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. In his life on earth it was so; in his death it was still so; and since then, his name and person have been extensively the object of contempt. Nothing is a more striking fulfillment of this than the conduct of the Jews at the present day. The very name of Jesus of Nazareth excites contempt; and they join with their fathers who rejected him in heaping on him every term indicative of scorn.

Rejected of men - This phrase is full of meaning, and in three words states the whole history of man in regard to his treatment of the Redeemer. The name 'The Rejected of Men,' will express all the melancholy history; rejected by the Jews; by the rich; the great and the learned; by the mass of people of every grade, and age, and rank. No prophecy was ever more strikingly fulfilled; none could condense more significancy into few words. In regard to the exact sense of the phrase, interpreters have varied. Jerome renders it, Novissium virorum - 'The last of men;' that is, the most abject and contemptible of mankind. The Septuagint, 'His appearance is dishonored (ἄτιμον atimon) and defective (ἐκλειπον ekleipon) more than the sons of men.' The Chaldee, 'He is indeed despised, but he shall take away the glory of all kings; they are infirm and sad, as if exposed to all calamities and sorrows.' Some render it, 'Most abject of men,' and they refer to Job 19:14, where the same word is used to denote those friends who forsake the unfortunate.

The word חדל châdêl used here, is derived from the verb חדל châdal, which means "to cease, to leave off, to desist"; derived, says Gesenius (Lexicon), from the idea of becoming languid, flaccid; and thence transferred to the act of ceasing from labor. It means usually, to cease, to desist from, to leave, to let alone (see 1 Kings 22:6-15; Job 7:15; Job 10:20; Isaiah 2:22). According to Gesenius, the word here means to be left, to be destitute, or forsaken; and the idea is, that be was forsaken by people. According to Hengstenberg (Christol.) it means 'the most abject of men,' he who ceases from men, who ceases to belong to the number of men; that is, who is the most abject of men. Castellio renders it, Minus quash homo - 'Less than a man.' Junius and Tremellius, Abjectissimus virorum - 'The most abject of men.' Grotius, 'Rejected of men.' Symmachus, Ἐλάχιστος ἀνδρῶν Elachistos andrōn - 'the least of men.' The idea is, undoubtedly, somehow that of ceasing from human beings, or from being regarded as belonging to mankind.

There was a ceasing, or a withdrawing of that which usually pertains to man, and which belongs to him. And the thought probably is, that he was not only 'despised,' but that there was an advance on that - there was a ceasing to treat him as if he had human feelings, and was in any way entitled to human fellowship and sympathy. It does not refer, therefore, so much to the active means employed to reject him, as to the fact that he was regarded as cut off from man; and the idea is not essentially different from this, that he was the most abject and vile of mortals in the estimation of others; so vile as not to be deemed worthy of the treatment due to the lowest of men. This idea has been substantially expressed in the Syriac translation.

A man of sorrows - What a beautiful expression! A man who was so sad and sorrowful; whose life was so full of sufferings, that it might be said that that was the characteristic of the man. A similar phraseology occurs in Proverbs 29:1, 'He that being often reproved,' in the margin, 'a man of reproofs;' in the Hebrew, 'A man of chastisements,' that is, a man who is often chastised. Compare Daniel 10:11 : 'O Daniel, a man greatly beloved,' Margin, as in Hebrew, 'A man of desires; that is, a man greatly desired. Here, the expression means that his life was characterized by sorrows. How remarkably this was fulfilled in the life of the Redeemer, it is not necessary to attempt to show.

