Are we surprised that God’s beloved Son was despised? We only have to read the Gospel accounts to see the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prediction. It is written, “They hated Me without a cause” (Jn. 15:25; Ps. 69:4). The word translated “without a cause” means “gratuitously” or “freely.” He loved freely and was hated just as freely. Anyone involved in gospel work will quickly realize the enmity toward Christ which lies just below the surface of men’s hearts.

The word “rejected” can be translated “left alone,” or “held aloof.” In the Gospels, Messiah strikes us as a lonely figure, though surrounded by His disciples as well as desperate crowds seeking relief from their afflictions. He was continually misunderstood, even by those closest to Him, and there is no loneliness greater than this. Thus He was “a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” This is hard for us to conceive: the One who was Jehovah of Hosts, manifest in the flesh yet entering into all our sorrows—but so it was. “Grief” here can also be translated as “pain.” How could this be? It is not for us to try to explain or to understand, but rather to worship.

The revulsion they had toward Him is expressed in the words, “we hid … our faces from Him.” A lowly Messiah, One who identified with the poor of the flock and their afflictions, was not something their religious and cultural pride could accept. It was an affront to their national aspirations for deliverance from Rome. They “despised” Him and did not “esteem Him”; a Roman cross would be the culmination of this attitude, and of His sorrows.