For he shall grow up before him as a tender sapling, and as a root out of dry ground he hath no form nor lordliness, and when we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.
Isaiah 53 opens with a confession. Its second verse sets two views of the same Man side by side: what God saw growing before Him, and what the nation saw and turned away from. Everything that follows in the chapter grows out of that gap.
The picture starts with a royal line cut down to a stump, and one small shoot watched over by God Himself.
"As a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground" (v. 2), He was to grow up before God. The royal tree of David had been brought low. All hope seemed to be gone, but "a tender plant," a small shoot, shows itself. It is destined to bear all the royal glory. It grows up before God. He watches over it; protecting and caring for it. Before Him "it grows." Luke 2 fulfils that prophecy, where we read: "And the child grew and became strong… and the favor of God was upon him… And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature."
A plant that thrives in dry ground must draw its life from somewhere else.
Verse 2 presents Him to us in two ways. First, as He was in the eyes of God. Mankind in general, and Israel in particular, had proved themselves to be "dry ground," producing nothing good. Yet out of this ground sprang up this "tender plant," which drew its life and nourishment from elsewhere. The Lord Jesus did spring out of Israel, through the Virgin Mary His mother. But the excellence of His holy Manhood came not from her; it came from the work of the Holy Spirit of God.
Where He stood, there was nothing to feed Him.
Israel was the dry ground. There was no sustenance for our Lord there. All His support was drawn from above.
The words describe an absence — not of worth, but of the kind of appearance that impresses people.
But second, He is presented as He was in the eyes of men. He had "no form or majesty," nor the kind of beauty that men admire and desire. A proud, commanding man with an impressive look would have caught the public's fancy. Instead He was "a Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief," as verse 3 says. Being who He was, He could be nothing else as He entered and walked through a ruined creation, with all its degradation and sorrow.
He entered the ruin at its lowest point, and rose from there with nothing borrowed from the world.
So the Lord took His place in the ruin of the people and of their royal house… Because of the sins of the people, He accepted the lowliest position: Nazareth, under the rule of the last heathen empire. From there He came out, with no advantage of place, power, wealth, or human learning, to glorify His Father by the way He lived… Man despised Him. But how God delighted in Him — His fellow, humbling Himself for His Father's glory from first to last here below, as God said from heaven again and again! In Him was His own best pleasure. How immeasurably above coming in power and pomp!
The verse changes speaker halfway through, and the pronouns are the key to it.
Note the difference between "Him" and "we." "Him" — Jehovah Himself; "we" — the Jewish nation.
The same gap showed up in the men who should have known best.
What must man be to be at such variance with God! Beautiful in the eyes of Jehovah; no beauty in the eyes of men. Jehovah's delight; men's hatred. Surely this might be true of the rabble, you say, but not of the educated and religious! No. It was the very leaders of the nation — their high priests and rulers — who filled the air with their fierce cry, "Crucify Him! crucify Him."
Isaiah puts these words in the mouths of people who later change their minds. What offended them was not His teaching or His works, but His lowliness.
First, they own that in the day of His humiliation they had despised and rejected their Messiah. They see now that under the eye of God He was altogether lovely — a tender plant. Man may wonder at His words of wisdom and His mighty works. But they despised and rejected Him because of His lowly grace. They esteemed Him of no importance, for they say, "Is not this the carpenter's son?"
The same lowliness that repelled the proud drew everyone who knew their need.
What set Him at a moral distance from all the hypocrisy and religion of the natural man was no barrier to anyone who felt their need. Such need always found a tender welcome in Him. The outcast, the wretched and the lost came freely to Him.
The shoot is not left small. Writers trace it forward to the day it is seen for what it is.
What is so striking is that Isaiah 53:2 points us to this One (who shall be seen in His triumph and glory soon), in His lowliness and loveliness here, in His humiliation, "as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground."
- Soil — Israel and mankind had proved to be dry ground, producing nothing good. Whatever grew there had to draw its life from elsewhere.
