fiddes)
Christ uncomely and yet beautiful
How can it be said of Christ that He had neither comeliness nor beauty, since it is said (Psa 45:2), that He is fairer than the children of men, or than the sons of Adam? And in Son 5:10-16 He is described by the spouse to be well-coloured, and likewise well-featured, and she goeth on from part to part, from head to feet; and then concludeth, He is altogether lovely. To this I answer–
1. It is one thing what, Christ is to the spouse, another what He is to the unbelieving Jews Christs beauties are reward, seen of none but those that are inwardly acquainted with Him. The spouse speaketh of Him in a spiritual sense.
2. We must distinguish between Christs humiliation and exaltation, His Godhead and His manhood. In His Godhead He is the brightness of His Fathers glory, and the express image of His person, and consequently full of beauty. In His humiliation He is not only a man, but a mean man Php 2:9).
3. In Christs humiliation we must distinguish as to what He is in Himself and as to what He is in the eye of the world. (T. Manton, D.D.)
The mean not necessarily despicable
Do not despise things, for their meanness, for so thou mayest condemn the ways of God. (T. Manton, D.D.)
Gods use of the mean
As there was meanness in the outward habitude of Christs person, so there is now in the administration of His kingdom; as appears by considering–
1. That the ordinances are weak to appearance; there is nothing but plain words, plain bread and wine, in one ordinance, and only water in another. The simple plainness of the ordinances is an obstacle to mens believing; they would fain bring in pomp, but that will mar all.
2. These ordinances are administered by weak men. Our Saviour sent fishermen to conquer the world, and made use of a goose-quill to wound Antichrist. Moses, the stammering shepherd, was commissioned to deliver Israel; God makes use of Amos, who was a herdsman, to declare His will. So Elisha the great prophet was taken from the plough. And many times God made use of young men, such as Paul, whose very person causeth prejudice; young Samuel, young Timothy, men of mean descent, low parentage, and of no great appearance in the world.
3. The manner how it is by them managed, which is not in such a politic, insinuating way as to beguile and deceive, and as if they were to serve their own ends (2Co 1:12).,
4. The persons by whom it is entertained, the poor (Jam 2:5). Usually God s true people are the meanest, not being so noted for outward excellency as others. This has been always a great prejudice against Christs doctrine (Joh 7:48).
5. The general drift of it is to make men deny their pleasures, to overlook their concernments, to despise the world, to hinder unjust gain, to walk contrary to the ordinary customs and fashions of the world. (T. Manton, D.D.)
Christ assumed an appearance of meanness
This meanness of Christ was willingly taken up by Him.
1. In His birth.
(1) For the time of it. It was when the royal stock of David was come so low that Joseph was but a carpenter by profession. Therefore is the genealogy of Joseph and Mary so carefully sought out by the evangelist, because it was not commonly and publicly known that they were of that lineage. The throne of David was occupied by Herod, who was an Ascalonite.
(2) The place, Bethlehem, a small place. Then He was not born in any stately room, but in a manger in the stable.
(3) Consider how in everything He was found in shape like another child, being circumcised the eighth day.
(4) Consider the oblation that was made for Him, such as was made for poor people. Yet we may observe there was something Divine still mingled with Christs outward, meanness, as the appearing of the star, the trouble of the Jews, the wise mens report and offerings. By these things God would leave them without excuse, and under this poverty discover some glimpses of the Deity.
2. In His life and manner of appearance in the world. He was altogether found in fashion as a man; to outward appearance just as other men, for His growth was as other, mens, by degrees: And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man. His life was spent in much toil and labour, etc. (T. Manton, D.D.)
Poverty
1. Poverty and meanness are not disgraceful. Christ Himself was a carpenter, Paul a tent-maker, and the apostles fishermen. Christ, you see, scorned that glory, pomp and greatness which the world doteth upon.
2. Poverty should not he irksome to us. Christ underwent it before you; His apostles were base in the worlds eye (1Co 4:13). Poverty is a great burden, and layeth a man open to many a disadvantage–scorn, contempt and refusal. But consider, Christ hath honoured it in His own person, and He honoureth it to this very day. (T. Manton, D.D.)
Missing Christs beauty
There have been two traditions respecting Christs person. Some of the Fathers of the Church have declared that He was, Divinely beautiful, the fairest among ten thousand and the altogether lovely. Others have spoken of Him in the words of Isaiah, He hath no form nor comeliness. For my own part I like to think of Him as Divinely beautiful. If in all things He is to have the pre-eminence, why not here as well as there? Certain it is that there must have shone through Him some transfiguring splendour, that awed and fascinated. Men were conquered as much by His look as by His word. If, however, these descriptions of Isaiah refer to His person, and are to be taken literally, then they are very far from being attractive. As a root out of a dry ground. He hath no form nor comeliness. There is no beauty that we should desire Him. We esteemed Him not, or, as Luther translates, We thought Him nothing. The picture seems to be that of a mean and miserable life, tragic, unsettled, menaced, lined with grief, disfigured with wounds. I say seems. For, after all, the fault may not be so much in Him as in us. Beauty may be all about men, yet they may never perceive it, because their foolish hearts are darkened; because they are short-sighted, blind, impure. Ruskins dictum is that joy, affection, veneration are necessary to the beholding of beauty. If that be so, and men know nothing of the joy that rises in one like a summer s morn; if they have never experienced the love that greatens and glorifies all things; if they know nothing of that reverence which recognizes and bows before the highest, it is no wonder that they miss the spirit of the beautiful. Men may have missed Christs beauty from many causes, as men are missing it to-day. Let us seek to discover what these things are that blind us to the holiest, the highest, the loveliest.
I. THE SPIRIT OF CONTEMPT BLINDS TO BEAUTY. Jesus came into this world a Galilean peasant, poor, obscure, straitened in every way. And judging Him by the measure of the scale on which He appeared, men treated Him with disdain, contempt, scorn, remarking, Is not this the carpenter.? How many there are who live continually in the spirit of contempt. They continually look down. They seem to forget that some,of the choicest spirits of earth have dined on homely fare and worn hodden grey, and that the millionaires of ideas have frequently been bankrupts in pocket. How contemptuously the great spirits of the world have been treated by those who were not worthy to unloose their shoe-latchets! Think of Mozart being sent by an archbishop in whose retinue he was to dine with the servants in the kitchen. Think of that same Mozart occupying a nameless grave, for no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day. Odd world, is it not, that will send its Bunyans to prison and give its jockeys ten thousand a year? Aristotle paints his magnanimous man as not apt to admire, for to him there is nothing great. What number of these magnanimous men there must be; men so held in the grip of contempt that, standing in a world crammed full of the rich glories of creation, they see nothing to admire. Now contempt springs from two things: lack of understanding and lack of love. The wise man never despises. God is great, yet He despiseth not any, and those who are great after the greatness of God have ever felt their smallness beside the humblest and poorest of men. They see that behind the dullest life there may be angelic light. Where true wisdom is there contempt is not. Charles V was truly great when, picking up the brush of Titian which the painter had dropped, he remarked that he was proud to wait on so supreme a genius. Men see no beauty in Christ because they have been too ready to despise Him. Contempt springs from lack of love. They thought Him nothing because they never looked at Him with the heart. If you want to discover all that is brightest and best in men you must look at them with the look of love; then will God become aglow to the loving heart in what was mere earth before. Love is wonderful always. There is a magic power about it which can make plain faces shine as the faces of angels. It can fill with light and radiance a cottage home as no gold can do. It can convert worthless trifles into precious heirlooms. So if men would only look at Christ with the supreme look of the soul they would discover that He who seems to have no form nor comeliness will then be crowned with glory and honour.
