Isaiah 53:2

While God watches, his servant will grow up appearing/seeming to be very insignificant/unimportant, like a weak young plant that shoots up from a root of a tree that is growing in dry ground. There will be nothing beautiful or majestic about him, nothing that would cause us to want to be with him.

Translation for Translators

In The King James Version

For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.

In Context

1◄Who will believe what we will tell them about God’s servant?/Hardly anyone will believe what we will tell them about God’s servant.► [RHQ] ◄Who will see what Yahweh does by his great power?/Very few people will see what Yahweh does by his great power.► [MTY, RHQ]

3People will despise and reject him. {He will be despised and rejected.} He will endure much pain, and he will suffer much. Because his face will be very disfigured, people will not want to look at him; people will despise him and think that he is not worth paying any attention to.

Read all of Isaiah 53

Cross References

Isaiah 11:1Like [MET] a new shoot often grows from the stump of a tree, there will be a descendant of King David who will be a new king.

Jeremiah 23:5Yahweh also says, “Some day I will appoint for you a righteous man who will be a descendant of King David. He will be a king who rules wisely. He will do what is just and right throughout the land.

Zechariah 6:12Tell him that I, the Commander of the armies of angels, say that the man who is called the Branch will come. He will leave the place where he is now, and he will supervise those who build my temple.

Mark 9:12Jesus wanted them to know that John the Baptizer was the one who represented Elijah. So he answered them, “It is true that God promised to send Elijah to come first so that people would be ready when I came. Elijah’s representative has already come, and our leaders treated him very badly, just like they wanted to do, just like it was prophesied { the prophets prophesied} long ago. But, ◄I also want you to consider what is written {what the prophets wrote} in the Scriptures about me, the one who came from heaven./why have you not thought about what is written {what the prophets wrote} about me, the one who came from heaven?► [RHQ] It is written {They wrote} that I would suffer much and that I would be rejected {that many people would reject me}.”

Luke 2:39After Joseph and Mary had finished performing the rituals that ◄the Lord/God► required the parents of a first son to perform, they returned to their own town, Nazareth, in Galilee district.

Luke 9:58In order that the man might know what he could expect if he went with Jesus, Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes in the ground in which to live, and birds have nests, but even though I am the one who came from heaven, I do not have a home where I can sleep!”

Matthew Henry on Isaiah 53:2-4

The Humiliation of the Messiah. ( b. c. 706.) 1 Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? 2 For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. 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. The prophet, in the close of the… Read the whole commentary →

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