And acquainted with grief - Hebrew, חלי וידוע viydûa‛ choliy - 'And knowing grief.' The word rendered 'grief' means usually sickness, disease Deuteronomy 7:15; Deuteronomy 28:61; Isaiah 1:5; but it also means anxiety, affliction Ecclesiastes 5:16; and then any evil or calamity Ecclesiastes 6:2. Many of the old interpreters explain it as meaning, that he was known or distinguished by disease; that is, affected by it in a remarkable manner. So Symm. Γνωστός νόσῳ Gnōstos nosō. Jerome (the Vulgate) renders it, Scientem infirmitatem. The Septuagint renders the whole clause, 'A man in affliction (ἐν πληγῇ en plēgē), and knowing to bear languor, or disease' (εἰδὼ; φέρειν μαλακίαν eidōs pherein malakian). But if the word here means disease, it is only a figurative designation of severe sufferings both of body and of soul. Hengstenberg, Koppe, and Ammon, suppose that the figure is taken from the leprosy, which was not only one of the most severe of all diseases, but was in a special manner regarded as a divine judgment. They suppose that many of the expressions which follow may be explained with reference to this (compare Hebrews 4:15). The idea is, that he was familiar with sorrow and calamity. It does not mean, as it seems to me, that he was to be himself sick and diseased; but that he was to be subject to various kinds of calamity, and that it was to be a characteristic of his life that he was familiar with it. He was intimate with it. He knew it personally; he knew it in others. He lived in the midst of scenes of sorrow, and be became intimately acquainted with its various forms, and with its evils. There is no evidence that the Redeemer was himself sick at any time - which is remarkable - but there is evidence in abundance that he was familiar with all kinds of sorrow, and that his own life was a life of grief.

And we hid as it were our faces from him - There is here great variety of interpretation and of translation. The margin reads, 'As an hiding of faces from him,' or 'from us,' or, 'He hid as it were his face from us.' The Hebrew is literally, 'And as the hiding of faces from him, or from it;' and Hengstenberg explains it as meaning, 'He was as an hiding of the face before it.' that is, as a thing or person before whom a man covers his face, because he cannot bear the disgusting sight. Jerome (the Vulgate) renders it, 'His face was as it were hidden and despised.' The Septuagint, 'For his countenance was turned away' (ἀπέστρυπταὶ apestraptai). The Chaldee, 'And when he took away his countenance of majesty from us, we were despised and reputed as nothing.' Interpreters have explained it in various ways.

1. 'He was as one who hides his face before us;' alluding, as they suppose, to the Mosaic law, which required lepers to cover their faces Leviticus 13:45, or to the custom of covering the face in mourning, or for shame.

2. Others explain it as meaning, 'as one before whom is the covering of the face, that is, before whom a man covers the face from shame or disgust. So Gesenius.

3. Others, 'He was as one causing to conceal the face,' that is, he induced others to cover the face before him. His sufferings were so terrible as to induce them to turn away. So John H. Michaelis.

The idea seems to be, that he was as one from whom people hide their faces, or turn away. This might either arise from a sight of his sufferings, as being so offensive that they would turn away in pain - as in the case of a leper; or it might be, that he was so much an object of contempt, and so unlike what they expected, that they would hide their faces and turn away in scorn. This latter I suppose to be the meaning; and that the idea is, that he was so unlike what they had expected, that they hid their faces in affected or real contempt.

And we esteemed him not - That is, we esteemed him as nothing; we set no value on him. In order to give greater energy to a declaration, the Hebrews frequently express a thing positively and then negatively. The prophet had said that they held him in positive contempt; he here says that they did not regard him as worthy of their notice. He here speaks in the name of his nation - as one of the Jewish people. 'We, the Jews, the nation to whom he was sent, did not esteem him as the Messiah, or as worthy of our affection or regard.'

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 panaiu; 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: εν αφῃ οντα, 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.

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 of others; he was not reckoned among men, was accounted a worm, and no man; or, if a man, yet not in his senses, a madman, nay, one that had a devil: or "deficient of men"; he had none about him of any rank or figure in life, only some few fishermen, and some women, and publicans, and harlots. The Vulgate Latin version renders it, "the last of men", the most abject and contemptible of mankind; despised, because of the meanness of his birth, and parentage, and education, and of his outward appearance in public life; because of his apostles and audience; because of his doctrines, not agreeably to carnal reason, and his works, some of them being done on the sabbath day, and, as they maliciously suggested, by the help of Satan; and especially because of his ignominious sufferings and death:

a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: or "known by grief" (g); he was known by his troubles, notorious for them; these were his constant companions, his familiar acquaintance, with whom he was always conversant; his life was one continued series of sorrow, from the cradle to the cross; in his infancy his life was sought for by Herod, and he was obliged to be taken by his parents, and flee into Egypt; he ate his bread in sorrow, and with the sweat of his brow; he met with much sorrow from the hardness and unbelief of men's hearts, and from the contradiction of sinners against himself, and even much from the frowardness of his own disciples; much from the temptations of Satan, and more from the wrath and justice of God, as the surety of his people; he was exceeding sorrowful in the garden, when his sweat was as it were great drops of blood; and when on the cross, under the hidings of his Father's face, under a sense of divine displeasure for the sins of his people, and enduring the pains and agonies of a shameful and an accursed death; he was made up of sorrows, and grief was familiar to him. Some render it, "broken with infirmity", or "grief" (h):