II. MEN MISS THE BEAUTY, TOO, BY THE CRITICAL TEMPER. Some men there are who start out always with a disposition to criticize rather than to admire. When a young lady once expressed the wish to Hogarth that she might be able to draw caricature, the great satirist replied, It is not a faculty to be envied; take my advice and never draw caricature. By the long practice of it I have lost the enjoyment of beauty. I never see a face but distorted, and have never the satisfaction to behold the human face divine. The great caricaturist had so accustomed himself to look for faults that he could see nothing else. Criticism blinds to beauty. Was not that true with regard to Christ? Look for the beauty in Him and you will discover a loveliness that cannot be chiselled in marble or expressed in colour, but a beauty which, when the soul sees it is ravished for ever, and rapt into an ecstasy of admiration and love.
III. WE MAY MISS THE BEAUTY THROUGH ENVY. Did not men miss His beauty in that way in the days of His flesh? Pilate was keen enough to perceive that behind the seeming air of justice assumed by His traducers the fires of envy burned. He knew that for envy they had delivered Him. The artist who portrayed Envy as a man of mean and misshapen figure, with crouching shoulder, craning neck, distended ears, and serpent tongue, was endowed with a more than ordinary gift of insight. Where envy exists there can be no vision of the beautiful. For it blinds the mind and poisons the heart, and lifts not to a throne, but to a cross. How it blinded the eyes of those Scribes and Pharisees! They saw the beautiful deeds of the Man, how He succoured the weak, the suffering, the sad; they heard His words, flagrant, uplifting, strengthening; they beheld a life spent in doing good; yet so blinded were they by the spirit of envy that this supreme vision of loveliness did not dawn upon them. The penalty of envy is blindness, and until those scales fall from the eyes, all things true and beautiful and of good report, everything of worth in the character and conduct of our fellow-men, all the charm and sweetness of the Son of Man, will remain undiscovered by us.
IV. PREOCCUPATION MAY BLIND TO BEAUTY. Men are so feverishly busy in these days, they live at such express speed, that they often miss the angel at the door. When men are busy here and there they miss the charms of the Eternal. A little more quiet, a little abiding in ones own room, and it would be discovered that Christ is lovelier than painters sublimest dream, and that finding Him one finds a joy for ever. (Cecil H. Wright.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 2. See Clarke on Isa 53:1.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground; and the reason or occasion why the Jews will so generally reject their Messiah, is because he shall not come into the world with secular pomp and power, like an earthly monarch, as they carnally and groundlessly imagined; but
he shall grow up (or, spring up, Heb. ascend, to wit, out of the ground, as it follows, brought forth, and brought up)
before him (before the unbelieving Jews, of whom he spake Isa 53:1, and that in the singular number, as here, who were witnesses of his mean original; and therefore despised him, according to Christs observation, Joh 4:44; or, as others, according to his face, or outward appearance, as he was man; whereby he sufficiently implies that he had another, a far higher, and a Divine nature in him)
as a tender plant, ( or, as this very word is translated, Eze 17:4, a young twig, which is a small and inconsiderable thing,)
and as a root (as Christ is called, Rom 15:12, and elsewhere; or, as a branch; the root being put metonymically for the branch growing out of the root, as it is apparently used, where Christ is called the root of Jesse, and of David, Isa 11:10; Rev 5:5, and in other places, as 2Ch 22:10)
out of a dry ground; out of a mean and barren soil, whose productions are generally poor and contemptible: either,
1. Out of the womb of a virgin; but that was no ground of contempt; or,
2. Of the Jewish nation, which was then poor, and despised, and enslaved; or,
3. Out of the poor, and decayed, and contemptible family, such as the royal family of David was at that time.
He hath no form nor comeliness; his bodily presence and condition in the world shall be mean and contemptible.
When we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him; when we shall look upon him, expecting to find incomparable beauty and majesty in his countenance, and carriage, and condition, we shall be altogether disappointed, and shall meet with nothing amiable or desirable in him. This the prophet speaketh in the person of the carnal and unbelieving Jews, we, i.e. our people, the Jewish nation.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
2. tender plantMessiah grewsilently and insensibly, as a sucker from an ancient stock, seeminglydead (namely, the house of David, then in a decayed state) (see onIsa 11:1).
shall grow . . . hathrather,”grew up . . . had.”
before himbeforeJehovah. Though unknown to the world (Joh1:11), Messiah was observed by God, who ordered the mostminute circumstances attending His growth.
rootthat is, sproutfrom a root.
formbeautiful form:sorrow had marred His once beautiful form.
and when we shall seerather,joined with the previous words, “Nor comeliness (attractiveness)that we should look (with delight) on Him.”
there israther, “was.”The studied reticence of the New Testament as to His form, stature,color, c., was designed to prevent our dwelling on the bodily, ratherthan on His moral beauty, holiness, love, &c., also aprovidential protest against the making and veneration of images ofHim. The letter of P. LENTULUSto the emperor Tiberius, describing His person, is spurious so alsothe story of His sending His portrait to Abgar, king of Edessa; andthe alleged impression of His countenance on the handkerchief ofVeronica. The former part of this verse refers to His birth andchildhood; the latter to His first public appearance [VITRINGA].
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant,…. Which springs out of the earth without notice; low in its beginning, slow in its growth, liable to be crushed with the foot, or destroyed with the frost, and no great probability of its coming to any perfection; or rather as a little “sucker”, as the word b signifies, which grows out of the root of a tree, at some little distance from it, of which no notice or care is taken, nor anything hoped for from it; and the figure denotes the mean and unpromising appearance of Christ at his incarnation; which is the reason given why the Jews in general disbelieved, rejected, and despised him; for this phrase of “growing up” does not design his exaltation, or rising up from a low to a high estate; but his mean entrance into the world, like that of the springing up of a low and insignificant plant or shrub out of the earth: and the phrase “before him” is to be understood either of God the Father, by whom he was taken notice of, though not by men; and in whose sight he was precious, though despised by men; or his growing up, and the manner of it, or his mean appearance, were all before the Lord, and according to his will: or else it may be understood of Christ himself, and be rendered “before himself”, who was meek and lowly, and was mean and low in his own eyes; or rather it may be interpreted of the unbelieving Jew, of any or everyone of them that did not believe the report concerning him: because before him, in the sight of everyone of them, he sprung up in the manner described; unless it can be thought that it would be better rendered “to his face” c; or “to his appearance”; that is, as to his outward appearance, in the external view of him, so he grew up:
and as a root out of a dry ground; or rather, “as a branch from a root out of a dry ground”; agreeably to Isa 11:1, meaning not so much the land of Judea, where he was born; or the country of Galilee, where he was brought up; as the family of David, from whence he sprung, which was reduced to a very low condition when he was born of it; his supposed father being a carpenter, and his real mother a poor virgin in Nazareth, though both of the lineage and house of David; from this passage the ancient Jews d are said to conclude that the Messiah would be born without a father, or the seed of man:
he hath no form nor comeliness; like a poor plant or shrub just crept out of the ground, in a dry and barren soil, ready to wither away as soon as up; has no strength nor straightness, of body; without verdure, leaves, blossom, and fruit things which make plants comely and beautiful. This regards not the countenance of Christ, which probably was comely, as were his types Moses and David; since he is said to be “fairer than the children of men”; and since his human nature was the immediate produce of the Holy Ghost, and without sin: but his outward circumstances; there was no majesty in him, or signs of it; it did not look probable that he would be a tall cedar, or a prince in Israel, much less the Prince Messiah; he was born of mean parents; brought up in a contemptible part of the country; lived in a town out of which no good is said to come; dwelt in a mean cottage, and worked at a trade:
and when we shall see him: as he grows up, and comes into public life and service, declaring himself, or declared by others, to be the Messiah: here the prophet represents the Jews that would live in Christ’s time, who would see his person, hear his doctrines, and be witnesses of his miracles, and yet say,
there is no beauty, that we should desire him; or “sightliness” e in him; nothing that looks grand and majestic, or like a king; they not beholding with an eye of faith his glory, as the glory of the only begotten of the Father; only viewing him in his outward circumstances, and so made their estimate of him; they expected the Messiah as a temporal prince, appearing in great pomp and state, to deliver them from the Roman yoke, and restore their nation to its former splendour and glory; and being disappointed herein was the true reason of their unbelief, before complained of, and why they did not desire him, who is the desire of all nations.
