Isaiah 53:2

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 hathshould be had, and comeliness, majesty. The words for formand beautyare 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 formosusfrom 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.). This at least yields a more perfect parallelism in the last two lines.