- Shoot — the fallen royal line put out one tender plant. It grew up under God's own eye and care, fulfilled in the child who grew at Nazareth.
- Sight — "Him" is Jehovah, "we" is the nation; the same Man was God's delight and man's hatred.
- Scorn — what men wanted was imposing appearance and pomp. What offended them was His lowly grace, summed up in "Is not this the carpenter's son?"
- Splendour — lowliness is not the end. That tender plant will bear all the royal glory, and needy people found their welcome in Him long before the world did.
He is despised and left alone of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief, and like one from whom [men] hide their faces; -- despised, and we esteemed him not.
This verse sits in the middle of a confession — the words of people who once saw nothing in Christ worth wanting, and who now admit it. It raises two questions: why did men turn away from Him, and why was sorrow the settled mark of a perfect life?
Commentators read this chapter as a confession Israel makes after God delivers them, not during Christ's lifetime. The order matters: they see Him first, then they repent.
The full repentance of Israel comes after their deliverance. That is, their discipline ends first. Then Christ appears in glory as their deliverer, and this produces the deep sense of their sin in having rejected Him... After verse 1 the Spirit speaks by the mouth of the escaped remnant of Israel. They confess their sin in having despised Him... Verse 1 shows that they had rejected the testimony of Christ, which was addressed to faith. They believe when they see Him.
Notice the pronoun. The speakers do not blame the generation that crucified Him.
The prophet is led to predict the rejection of Christ. His words express what a godly remnant of Israel will feel in the last days... They take the sin of their forefathers as their own. They will confess, not that the forefathers did it, but that we did it. This will be a genuine repentance.
Men despised Him because nothing in Him fed their taste. The problem was not in Him but in the ones looking.
He is shown here as men saw Him. He had "no form or majesty," and none of the beauty that men admire and want. A proud, commanding man with an impressive appearance would have caught the popular taste. Instead He was "a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief"... Men did not understand this. They could not feel how low they had sunk themselves. So they despised and rejected Him.
One writer traces this sorrow to something most people have tasted at some point.
It was His rejection and reproach that made the blessed Son of God "a Man of sorrows" here. Israel would not have Him. He knew He was not wanted. We have all been, at some time or other in our lives, in places where we knew we were not wanted. And it is one of the keenest of all sorrows. The Lord Jesus felt this sorrow everywhere. In some places people did not even care to take Him in. "Foxes have holes," He said on one occasion, "and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head."... He went about doing good, and never spoke an unkind word.
There is a second source of sorrow, deeper than being unwanted. It comes from what He was in Himself.
He felt the degraded state of man, so He could not be anything other than "a man of sorrows"; yes, the "Grief-Acquainted One." His own perfect holiness made Him feel how terrible sin is, as no fallen man could feel it. But the nation treated Him as someone to avoid, "as one from whom men hide their faces." They despised Him; they esteemed Him not.
One writer reads "grief" here as sickness, and points to what happened when He healed.
The account of His taking the weaknesses and carrying the diseases means more than one thing. The Lord did take these things away from the sufferers. He also took them upon Himself. That is how He became a "man of sorrows and acquainted with grief [sickness]".
The confession does not stop at regret. In the verses that follow, the same speakers see why He suffered.
By faith they now see why He was the Man of sorrows. He was bearing their griefs and carrying their sorrows. And if, on the cross, He was stricken, smitten, and afflicted, it was for their sins that He was wounded and bruised, so that through His atoning sufferings they might have peace and healing.
- Spoken, not merely predicted. The verse is a confession God writes in advance for people who will one day say it themselves — and say "we did it," not "they did it."
- Despised for the wrong reason. Men wanted an impressive figure. His lowliness gave their taste nothing to admire, so they looked away.
- Sorrow from two sides. Nobody wanted Him. And His holiness made Him feel the ruin of sin as no fallen person can.
- Grief He absorbed. He did not only take sickness and sorrow away from people. He took it onto Himself. That is how He became "acquainted" with it.
- The same face, seen again. One day they will look at Him and understand. The sorrows they despised, He was carrying for them.