b , Sept.; , Theodotion, vox a
, “lac sugere, proprie lactantem significat”, Rivet. Sanctius, “surculus tener, veluti laetens”, Forerius. c “ad faciem suam, vel in facie, sua”, Rivet.; “quoad conspectum, vel quoad faciem suam, seu faciem ejus”, Sanctius. d R. Hadarson apud Galatia, de Arcan. Cathol. Ver. l. 8. c. 2. p. 549. e “non aspectus”, Munster: Vatablus, Pagninus, Montanus; “nulla spectabilis forma”, Vitringa.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
The confession, which follows, grows out of the great lamentation depicted by Zechariah in Zec 12:11. “And he sprang up like a layer-shoot before Him, and like a root-sprout out of dry ground: he had no form, and no beauty; and we looked, and there was no look, such that we could have found pleasure in him.” Isa 53:2, as a sequel to Isa 53:1, looks back to the past, and describes how the arm of Jehovah manifested itself in the servant’s course of life from the very beginning, though imperceptibly at first, and unobserved by those who merely noticed the outside. The suffix of cannot refer to the subject of the interrogative sentence, as Hahn and Hofmann suppose, for the answer to the quis there is nemo ; it relates to Jehovah, by which it is immediately preceded. Before Jehovah, namely, so that He, whose counsel thus began to be fulfilled, fixed His eye upon him with watchfulness and protecting care, he grew up , like the suckling, i.e., (in a horticultural sense) the tender twig which sucks up its nourishment from the root and stem (not as Hitzig supposes, according to Eze 31:16, from the moisture in the soil); for the tender twig upon a tree, or trunk, or stalk, is called (for which we have here): vid., Eze 17:22, the twig of a cedar; Psa 80:12 (11), of a vine; Job 8:16, of a liana . It is thought of here as a layer, as in Eze 17:22; and, indeed, as the second figure shows when taken in connection with Isa 11:1, as having been laid down after the proud cedar of the Davidic monarchy from which it sprang had been felled; for elsewhere it is compared to a shoot which springs from the root left in the ground after the tree has been felled. Both figures depict the lowly and unattractive character of the small though vigorous beginning. The expression “out of dry ground,” which belongs to both figures, brings out, in addition, the miserable character of the external circumstances in the midst of which the birth and growth of the servant had taken place. The “dry ground” is the existing state of the enslaved and degraded nation; i.e., he was subject to all the conditions inseparable from a nation that had been given up to the power of the world, and was not only enduring all the consequent misery, but was in utter ignorance as to its cause; in a word, the dry ground is the corrupt character of the age. In what follows, the majority of the commentators have departed from the accents, and adopted the rendering, “he had no form and no beauty, that we should look at Him” (should have looked at Him), viz., with fixed looks that loved to dwell upon Him. This rendering was adopted by Symmachus and Vitringa ( ; ut ipsum respiceremus ). But Luther, Stier, and others, very properly adhere to the existing punctuation; since the other would lead us to expect instead of , and the close reciprocal relation of , which resembles a play upon the words, is entirely expunged. The meaning therefore is, “We saw Him, and there was nothing in His appearance to make us desire Him, or feel attracted by Him.” The literal rendering of the Hebrew, with its lively method of transferring you into the precise situation, is ut concupisceremus eum ( delectaremur eo ); whereas, in our oriental style, we should rather have written ut concupivissemus , using the pluperfect instead of the imperfect, or the tense of the associated past. Even in this sense is very far from being unmeaning: He dwelt in Israel, so that they had Him bodily before their eyes, but in His outward appearance there was nothing to attract or delight the senses.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
2. Yet he shall grow up before him as a twig. This verse refers to what was formerly said, that Christ will at first have no magnificence or outward display among men; but that before God he will nevertheless be highly exalted, and will be held in estimation. Hence we see that we must not judge of the glory of Christ by human view, but must discern by faith what is taught us concerning him by the Holy Scriptures; and therefore the phrase “before him,” is here contrasted with human senses, which cannot comprehend that lofty greatness. Almost the same metaphor was used by the Prophet, (Isa 11:1) when he said, “A branch shall spring out of the stock of Jesse;” for the house of David was like a dry stock, in which no rigor and no comeliness was visible, and on that account is there called not a royal house, but “Jesse,” a name which bore no celebrity. Only the Prophet adds here, —
In a desert land; by which he means that Christ’s power of springing up will not be derived from the sap of the earth, as in trees, but contrary to the ordinary course of nature. They who in this passage speculate about the virgin Mary, and suppose that she is called a desert land, because she conceived by the Holy Ghost, and not by ordinary generation, speak beside the purpose; for the present subject is not the birth of Christ, but his whole reign. He says that it will resemble a twig springing out of a dry soil, which looks as if it could never become large. If we take into account the whole method of establishing his kingdom, and the agency which he employed, and how feeble were its beginnings, and how many foes it encountered, we shall easily understand that all these things were fulfilled as they had been foretold. What sort of men were the Apostles that they should subdue so many kings and nations by the sword of the word? Are they not justly compared to offshoots? Thus the Prophet shows by what means the kingdom of Christ must be set up and established, that we may not judge of it by human conceptions.
He hath no form nor comeliness. This must be understood to relate not merely to the person of Christ, who was despised by the world, and was at length condemned to a disgraceful death; but to his whole kingdom, which in the eyes of men had no beauty, no comeliness, no splendor, which, in short, had nothing that could direct or captivate the hearts of men to it by its outward show. Although Christ arose from the dead, yet the Jews always regarded him as a person who had been crucified and disgraced, in consequence of which they haughtily disdained him.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
THE GREAT MESSIANIC PROPHECY
Isa. 53:2-12. For He shall grow up before Him, &c.
