Isaiah 53:3-7 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… I. The first reason assigned for the rejection of the Messiah by the Jews was THE GRADUAL AND UNOSTENTATIOUS MANNER OF HIS MANIFESTATION. "He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground," etc. The general reference is, no doubt, to His parentage, and His manner of entering the world — so contrasted with the probable expectations of the Jews. Not like a cedar of Lebanon did the world s Messiah appear; not as a scion of a noble and wealthy house; not as the son of a Herod or a Caiaphas — but "as a "tender plant," as "a root, out of a dry ground." It is a repetition of the figure in the eleventh chapter, "There shall come forth a Shoot out of the stem of Jesse; and a Scion shall spring forth from his roots." Just as the descendants of the Plantagenets are to be found amongst our English peasantry, the glory of the family had departed. Nothing could be farther from the thought of the carnal Jews than that Messiah the Prince should be a scion of such a forgotten house. How wonderful in its obscurity and helplessness was His childhood; not hastening towards His manifestation, not hastening even towards His ministry to the perishing, but waiting until "the fulness of time was come;" growing into the child, the youth, the man; for more than thirty years giving scarcely a sign that He was other than an ordinary son of humanity; at first helplessly dependent upon His parents for support and direction, then obediently "subject to them," fulfilling all the conditions and duties of childhood, a child with children as well as a man with men; then a youth labouring as an artisan, fulfilling His great mission to the world in a carpenter's shop. And then fulfilling His ministry, not amongst the rich, but amongst the poor; not in acts of rule and conquest, but in deeds of beneficence and words of spiritual life; and consummating it by a death on a cross. II. The second reason for the rejection of the Messiah by the Jews, which the prophet assigns, is HIS UNATTRACTIVE APPEARANCE WHEN MANIFESTED. This he puts both negatively and positively. 1. Negatively, He was destitute of all attractions; He had "no form nor comeliness;" He was without "beauty" to make men "desire Him". 2. But there were positive repulsions; everything to offend men who had such prepossessions as they had. A Messiah in the guise of a peasant babe — the Divine in the form of a servant and a sufferer. Chiefly, however, we are arrested by the phrase, which, because of its touching beauty, has almost become one of the personal designations of the Messiah — "A Man of sorrows" — literally, a Man of sufferings, or of many sufferings — One who possesses sufferings as other men possess intelligence, or physical faculty — One who was "acquainted with grief," not in the casual, transient way in which most men are, but with an intimacy as of companionship; the utmost bodily and mental sorrow was endured by Him. The emphasis of the description lies not in the fact that one who came to be a Prophet and Reformer was subjected to martyr treatment, for such men have ever been rejected and persecuted by the ignorance, envy and madness of their generation. It is that He who was the Creator and Lord of all things should have submitted to this condition, borne this obloquy, endured this suffering; that the Lord of life and blessedness should appear in our world, not only as a Man, but as so suffering a Man, as that He should be known amongst other suffering men as pre-eminently "a Man of sorrows" — a Man whose sorrows were greater than other men's sorrows. Now, we cannot think that this designation is given to Him merely because of the bodily sufferings, or social provocations, that were inflicted upon Him. We shall touch but very distantly the true heart of the Redeemer's sorrows, if we limit the cause of them to the mere stubbornness of His generation, or to the mere physical agonies of His death. It is doing no wrong to the pre-eminence of the Saviour's agonies to say, that many teachers of truth have been opposed and persecuted more than He was, and that many martyrs have endured deaths of more terrible physical agony. If this were all, we should be compelled, I think, to admit that the prophetic description is somewhat exaggerated. How, then, is it to be accounted for? Only by the fact of His having also endured transcendent inward sorrow; sorrow of mind, sorrow of heart, of which ordinary men have no experience; only by His own strange expression in His agony, when no human hand touched Him — "My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death." Then comes the mystery of such a pure and perfect soul experiencing such a sorrow. If He were only a prophet and martyr for the truth of God, why, as distinguished from all other prophets and martyrs, should He have endured so much inward anguish? Here we touch the great mystery of atonement, and we are bold to say that this alone interprets Christ's peculiar sorrow. (H. Allon, D.D.) Parallel Verses KJV: 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. |
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