Isaiah 53:2

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

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.

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 , and that in the singular number, as here, who were witnesses of his mean original; and therefore despised him, according to Christ’ s observation, ; 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, , a young twig, which is a small and inconsiderable thing,) and as a root (as Christ is called, , 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, , and in other places, as ) 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.

Isaiah 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 Isaiah 11:1, with the notes. God hid his Son under the carpenter’ s son; this the Jews much stumbled at, that Christ should come without sightly show or state. 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.] How could he? say, when his fair face was covered, sanguine, sputo, spinis, lachrymis, with blood black and blue, swelths, spittle, tears, scratches, so that Pilate, wondering at it, said, "Behold the man," q.d., he is not dealt with as a man; but being in greatest misery, he deserveth to be pitied. And when we shall see him.] Here the prophet taketh upon him the person of a carnal Jew, who judged of Christ according to his outward appearance. But what saith the Chaldee proverb? Ne spectes cantharum vel urceum, sed id quod in eo est. Look not on the pitcher, but on the liquor that is contained in it. And when we shall see him there is no beauty.] Heb., And we shall see him, and no sight or sightliness. That we should desire him.] And yet he was a man of desires, yea, the "desire of all nations," all over desirable: but so he is only to such as have their "senses exercised to discern good and evil." Humilis Christi prosapia notatur.

(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 Isaiah 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 empire’s golden rod, Marks them divine. “ J. H. NEWMAN (Lyra Apostolica.)

Verse 2. See Clarke on Isaiah 53:1.

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 Isaiah 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” (Joshua 22:28; Jeremiah 9:11; cf. ch. Isaiah 2:2). as a tender plant] a sapling. Cf. Ezekiel 17:22; Job 14:7. a root (cf. ch. Isaiah 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 Isaiah 52:14. Both are here used in the sense of “pleasing form” &c.; comp. “a man of form “in 1 Samuel 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.).

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

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.