Among the prophecies of Isaiah, that which is contained in the chapter before us stands eminent and illustrious. Received and interpreted according to the sense attached to it by Christians, it involves in it a striking proof of the truth and divinity of our holy religion. It does this simply as a prophecy, irrespective of its dogmatic or theological character. It is a prediction of what was to come to pass. It is not merely capable of being turned into a prediction by a little fancy or a little ingenuity, but it was uttered as such; it was meant when uttered to be received as such. And it was unquestionably in beingit was written and readseven centuries before the events which are supposed to have fulfilled it. It is found in a Jewish, as distinguished from a Christian writingin a writing admitted, preserved, believed, by those who have every reason for wishing this passage altered or expunged. After the appearing of Jesus Christ, a passage like this could not be introduced into the writings of Isaiah by Christians; the jealousy of the Jews would prevent that. It would not be introduced by the Jews; that would be inconsistent with their unbelief. To be here at all, it must have formed an original part of the prophetical Scriptures. Such it is admitted to beand admitted by the Jew; he preserved and perused it as such before the appearance of the Man of sorrows; and after he had seen Himseen Him grow up as a tender plant and as a root out of a dry ground; after he had looked upon Him and found in Him nothing to desire, neither form nor comeliness, nor verdure nor beauty; after he had hid his face from Him and esteemed Him not, wounded and bruised, and imprisoned and oppressed Him, despised and rejected, and smitten Him to death; after this it was impossible for them to recede. The book was in the hands of both parties, and the passage in the custody of both; the Jew could not have expunged it, for the Church would have detected and denounced the fraud; the Christian would not, for he exulted in its existence and import. It there stands an acknowledged portion of a writing strictly and intentionally prophetic, uttered and recorded as prophetical, hundreds of years before the occurrence of all that it so distinctly and graphically describes. Now, the thing to be observed in connection with these remarks is thisthat the particulars of the prophecy are so many, so minute, so singular, previously so improbable, that they could never have been foreseen by human sagacity, and surely never thrown together by any lucky but hazardous guesses. They were all fulfilled, and fulfilled with minute and marvellous fidelity in Jesus Christ. They apply to no other person; to Him they do apply, and apply with an accuracy which would be admitted to be wonderful and which never would be doubted, did it not involve the admission of the truth of His pretensions. That it does this is seen by the simplest of all arguments:none can foresee future events but God; a clear and indubitable prediction is produced, having long afterwards its fulfilment in the character and history of one claiming a Divine mission; therefore (it is impossible to hesitate) that mission was Divine; He must have sent Him, who foresaw His coming, and foreseeing, foretold it.
Such is the value and use of every prophecy whose character and meaning are clearly ascertained, and whose import can be proved to have met its accomplishment. But the prophecy before us does more than this; it not only proves, in relation to Christ, the truth of His pretensions, but it proves what some at least of these pretensions were; it not only demonstrates that He came from God, but it also demonstrates what He came forwhat He came to accomplish for man. If words are to be permitted to have any meaning, if the language of the Bible was intended to be understood, the prophecy is a declaration, positive, unequivocal, distinctthat Messiah was to be made a propitiatory sacrifice. His innocence is asserted, His righteousness declared, His exquisite agony, bodily and mental, alike described; Jehovah is represented as crushing Him, bruising Him, and putting Him to grief, and making His soul an offering for sin; He is Himself depicted as suffering as a substitute, as bearing the griefs and carrying the sorrows of others, as wounded for their transgressions, bruised for their iniquities, on their account afflicted and stricken and smitten to death, and as having laid upon Him the iniquity of them all. Every variety of phrase is employed, as if purposely to render mistake impossible, and to mark the importance of the subject itself.
Many translations of the passage have been attempted, but none succeeds in getting rid of and excluding its pervading idea. The Jew who rejects. Christ, and who applies therefore the prophecy to his nation as a whole, and not to an individual, is endlessly embarrassed by its personal allusion; and the Christian (if Christian he be) who rejects the Redeemers sacrifice and atonement, may alter and attenuate the phraseology of the passage, may change and modify and emasculate it, but the great truth cannot be concealed; its existence is indicated and its presence is felt, whatever be the language in which it is conveyedaye, even in that which is carefully selected, not for the purpose of expressing, but of hiding it. The nature of the work of Christ, the decease which He accomplished at Jerusalem, the efficacy of His sufferings, and the nature of His death, His soul being made an offering for sinthis truth is so abundantly borne out in the ample and illustrious prophecy before us, that it flames forth, however it may be clothed, just as the glory of Christs body, when transfigured upon the Mount, shone through and illumined the robes He wore. It rises up in spite of every effort to reduce and to subdue it, even as the mighty champion of. Israel snapped asunder the new ropes and the green withes by which he was attempted to be bound.T. Binney: Sermons, Second Series, pp. 69.
That this chapter contains a direct prophecy of Jesus Christ is so plain, that I can scarcely conceive any serious objection to be made to it. The principal doubt which is likely to arise in the mind, is that it is so literal and particular as to seem to be rather a history foisted into the texts after the events had taken place, than a prophecy delivered seven hundred years before them. But this doubt is instantly removed, by considering that the Jews, the grand enemies of Christ, were the very persons to whom the preservation of this prophecy was intrusted; that they acknowledge it to be genuine; nor ever suggested a doubt as to its authenticity.
If, then, it is genuine, to whom can it relate? It would be a waste of time to attempt to confute the interpretations that have been given by the Jews of late years, by which it is made to apply to Hezekiah, to Jeremiah, &c. It will here be sufficient to observe, that as in a lock, consisting of numerous wards, that key alone is the true one which fits all the wards; so in prophecy, that only is the true interpretation of any prediction which fits every part of it; and the more numerous and uncommon such parts are, the more manifest is it, in the case of a perfect coincidence, that the true interpretation has been given. I say, the more uncommon; because if events are foretold which cannot possibly apply but to a few persons, the interpretation is then proportionably limited. If, for instance, a prophecy should relate to a king, this would narrow the range of interpretation to those who bore the kingly office; if to a king who had died a violent death, this would narrow it still more; if that death was inflicted by his own subjects, it would reduce still more considerably the number of persons to whom it could be applied. But in the present case there are circumstances so very peculiar that they can be applied to one person alone.
The person here spoken of was to be the servant of God, the arm of the Lord, the subject of prophecy. Yet when he came into the world, he was to be despised and rejected of men; he was not to be received as the Messiah; he was to be put into prison; he was to be brought as a lamb to the slaughter; many were to be astonished at him; his visage was to be marred more than any mans; he was to be numbered with transgressors, and cut off by a judicial sentence out of the land of the living; his grave was to be appointed with the wicked, yet his tomb was to be with the rich man. And his sufferings were to be of no ordinary kind, and inflicted for no common cause. He was to be wounded for our transgressions, and smitten for our iniquities. Jehovah was pleased to put him to grief, and to make his soul an offering for sin, though he had done no wrong, neither was any guile found in his mouth. But after God had thus made his soul an offering for sin, then he was to revive again; to prolong his days; to erect a spiritual kingdom; to sprinkle many nations; to be advanced above kings, who should shut their mouths before him; to be exalted and extolled, and be very high; to see and be satisfied with the effect of the travail of his soul; to justify many by his knowledge; and to make intercession for transgressors.
Now, of those particulars, it is evident that most of them can be applied only to a few persons; some, from their very nature, to none but such a divine and extraordinary person as Jesus Christ; but that to Him all are applicable in the plainest and most literal sense. We may conclude, therefore, that if the real import of any prophecy is clear and indisputable, that of this chapter is so when it is made to refer to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.Venn.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
(2) For he shall grow up . . .The Hebrew tenses are in the perfect, the future being contemplated as already accomplished. The words present at once a parallel and a contrast to those of Isa. 11:1. There the picture was that of a strong vigorous shoot coming out of the root of the house of David. Here the sapling is weak and frail, struggling out of the dry ground. For before Him (i.e., Jehovah) some critics have read before us, as agreeing better with the second clause; while others have referred the pronoun him to the Jewish people. Taking the received text and interpretation, the thought expressed is that Jehovah was watching this humble and lowly growth, as a mother watches over her weakest and most sickly child.
He hath no form nor comeliness.See Note on Isa. 3:14. The thought which has been constantly true of the followers of the Christ was to be true of the Christ Himself.
Hid are the saints of God,
Uncertified by high angelic sign;
Nor raiment soft, nor empires golden rod,
Marks them divine.
