Charles Ellicott Commentary Isaiah 53

Who hath believed our report? ... —The question has been variously interpreted as coming from the lips of the prophet or of Israel. The former view is most persuasive, and the unusual plural is explained by his mentally associating himself with the other prophets—probably his own disciples—who were delivering the same message. The implied answer to the question may be either “None,” or “Not all.” St. Paul (Romans 10:16) adopts the latter.

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 Isaiah 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.)

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 Hebrew imply the thought of bodily pain or disease. (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 a constitution, 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 (Compare also to Job 19:13-19; Job 30:10).

Surely he has borne our griefs ... —The words are spoken as by those who had previously despised the Servant of Jehovah, and have learned the secret of His humiliation. “Grief” and “sorrow,” as before, imply “disease” and “pain,” and St. Matthew’s application of the text (Matthew 8:17) is therefore quite legitimate. The words “stricken, smitten of God,” are used elsewhere especially of leprosy and other terrible sicknesses (Genesis 12:17; Leviticus 13:3; Leviticus 13:9; Numbers 14:12; 1 Samuel 6:9; 2 Kings 15:5). So the Vulgate gives leprosus. The word for “borne,” like the Greek in John 1:29, implies both the “taking upon himself,” and the “taking away from others,” that is, the true idea of vicarious and mediatorial atonement.

He was wounded ... —Bruised. Both words refer to the death which crowned the sufferings of the Servant. That also was vicarious.

The chastisement of our peace — i.e., the punishment which leads to peace, that word including, as elsewhere, every form of blessing. (Compare to the reproof of life in Proverbs 15:31.) In Hebrews 2:10; Hebrews 5:8–9, we have the thought which is the complement of this, that the chastisement was also an essential condition of the perfection of the sufferer.

With his stripes we are healed. —The words stretch wide and deep. Perhaps the most touching application is St. Peter’s use of them as a thought of comfort for the slaves who were scourged as He, their Lord, had been (1 Peter 2:24).