Charles Ellicott Commentary


Charles Ellicott Commentary
"Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows; yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted." — Isaiah 53:4 (ASV)
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.