J. H. NEWMAN (Lyra Apostolica.)
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
2, 3. The point of view appears to be, when Messiah’s sufferings are over, and he about entering into his glory.
He shall grow up The verb in Hebrew is, as usual, in the prophetic past. Growth has been from the first Messianic germ, (Gen 3:15,) till fully realized in Jesus Christ. Through all its history, the Messianic conception has been as a tender plant, nourished by Jehovah indeed, but very little by men. Its root, the root of Jesse, in itself was vigorous, advancing to the Davidic kingship, itself thus asserting herein its own type of ultimate royalty; then it retired long from view, yet still growing feebly as in a parched land that of the impure soil of men’s hearts. Except a humble few, men look away from him. He is not of their sort, their character. He is not their ideal Messiah; they do not sympathize with his griefs; they abandon him.
Rejected Literally, ceased from men. He thoroughly knows the world’s sins, and its sicknesses, pains, calamities which come therefrom. But he finds few to feel with him. All repel him, turn away the face, despise him. But is this sufferer really the Messiah of the old prophets? So even the old Jews all interpreted till after the Christian era, when their interpretation was cited against them, and they were pressed in self-defense to change it. Even then some fair-minded Jews have continued to regard the passage as descriptive only of Messiah. More, however, apply the passage to the Jews as a body, now in a state of dispersion and affliction. Some hold Jeremiah, and others Isaiah, to be the person meant. These views are upheld by the weakest of arguments. Of course, also, all who deny supernatural prophecy refuse altogether to see any Messianic reference here. But this reference is sustained by the sound sense of all candid interpreters and disinterested sensible readers.
Esteemed him not Undervalued him.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘For he grew up before him as a tender plant,
And as a root out of out of a dry ground,
He has no form nor comeliness,
And when we see him there is no beauty that we should desire him.’
In His growing up this supreme Servant will not be the kind of king expected. He will not follow man’s pattern. He will be like a plant growing out of dry land, wispy, struggling, fighting for life, a tender plant indeed, not growing in surroundings of wealth and opulence, but in surroundings where everything has to be worked for and struggled for, in times when life is hard (compare Isa 7:15 with Isa 7:21-22). In the words of Isa 7:14-16, He will eat butter and wild honey, the diet of the poor.
‘A root out of dry ground.’ And therefore He will be struggling to survive. Can this be the root of Jesse? (Isa 11:10), it may be asked. Is Jesse to be brought down to this? Yes, comes the reply, for the ‘sons of Jesse’ (and of David) had proved unfaithful, unbelieving. Yet although the ground was dry, the root grew, for God was there..
And there will be nothing of the ‘beauty’ of a king about Him. No splendid physique, no well trimmed comeliness, no splendid clothing, no gorgeous apparel. No one will watch Him go by with admiration for His outward appearance. He will be a son of toil, complete with blisters and hardened hands. Surely this cannot be the Arm of Yahweh? Can any good thing come out of tiny Nazareth? (Joh 7:41-42). Can a prophet come from despised Galilee? (Joh 7:52). This verse says, ‘yes, He can’. Is not this the carpenter’s son? The reply comes, yes, He is.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Isa 53:2-3. For he shall grow up, &c. But he groweth up before him, as a tender shoot, and as a branch out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness, that we should gaze upon him, and no beauty, &c. “Would you hear the cause of so great unbelief? It is this. Though he shall come before Israel, as the promised tender shoot, as the root and branch of Jesse’s stock, (chap. Isa 11:1; Isa 11:10. Jer 23:3.) yet, not appearing in the form of a tall, leafy, flourishing tree, but withered and shrivelled, as shrubs which grow up without water, disclaiming all pretensions to worldly greatness and riches and power, which is the form and comeliness that the Jews seek after, he shall not be received by his own. He, who was once the object of their desire, their hope, their delight, shall be no more desired by them, but rejected for want of that external beauty which they thought to find in him. This in plain words is the true reason of their dislike. He shall be despised and rejected of men, as he shall be a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; coming in a poor, suffering condition. Because he shall be a hiding of faces from us,”(a phrase for one in grief, a mourner, or a leper, who was wont to cover the lip, or all under the nose, Eze 26:16-18. Lev 13:45 where the Targum has it, covering his beard, or face, as a mourner covers himself, and Kimchi on 2Sa 15:30 reads, “Such was the custom of mourners to cover themselves.”) “He shall be despised, and we shall make no account of him.”
Isa 53:4. Surely he hath borne our griefs “And yet his sorrows are none of them the punishment of his faults, but ours. They are truly our griefs, and our sorrows; they are our due, though he bears them like a sacrifice in our stead, and for this cause is thought by us to be as one stricken with a leprosy, or to be marked out for an example of God’s displeasure.” The Hebrew word naguang, or stricken, is rendered quasi leprosus, by the Vulgate, Aquila, Symmachus, and the later Jewish commentators, Instead of, yet we did esteem, &c. we may read, when we did, &c.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
DISCOURSE: 967
THE CHARACTERS AND TREATMENT OF THE MESSIAH
Isa 53:2-3. For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness: and, when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
WE find in almost every branch of science, that truth can be discovered only by deep and serious investigation. If we rest in superficial inquiries, we shall be led into numberless and fatal mistakes. In what relates to religion more especially, an impartial examination is necessary, because the doctrines of revelation are confessedly repugnant both to the prejudices and passions of mankind. Yet, strange as it may appear, there is no other science, wherein men form their opinions on such slender information, as in that. The generality adopt the notions that are current in their day, without ever considering whether they be right or wrong: the natural consequence of which is, that, in many instances, they embrace error in preference to truth. This was too much the habit of the Jews in reference to their Messiah. Our Lord had cautioned them not to judge according to appearance, but to judge righteous judgment; nevertheless they paid more attention to received opinions than to the oracles of God. Had they searched the Scriptures, they might have found that their expected Messiah was to suffer as well as to triumph: but they, thinking only of a temporal deliverer, despised the low condition of Jesus, and made his humiliation a ground of rejecting him. That such would be their conduct, the prophet had foretold in the words before us; wherein he assigns the low estate of Jesus as the very ground, on which the united testimony of Prophets and Apostles should be discredited.
In the words themselves he sets forth,
First, Some marks and characters of the Messiah, and, Secondly, The treatment he should meet with in the world.
I.
The marks and characters given of the Messiah were not only exceeding various, but apparently inconsistent with each other; and they were multiplied in the prophetic writings, in order that, when the Messiah should appear, there should be no room to question his divine mission; since the marks themselves could not have been combined by chance, nor would have been invented by any one, who had desired to impose upon the world.
Confining ourselves to those specified in the text, we observe, that he was to be obscure in his origin. This is intimated under the figure of a root out of a dry ground. The house of David had once flourished as the cedars of Lebanon; (he himself having been one of the most powerful monarchs upon earth) but now his family was reduced; insomuch that it was like a root or mere stump of a tree. Its situation too, like a root in a dry ground, was such, as not to afford any prospect that it should ever revive again. Our Lord, like a weak and tender sucker, sprang from this root, and was, to all outward appearance, unworthy of notice. Notwithstanding the prodigies that attended his birth, and the regard paid to them for a little while, he grew up before him, that is, before the Jewish people, in obscurity, working at the trade of his reputed father as a carpenter. This circumstance proved an offence, and a stumbling-block to the carnal Jews: when they heard his discourses, and saw the wonders that he wrought, they said, Whence hath this man these things? and what wisdom is this which is given to him, that even such mighty works are wrought by his hands? Is not this the carpenter? And they were offended at him. But, if they had duly considered their own prophecies, they would have seen, that his parentage and education were precisely such as had been foretold, and consequently were arguments in favour of his high pretensions.