and we hid as it were our faces from him; as one loathsome and abominable as having an aversion to him, and abhorrence of him, as scorning to look at him, being unworthy of any notice. Some render it, "he hid as it were his face from us" (i); as conscious of his deformity and loathsomeness, and of his being a disagreeable object, as they said; but the former is best:

he was despised, and we esteemed him not; which is repeated to show the great contempt cast upon him, and the disesteem he was had in by all sorts of persons; professors and profane, high and low, rich poor, rulers and common people, priests, Scribes, and Pharisees; no set or order of men had any value for him; and all this disgrace and dishonour he was to undergo, to repair the loss of honour the Lord sustained by the sin of man, whose surety Christ became.

(f) "desiit viris", Montanus, Heb.; "desitus virorum", Piscator; "deficiens virorum", Cocceius; "destitutus viris", Vitringa. (g) "notus aegritudine", Montanus; "notus infirmitate," Cocceius. (h) "Attritus infirmitate"; so some in Vatablus, and R. Sol. Urbin. Ohel. Moed. fol. 96. 1.((i) "velut homo abscondens faciem a nobis", Junius & Tremellius; "et tanquam aliquis qui obtegit faciem a nobis", Piscator; "ut res tecta facie averanda prae nobis", Cocceius.

On the contrary, the impression produced by His appearance was rather repulsive, and, to those who measured the great and noble by a merely worldly standard, contemptible. "He was despised and forsaken by men; a man of griefs, and well acquainted with disease; and like one from whom men hide their face: despised, and we esteemed Him not." All these different features are predicates of the erat that is latent in non species ei neque decor and non adspectus. Nibhzeh is introduced again palindromically at the close in Isaiah's peculiar style; consequently Martini's conjecture לא וגו נבזהוּ is to be rejected. This nibhzeh (cf., bâzōh, Isaiah 49:7) is the keynote of the description which looks back in this plaintive tone. The predicate chădal 'ı̄shı̄m is misunderstood by nearly all the commentators, inasmuch as they take אישׁים as synonymous with בני־אדם, whereas it is rather used in the sense of בני־אישׁ (lords), as distinguished from benē 'âdâm, or people generally (see Isaiah 2:9, Isaiah 2:11, Isaiah 2:17). The only other passages in which it occurs are Proverbs 8:4 and Psalm 141:4; and in both instances it signifies persons of rank. Hence Cocceius explains it thus: "wanting in men, i.e., having no respectable men with Him, to support Him with their authority." It might also be understood as meaning the ending one among men, i.e., the one who takes the last place (S. ἐλάχιστος, Jer. novissimus); but in this case He Himself would be described as אישׁ, whereas it is absolutely affirmed that He had not the appearance or distinction of such an one. But the rendering deficiens (wanting) is quite correct; compare Job 19:14, "my kinsfolk have failed" (defecerunt, châdelū, cognati mei). The Arabic chadhalahu or chadhala ‛anhu (also points to the true meaning; and from this we have the derivatives châdhil, refusing assistance, leaving without help; and machdhûl, helpless, forsaken (see Lane's Arabic Lexicon). In Hebrew, châdal has not only the transitive meaning to discontinue or leave off a thing, but the intransitive, to case or be in want, so that chădal 'ı̄shı̄m may mean one in want of men of rank, i.e., finding no sympathy from such men. The chief men of His nation who towered above the multitude, the great men of this world, withdrew their hands from Him, drew back from Him: He had none of the men of any distinction at His side. Moreover, He was מכאבות אישׁ, a man of sorrow of heart in all its forms, i.e., a man whose chief distinction was, that His life was one of constant painful endurance. And He was also חלי ידוּע, that is to say, not one known through His sickness (according to Deuteronomy 1:13, Deuteronomy 1:15), which is hardly sufficient to express the genitive construction; nor an acquaintance of disease (S. γνωστὸς νόσῳ, familiaris morbo), which would be expressed by מידּע or מודע; but scitus morbi, i.e., one who was placed in a state to make the acquaintance of disease. The deponent passive ירוּע, acquainted (like bâtuăch, confisus; zâkbūr, mindful; peritus, pervaded, experienced), is supported by מדּוּע equals מה־יּרוּע; Gr. τί μαθών. The meaning is not, that He had by nature a sickly body, falling out of one disease into another; but that the wrath instigated by sin, and the zeal of self-sacrifice (Psalm 69:10), burnt like the fire of a fever in His soul and body, so that even if He had not died a violent death, He would have succumbed to the force of the powers of destruction that were innate in humanity in consequence of sin, and of His own self-consuming conflict with them. Moreover, He was kemastēr pânı̄m mimmennū. This cannot mean, "like one hiding his face from us," as Hengstenberg supposes (with an allusion to Leviticus 13:45); or, what is comparatively better, "like one causing the hiding of the face from him:" for although the feminine of the participle is written מסתּרת, and in the plural מסתּרים for מסתּירים is quite possible, we never meet with mastēr for mastı̄r, like hastēr for hastı̄r in the infinitive (Isaiah 29:15, cf., Deuteronomy 26:12). Hence mastēr must be a noun (of the form marbēts, marbēq, mashchēth); and the words mean either "like the hiding of the face on our part," or like one who met with this from us, or (what is more natural) like the hiding of the face before his presence (according to Isaiah 8:17; Isaiah 50:6; Isaiah 54:8; Isaiah 59:2, and many other passages), i.e., like one whose repulsive face it is impossible to endure, so that men turn away their face or cover it with their dress (compare Isaiah 50:6 with Job 30:10). And lastly, all the predicates are summed up in the expressive word nibhzeh: He was despised, and we did not think Him dear and worthy, but rather "esteemed Him not," or rather did not estimate Him at all, or as Luther expresses it, "estimated Him at nothing" (châshabh, to reckon, value, esteem, as in Isaiah 13:17; Isaiah 33:8; Malachi 3:16).

