Isaiah 53:3

He is despised, and rejected of men,.... Or, "ceaseth from men" (f); was not admitted into the company and conversation of men, especially of figure; or ceased from the class of men, in the opinion

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. He is ... rejected of men - `forsaken of men" (Gesenius).

He is despised and rejected of men; accounted as the scum of mankind, as one unworthy of the company and conversation of all men. A man of sorrows; whose whole life was filled with, and in a manner made up of, an uninterrupted succession of sorrows and sufferings. Acquainted with grief; who had constant experience of and familiar converse with grievous afflictions; for knowledge is oft taken practically, or for experience, as , and elsewhere. We hid as it were our faces from him; we scorned and loathed to look upon him. Or, as others, he hid as it were his face from us, as one ashamed to show his face, or to be seen by any men, as persons conscious to themselves of any great deformity do commonly shun the sight of men, as lepers did, . He was despised, and we esteemed him not: here are divers words expressing the same thing, to signify both the utmost degree of contempt, and how strange and wonderful a thing it was, that so excellent a person should be so despised.

Isaiah 53:3 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.Ver. 3. He is despised and rejected of men.] Heb., Desitus virorum, one at whom the nature and name of man endeth; as we would say, the very lift and fag end of mankind, nullificamen hominis, a worm and no man, not held so good as wicked Barabbas, but crucified between two thieves, as worse than either of them, and made nothing of. This is so plainly here set forth that some of the Jewish doctors, Aben Ezra for one, whenas they cannot rightly distinguish between the two comings of Christ, the one in humility and the other in glory, duos construunt Christos, they make us up two Christs, the one the son of Joseph, to whom agree those things which the Scriptures speak of concerning Christ’ s meanness and sufferings; the other, the son of David, to whom they apply those things that are written concerning the glory, majesty, and triumphs of Christ. A man of sorrows,] q.d., Made up of sorrows. Atque hic mirus artifex est propheta; and here the prophet showeth singular skill in describing Christ’ s state of humiliation through all the degrees of it. And faith is much happier in finding out his cross, blood, nails, tomb, and all, than ever Helen was, or any Popish relic monger, and in making use of them too, to better purpose than that Popish convent of friars do, who have hired those places of the Turk, built temples, altars, and silver floors in honour of the passion. And acquainted with grief.] Heb., Knowing of infirmity, or inured to it. See Hebrews 4:15. The Greek Litany hath, "By thine unknown sorrows and sufferings, good Lord, deliver us." And we hid as it were our faces from him.] Or, And he hid as it were the face from us, viz., as one for his loathsomeness, his low condition, ashamed to be seen. The Jews, in the Talmud, question, What is the name of Messiah? Some answer, Hhenara, leprous; and he sitteth among the poor in the gates of Rome, carrying their sicknesses. He was despised.] Double despised; and for the unworthiness of the things, this is repeated. And we esteemed him not,] i.e., We contemned and derided him. Jun., Tertul. Genebrard. Ex doloribus conflatus , caused from his sorrows. Sanhedrin.

(3) He is despised and rejected.—Better, for the last word, forsaken. This had been the crowning sorrow of the righteous sufferer of the Old Testament (Job 17:15; Job 19:14). It was to complete the trial of the perfect sufferer of the New (Matthew 26:56). A man of sorrows . . .—The words “sorrow” and “grief” in the Heb. imply the thought of bodily pain or disease. (Comp. Exodus 3:7; Lamentations 1:12; Lamentations 1:18.) Men have sometimes raised the rather idle question whether the body of our Lord was subject to disease, and have decided on à priori grounds that it was not. The prophet’s words point to the true view, that this was an essential condition of His fellowship with humanity. If we do not read of any actual disease in the Gospel, we at least have evidence of an organisation every nerve of which thrilled with its sensitiveness to pain, and was quickly exhausted (Luke 8:46; John 4:6; Mark 4:36). The intensity of His sympathy made Him feel the pain of others as His own (Matthew 8:17), the “blood and water” from the pierced heart, the physical results of the agony in Gethsemane (Luke 22:44; John 19:34), indicate a nature subject to the conditions of our humanity. We hid as it were . . .—Literally, As the hiding of the face from us, or, on our part. The words start from the picture of the leper covering his face from men, or their covering their own faces, that they might not look upon him (Leviticus 13:45). In Lamentations 4:15, we have a like figurative application. (Comp. also Job 19:13-19; Job 30:10.

Verse 3. Acquainted with grief] For וידוע vidua, familiar with grief, eight MSS. and one edition have וירע veyada, and knowing grief; the Septuagint, Syriac, and Vulgate read it ויודע veyodea. We hid as it were our faces from him - "As one that hideth his face from us"] For וכמסתר uchemaster, four MSS. (two ancient) have וכמסתיר uchemastir, one MS. ומסתיר umastir. For פנים panim, two MSS. have פניו panaiv; so likewise the Septuagint and Vulgate. Mourners covered up the lower part of their faces, and their heads, 2 Samuel 15:30; Ezekiel 29:17; and lepers were commanded by the law, Leviticus 13:45, to cover their upper lip. From which circumstance it seems that the Vulgate, Aquila, Symmachus, and the Jewish commentators have taken the word נגוע nagua, stricken, in the next verse, as meaning stricken with the leprosy: εναφῃοντα, Sym.; αφημενον, Aq.; leprosum, Vulg. So my old MS. Bible. I will insert the whole passage as curious: - There is not schap to him, ne fairnesse, And we seegen him, and he was not of sigte, And we desiriden him dispisid; and the last of men: Man of souaris and witing infirmitie; And he hid his cheer and despisid; Wherfor ne we settiden bi him: Verili our seeknesse he toke and our sorewis he bair, And we helden him as leprous and smyten of God, and meekid; He forsoth wounded is for our wickednesse, Defoulid is for our hidous giltis The discipline of our pese upon him, And with his wanne wound we ben helid.

3. Not only did the Servant fail to attract his contemporaries (Isaiah 53:2); there was that in his appearance which excited positive aversion. He is represented as one stricken with loathsome and disfiguring disease, probably leprosy (see on Isaiah 53:4), so that men instinctively recoiled from him in horror and disgust. He is despised and rejected of men] Better, Despised and man-forsaken, i.e. one with whom men refuse to associate, or, perhaps, one who renounces the hope of human fellowship. The corresponding verb is used by Job when he complains of the estrangement of his friends: “my kinsfolk have failed” (ch. Isaiah 19:14). For sorrows … grief, read pains … sickness. Although both words may be used tropically of mental suffering, it is plain that in the figure of this verse and the following they are to be taken in their literal sense. and we hid &c.] More literally, and as one from whom there is a hiding of the face; his appearance was such as to cause men involuntarily to cover their face from the sight of him. The expression is similar to another phrase of Job’s: “I am a spitting in the face” (Isaiah 17:6). For the idea cf. Job 19:19; Job 30:10. Leprosy is again suggested. The rendering of LXX. and Vulg. “and as one who hid his face from us” is grammatically defensible, but conveys a wrong idea; the Servant “hid not his face from shame and spitting” (ch. Isaiah 50:6). esteemed him not] (lit “reckoned him not”), held him of no account.

He is despised - This requires no explanation; and it needs no comment to show that it was fulfilled. The Redeemer was eminently the object of contempt and scorn alike by the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Romans.

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.