Another mark exhibited in the text is, that he was to be mean in his appearance. The Jews expected a Messiah who should come with pomp, and whose magnificence should equal, if not surpass, that of any potentate on earth: and if Jesus had appeared in this manner, he would soon have been caressed and followed by the whole nation. But he neither possessed himself, nor promised to his followers, any of those things which are so captivating to a carnal heart. Instead of abounding in wealth, and having the great and nobles of the earth as his attendants, he was followed only by a few poor fishermen, and sometimes wanted the common necessaries of life, and even a place where to lay his head. Instead of affecting honour, he declined it, and withdrew himself, when they would have invested him with royal authority. Nor did he give his disciples reason to expect any thing in this world but reproaches, persecutions, imprisonments, and death. Thus was he destitute of all external recommendations; there was no form nor comeliness in him, nor any beauty for which he was to be desired. Now the Jews did not know how to reconcile his claims to Messiahship with his low condition: they could not divest themselves of their prejudices: they expected a temporal Messiah, and consequently concluded, that the meanness of his appearance was a very sufficient reason for considering him as an impostor. They therefore contributed to make him still more contemptible in the eyes of men, and thus, by reducing him to the lowest state of infamy, unwittingly fulfilled the counsels of God concerning him.
A third mark and character of the Messiah was, that he should be afflicted in his person; he was to be a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. To none were these words ever so applicable as to Jesus Christ. His whole life was a continued scene of labours, trials, temptations, sorrows. We read only once in the whole Scriptures, that he rejoiced in spirit; but frequently that he sighed, and groaned, and wept. The four last years of his life were almost wholly spent in sorrow. Not to mention his bodily labours and fatigues, or his watchings and fastings (though inasmuch as they exceeded all that ever were voluntarily endured by man, they might well be taken into the account) his other trials were greater than we can conceive. The contradiction of sinners against himself must have been inexpressibly painful to his benevolent mind. He had come down from heaven to give his own life a ransom for them; and was continually endeavouring to lead them to the knowledge of himself, that they might obtain salvation through him: he was working a series of the most stupendous miracles in confirmation of his word: he was labouring day and night for their sakes, making it his very meat and drink to accomplish the grand ends and purposes of his mission: yet, how were his labours requited? they cavilled at his words, ascribed his miracles to Satanic influence, and rejected the counsel of God against themselves. How grievous must this have been to him, whose whole soul was bent on their salvation! This caused him frequently to groan in spirit, and even to weep in the midst of his triumphant entry into Jerusalem. But there were yet other sources of grief, more afflictive, if possible, than this. Whence arose his agony in the garden, when his body was bathed in a bloody sweat? Whence those strong cryings and tears, with which he supplicated the removal of the bitter cup? Whence the heart-rending cry, which he uttered on the cross under the hidings of his Fathers face? Surely the vials of his Fathers wrath were poured out upon him; the debt which we had incurred, was exacted of him as our surety; the penalty due to sin was inflicted on his righteous soul; the arrows of the Almighty stuck fast in him, and made his heart within him like melting wax. There was yet another thing which must of necessity greatly aggravate his sorrows; namely, his perfect foresight of all that should come upon him. In mercy to us futurity is hid from our eyes; so that, however great our calamities be, we are comforted with a hope, that our state will soon be ameliorated. He, on the contrary, saw the crisis gradually approaching, and knew the full extent of those miseries which he was about to endure. What but the most unbounded love could carry him forward under such a load as this?
To the eye of sense indeed, this unparalleled acquaintance with grief would appear strange and unaccountable: but to the view of faith, it marked him as the chosen of God, the Redeemer of the world.
This subject will be yet more fully illustrated by considering,
II.
The reception he met with
One would scarcely suppose it possible, that such a person as our Lord should sojourn upon earth, and not be universally respected. His exemplary piety, his diffusive benevolence, his instructive discourses, and his blameless conduct, one would think, must conciliate the esteem of all; and that gratitude at least must bind to him many thousands, whose maladies he had healed, or whose friends he had relieved. But, to the shame of human nature be it spoken, all, whom he had benefited, seemed to have forgotten their obligations, and to vie with each other in rendering evil for good: so far from honouring him, they despised and rejected him, and even hid their faces from him, as not deigning to acknowledge him. There was no name so opprobrious, but they thought him deserving of it: they called him a glutton and a wine-bibber, a deceiver and demoniac. Before the high-priest they accused him of blasphemy: and before the Roman governor they charged him with treason; that so they might secure his condemnation, and have licence to treat him as an enemy both of God and man. The indignities offered him in the last hours of his life were altogether unparalleled: it was indeed the hour of Satans reign, and all the powers of darkness seemed to be let loose upon him. It appeared as if nothing could satiate their malice: not content to wait the issue of a legal process, they loaded him with all manner of insults and reproaches: they dragged him from one tribunal to another; they ploughed up his back with scourges, and compelled his judge to pass sentence upon him contrary to the convictions of his own conscience: they forced him, faint and macerated as he was, to bear his cross, till he even sunk under the weight; and, to complete the whole, they crucified him between two thieves; and continued their impious derision till the very instant of his dissolution. Nay, they were not even then satisfied; even after he was dead, they could not refrain from shewing their hatred of him: one of the soldiers, expressing doubtless the feelings of others as well as his own, officiously thrust his spear into his side: and all the chief priests and Pharisees made application to Pilate, that he would set a guard to watch that deceiver, as they called him, lest his disciples should come by night and steal him away, and report that he had risen from the dead. Thus did the whole nation despise and reject him. Every other part of the creation gave testimony to him: the wild beasts in the wilderness stood in awe of him; the fishes of the sea confessed his power; the winds and the waves obeyed his voice; the holy angels ministered unto him; the very devils acknowledged his divine mission: but men, the men too of his own nation, the very men whom he came to redeem, rejected him; He came unto his own, and his own received him not.
Happy would it have been if their contempt of Christ had terminated here: but, alas! it continued unextinguished and unabated, even after he had proved his divine mission by his resurrection from the dead, and had sent down the Holy Ghost to attest his word. They could indeed no longer vent their spleen against his person, because he was far above out of their reach; but they beat his messengers, reviled his doctrines, and opposed to the uttermost the success of his gospel. No means were left untried: they used every species of persecution, that they might deter men from embracing his religion: they excommunicated, imprisoned, and murdered his followers: and, though God was pleased to convert a remnant of them, the bulk of the nation contradicted and blasphemed the gospel, till they had filled up the measure of their iniquities.