The second turn closes here. The preaching concerning His calling and His future was not believed; but the Man of sorrows was greatly despised among us.

He is despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with {e} grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

(e) Which was by God's singular providence for the comfort of sinners, He 4:15.

53:3 We hid - We scorned to look upon him.

we hid...: or, he hid as it were his face from us: Heb. as an hiding of faces from him, or, from us

3. rejected-"forsaken of men" [Gesenius]. "Most abject of men." Literally, "He who ceases from men," that is, is no longer regarded as a man [Hengstenberg]. (See on [851]Isa 52:14; Isa 49:7).

man of sorrows-that is, whose distinguishing characteristic was sorrows.

acquainted with-familiar by constant contact with.

grief-literally, "disease"; figuratively for all kinds of calamity (Jer 6:14); leprosy especially represented this, being a direct judgment from God. It is remarkable Jesus is not mentioned as having ever suffered under sickness.

and we hid . faces-rather, as one who causes men to hide their faces from Him (in aversion) [Maurer]. Or, "He was as an hiding of the face before it," that is, as a thing before which a man covers his face in disgust [Hengstenberg]. Or, "as one before whom is the covering of the face"; before whom one covers the face in disgust [Gesenius].

we-the prophet identifying himself with the Jews. See Horsley's view (see on [852]Isa 53:1).

esteemed . not-negative contempt; the previous words express positive.

53:1-3 No where in all the Old Testament is it so plainly and fully prophesied, that Christ ought to suffer, and then to enter into his glory, as in this chapter. But to this day few discern, or will acknowledge, that Divine power which goes with the word. The authentic and most important report of salvation for sinners, through the Son of God, is disregarded. The low condition he submitted to, and his appearance in the world, were not agreeable to the ideas the Jews had formed of the Messiah. It was expected that he should come in pomp; instead of that, he grew up as a plant, silently, and insensibly. He had nothing of the glory which one might have thought to meet with him. His whole life was not only humble as to outward condition, but also sorrowful. Being made sin for us, he underwent the sentence sin had exposed us to. Carnal hearts see nothing in the Lord Jesus to desire an interest in him. Alas! by how many is he still despised in his people, and rejected as to his doctrine and authority!