'For He grew 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 see Him, there
is no beauty that we should desire Him. 3. He was despised, and
rejected of men, a Man of Sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and as
one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we esteemed Him
not.'--ISAIAH liii, 2, 3.
To hold fast the fulfilment of this prophecy of the Suffering Servant
in Jesus it is not necessary to deny its reference to Israel. Just as
offices, institutions, and persons in it were prophetic, and by their
failures to realise to the full their own _role_, no less than by their
partial presentation of it, pointed onwards to Him, in whom their idea
would finally take form and substance, so this great picture of God's
Servant, which was but imperfectly reproduced even by the Israel within
Israel, stood on the prophet's page a fair though sad dream, with
nothing corresponding to it in the region of reality and history, till
He came and lived and suffered.
If we venture to make it the theme of a short series of sermons, our
object is simply to endeavour to bring out clearly the features of the
wonderful portrait. If they are fully apprehended, it seems to us that
the question of who is the original of the picture answers itself. We
must note that the whole is introduced by a 'For,' that is to say, that
it is all explanatory of the unbelief and blindness to the revealed arm
of the Lord, which the prophet has just been lamenting. This close
connection with the preceding words accounts for the striking way in
which the description of the person of the Servant is here blended
with, or interrupted by, that of the manner in which he was treated.