But must we confine this accusation to the people of that age and nation? Alas! where is the nation that has not poured contempt on Christ? The Apostles and other disciples of our Lord went to every quarter of the known world, and preached Jesus as the Saviour of men: but in every place did the glad tidings meet with the same reception. Even where the word was most successful, the great majority rejected it with disdain. And how has it been received amongst us? Blessed be God! we are not left wholly without witness; but the generality despise and reject Christ, as much as ever the Jews did in the days of his flesh. He is not indeed exposed to their outrage; they cannot scourge and buffet him as once they did; but there are many other ways wherein they no less virulently express their contempt of him. With what pertinacity do many controvert the divinity of his person, the reality of his atonement, and the efficacy of his grace! And what is this but to deny the Lord that bought them? Again, what is more common than for persons to rely upon their own repentance and reformation for acceptance with God, instead of trusting simply in his blood and righteousness? and what is this, but to rob him of his glory, and exclude him from the office, which he came to execute? Can any thing be more contemptuous than this? Again, he has given us commandments, in obeying which we are to testify our regard to him, and to honour him in the world. But who yields to his authority? Who brings his thoughts and actions into captivity to his will? Is not the language of the generality at least, We will not have this man to reign over us? To what purpose is it to say, Lord, Lord! if we do not the things which he says? It is only to act over again the part of those who bowed the knee to him, und yet smote him on the face. Indeed, all despise him, who do not value him as they ought. If we viewed him in his real character, we should see a beauty in him for which he is to be desired; we should behold his glory, as the glory of the only-begotten of the Father; he would appear to us fairer than ten thousand, and altogether lovely; and the language of our hearts would be, Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee. But how few are there who thus count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ! Yet they, who do not thus regard him, have no just sense of his worth and excellence, and therefore in reality under-value and despise him.
We cannot better IMPROVE this subject than by observing
1.
What enmity there is in the heart of man against God!
The Apostle of the Gentiles has told us, that the carnal and unrenewed mind is enmity against God. This indeed is a hard saying: but we have abundant proof of the truth of it in the subject we have been considering. We have evidence enough of it in the general forgetfulness of God, and the opposition to his will which prevails in the world. But, in the instance before us, an experiment has been made; an experiment which removes all doubt, and proves indisputably, how men would treat God, if they had him in their power. God has, for the accomplishment of his own gracious purposes, condescended to clothe himself in human flesh, and to sojourn among men. He assumed nothing of the pomp and splendour of this world, that the attachment or aversion of men might the more evidently appear to arise from their discovery of his true character. He dazzled not their eyes by a full display of his Deity, but suffered the rays of it occasionally to appear, as their organs of vision were able to bear it. He admitted them so close to him, that they might easily contemplate his proper character, and form a rational judgment of his excellencies and perfections. By this he gave them an opportunity of testifying what were the dispositions of their minds towards him. And what was the result of the experiment? Did they love him, admire him, and adore him as God? Behold, they could see no form nor comeliness in him. On the contrary, they hated him, despised him, and crucified him as a male-factor. Nor was this owing to the violence of a few: the whole nation rose up against him, and put him to death. Now this shews us in the clearest light, what human nature is, and what enmity there is in the heart of man against God. And O! what a humiliating thought is it, that we should be even capable of such atrocious wickedness! If any one object, that this was done by the Jews; and that, if God were to come down amongst us, he would meet with a more suitable reception; we reply, That in whatever place he should appear, he would assuredly be treated in the same way: for indeed he does come; he comes to us in the preaching of his Gospel: he is truly, though not visibly, amongst us; for he has said, Lo! I am with you alway, even to the end of the world: yet, so far from admiring his beauty, and adoring his goodness, we scarcely bestow a thought upon him; yea, instead of seeking our happiness in him, and devoting ourselves wholly to his service, there is no possession so contemptible, but we prefer it before him, nor any lust so base, but we choose the indulgence of it rather than his favour.
Let this melancholy truth sink down into our hearts, and cause us to lothe ourselves in dust and ashes. Nor let us ever rest, till our enmity be slain, and our aversion to him be turned into reverence and love.
In contrast with this, let us next observe
2.
What love there is in the heart of God towards man!
Had God foreseen that his creatures would have instantly and universally adored him, we must have for ever marvelled at the love that induced him to become incarnate. But how transcendent does that love appear, when we consider that he foresaw the treatment he should meet with, and that, as he died for his very murderers, so he now invites to mercy the most contemptuous of his enemies! Let heaven and earth stand amazed! and let all flesh give thanks unto his holy name for ever and ever!
Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)
Reader! do mark the prominent features, which the Holy Ghost here gives, of your Redeemer: then turn to the original, as he appears in the Evangelists, and compare the striking likeness. How did Jesus appear when he was born in the streets of Bethlehem? Was there ever a more tender, a more exposed plan? And, do remark, that this growing up is said to have been before Jehovah. And as his obscure birth hath nothing attracting in it, so neither had his person: a root dry; a form of no comeliness. Precious Lord Jesus was this the state thou wert pleased to make choice of, in coming to seek and save thy people?
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Isa 53:2 For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, [there is] no beauty that we should desire him.
Ver. 2. For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant. ] His beginning shall be mean and despicable. See Isa 11:1 , with the notes. God hid his Son under the carpenter’s son; this the Jews much stumbled at, Mat 13:55 ; Mat 13:57 ; Joh 7:27Joh 7:27 ; Joh 7:41 ; Joh 7:52 ; 1Co 1:23 that Christ should come without sightly show or state. a But they should have known that his kingdom is not of this world. Some of their Rabbis can say, In regno Messiae nihil mundanum. In the reign of the Messiah, nothing is worldly.
He hath no form or comeliness.
And when we shall see him.
And when we shall see him there is no beauty.
That we should desire him.
a Humilis Christi prosapia notatur.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Isaiah
THE SUFFERING SERVANT-I
Isa 53:2 – Isa 53:3
To hold fast the fulfilment of this prophecy of the Suffering Servant in Jesus it is not necessary to deny its reference to Israel. Just as offices, institutions, and persons in it were prophetic, and by their failures to realise to the full their own role , no less than by their partial presentation of it, pointed onwards to Him, in whom their idea would finally take form and substance, so this great picture of God’s Servant, which was but imperfectly reproduced even by the Israel within Israel, stood on the prophet’s page a fair though sad dream, with nothing corresponding to it in the region of reality and history, till He came and lived and suffered.
If we venture to make it the theme of a short series of sermons, our object is simply to endeavour to bring out clearly the features of the wonderful portrait. If they are fully apprehended, it seems to us that the question of who is the original of the picture answers itself. We must note that the whole is introduced by a ‘For,’ that is to say, that it is all explanatory of the unbelief and blindness to the revealed arm of the Lord, which the prophet has just been lamenting. This close connection with the preceding words accounts for the striking way in which the description of the person of the Servant is here blended with, or interrupted by, that of the manner in which he was treated.
I. The Servant’s lowly origin and growth.
And the eclipse of its glory is further brought out in that not only does the shoot spring from a tree, all whose leafy honours have long been lopped away, but which is ‘in a dry ground.’ Surely we do not force a profounder meaning than is legitimate into this feature of the picture when we think of the Carpenter’s Son ‘of the house and lineage of David,’ of the Son of God ‘who was found in fashion as a man,’ of Him who was born in a stable, and grew up in a tiny village hidden away among the hills of Galilee, who, as it were, stole into the world ‘not with observation,’ and opened out, as He grew, the wondrous blossom of a perfect humanity such as had never before been evolved from any root, nor grown on the most sedulously cultured plant. Is this part of the prophet’s ideal realised in any of the other suggested realisations of it?
But there is still another point in regard to the origin and growth of the lowly shoot from the felled stump-it is ‘before Him.’ Then the unnoticed growth is noticed by Jehovah, and, though cared for by no others, is cared for, tended, and guarded, by Him.
II. The Servant’s unattractive form.
III. The Servant’s reception by men.
IV. The Servant’s sorrow of heart.
Now probably the ‘sorrows’ touched on at this point are to be distinguished from those which subsequently are spoken of in terms of such poignancy as laid on the Servant by God. Here the prophet is thinking rather of those which fell on Him by reason of men’s rejection and desertion. We shall not rightly estimate the sorrowfulness of Christ’s sorrows, unless we bring to our meditations on them the other thought of His joys. How great these were we can judge, when we remember that He told the disciples that by His joy remaining in them their joy would be full. As much joy then as human nature was capable of from perfect purity, filial obedience, trust, and unbroken communion with God, so much was Jesus’ permanent experience. The golden cup of His pure nature was ever full to the brim with the richest wine of joy. And that constant experience of gladness in the Father and in Himself made more painful the sorrows which He encountered, like a biting wind shrieking round Him, whenever He passed out from fellowship with God in the stillness of His soul into the contemptuous and hostile world. His spirit carrying with it the still atmosphere of the Holy Place, would feel more keenly than any other would have done the jarring tumult of the crowds, and would know a sharper pain when met with greetings in which was no kindness. Jesus was sinless, His sympathy with all sorrow was thereby rendered abnormally keen, and He made others’ griefs His own with an identification born of a sympathy which the most compassionate cannot attain. The greater the love, the greater the sorrow of the loving heart when its love is spurned. The intenser the yearning for companionship, the sharper the pang when it is repulsed. The more one longs to bless, the more one suffers when his blessings are flung off. Jesus was the most sensitive, the most sympathetic, the most loving soul that ever dwelt in flesh. He saw, as none other has ever seen, man’s miseries. He experienced, as none else has ever experienced, man’s ingratitude, and, therefore, though God, even His God, ‘anointed Him with the oil of gladness above His fellows,’ He was ‘a Man of Sorrows,’ and grief was His companion during all His life’s course.
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
Him: i.e. Jehovah.
tender plant = a sapling.
a root = a root-sprout.
dry ground. The “root” (David) of which He was the offspring was well nigh extinct.
we: i.e. the people who saw Him. The interpretation is for the Jews of our Lord’s day. The application is for us. The nation will yet say it in their confession and weeping.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
he shall grow: Isa 11:1, Jer 23:5, Eze 17:22-24, Zec 6:12, Mar 6:3, Luk 2:7, Luk 2:39, Luk 2:40, Luk 2:51, Luk 2:52, Luk 9:58, Rom 8:3, Phi 2:6, Phi 2:7
he hath no: Isa 52:14, Mar 9:12, Joh 1:10-14, Joh 9:28, Joh 9:29, Joh 18:40, Joh 19:5, Joh 19:14, Joh 19:15, 1Pe 2:14
Reciprocal: Lev 2:14 – a meat offering Lev 3:12 – a goat Lev 5:11 – no oil Lev 16:4 – holy linen coat 2Sa 1:19 – beauty 2Sa 6:20 – glorious Psa 69:29 – I am poor Psa 85:11 – Truth Son 1:5 – black Son 5:9 – What is Isa 42:4 – shall not Isa 45:8 – let the earth Jer 33:15 – the Branch Eze 34:29 – I will Mic 5:2 – yet Zec 3:8 – the Branch Zec 11:13 – a goodly Mat 2:23 – He shall Mat 8:20 – the Son Mat 11:28 – Come Mat 13:55 – the carpenter’s Mat 27:22 – What Mar 4:31 – is less than Mar 9:2 – transfigured Luk 2:12 – General Luk 9:29 – General Luk 24:46 – General Joh 1:11 – and Joh 1:14 – we Joh 1:45 – and the Joh 3:30 – must increase Joh 4:12 – General Joh 6:40 – seeth Act 5:24 – this 2Co 8:9 – he became Gal 4:14 – ye Heb 2:9 – Jesus
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Isa 53:2-3. For he shall grow up, &c. And the reason why the Jews will generally reject their Messiah is, because he shall not come into the world with secular pomp, but he shall grow up, (or, spring up, out of the ground,) before him, (before the unbelieving Jews, of whom he spake, Isa 53:1, and that in the singular number, as here, who were witnesses of his mean original; and therefore despised him,) as a tender plant, (small and inconsiderable,) and as a root, or branch, grows out of a dry, barren ground, whose productions are generally poor and contemptible. He hath no form, &c. His bodily presence and condition in the world shall be mean and despicable. And when we see him, there is no beauty, &c. When we, that is, our people, the Jewish nation, shall look upon him, expecting to find incomparable beauty and majesty in his countenance and demeanour, we shall be altogether disappointed, and shall meet with nothing desirable in him. This the prophet speaks in the persons of the carnal and unbelieving Jews. There was a great deal of true beauty in him, the beauty of holiness, and the beauty of goodness, enough to render him the desire of all nations; but the far greater part of those among whom he lived and conversed saw none of this beauty; for it was spiritually discerned. Observe, reader, carnal minds see no excellence in the Lord Jesus; nothing that should induce them to desire an acquaintance with, or interest in him. Nay, he is not only not desired, but he is despised and rejected As one unworthy of the company and conversation of all men; despised as a mean man, rejected as a bad man, a deceiver of the people, an impostor, a blasphemer, an associate of Satan. He was the stone which the builders refused; they would not have him to reign over them. A man of sorrows Whose whole life was filled with, and, in a manner, made up of, a succession of sorrows and sufferings; and acquainted with grief Who had constant experience of, and familiar converse with, grievous afflictions. And we hid, &c. We scorned to look upon him; or we looked another way, and his sufferings were nothing to us; though never sorrow was like unto his sorrows.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
53:2 For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a {c} root out of a dry {d} ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, [there is] no beauty that we should desire him.
(c) The beginning of Christ’s kingdom will be small and contemptible in the sight of man, but it will grow wonderfully and flourish before God.
(d) Read Isa 11:1 .
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
This verse elaborates on the humble nature of the Servant’s person and ministry (cf. Isa 52:14). Instead of appearing as a mighty oak or a flourishing fruit tree, the Servant would grow up before the Lord as a sucker, a normally unwanted shoot that sprouts up from a root (cf. Isa 11:1; 1Sa 16:5-13). The Hebrew word, yoneq, literally means a "suckling," but Isaiah used it figuratively here in a horticultural sense to describe a tender sucker. [Note: Baron, p. 70.] Gardeners usually snip off such shoots as soon as they appear because they rob nourishment from the main plant. A parallel figure is a sprig that sprouts up in a barren landscape. Usually these little sprigs die very quickly from lack of moisture. The synonymous descriptions point to the apparently earthly, natural origin of the Servant, with a family tree, and to the arid spiritual environment in which He grew up.
The Servant, moreover, would have no striking appearance that would draw the attention of people and make them think, Wow, look at him! There would be nothing about His appearance or His conduct that would attract people to Him as a distinctive, special person (cf. David, 1Sa 16:18). [Note: See Delitzsch, 2:307, n. 1.]
"Deliverers are dominating, forceful, attractive people, who by their personal magnetism draw people to themselves and convince people to do what they want them to do. People who refuse to follow that leadership frequently find themselves crushed and tossed aside. This man does not fit that picture at all." [Note: Oswalt, The Book . . . 40-66, p. 382.]
Jesus entered the world as a baby, not a king. He was born in a stable, not a palace. He asked the great preacher of His day to baptize Him; He did not announce the beginning of His ministry publicly and summon everyone to come to Him for baptism. Even John the Baptist did not recognize Jesus for who He was at first; He blended into the crowd and was not outstanding.
"While there is reason to believe from other passages of Scripture that the winsome character of the Lord Jesus appealed even to some of the most hopeless of men, yet this prophecy makes clear that which some Christians have not fully comprehended, that the Lord Jesus Christ did not appear in such a way as to attract the natural man. While the power of His deity was evident on occasion, and His presence was no doubt always commanding, there was no mere glamour about Him." [Note: A. Martin, Christ in . . ., part 2, page 15.]