In strong contrast with the kings astounded and abashed at Messiah's glory the godly remnant confess the incredulity even of the chosen people at their report.
“Who hath believed our report? and to whom hath the arm of Jehovah been revealed? For he grew (or, shall grow) up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground. No form had he nor comeliness, and when we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and shunned by 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.”
Judicial darkness overhung the people. So the prophet long before testified, according to the word of the Lord. They had eyes but they saw not; ears they had but they did not hear, and their unintelligent heart was hardened against Him who would have healed their desperate sickness. Hence there was no reception of what ought to have been the most welcome tidings, though the arm of Jehovah had been revealed unmistakably, but as yet only to a very small remnant.
Messiah's humiliation was an affront to the Jew as poor as he was proud and filled with nothing but earthly power and grandeur in his dreams of the coming king. And the root of it was the insensibility of the natural man to sin, his own sins and utter evil and ruin before God. But whatever the glorious things designed and assured to Israel, it is impossible that He could overlook iniquity. Of old they had been ready and confident to obey His law; and they made it their boast that they alone had it. But how had they kept it or honored Him? Their history, and He wrote who knew all, was a record of continual sin and rebellion. While Moses was up the mountain to receive the tables of stone on which Jehovah wrote the Ten Words, the people broke into open revolt, and made Aaron the instrument of setting up a golden calf to fall down and worship as the deliverer from Egypt, covering yet aggravating their apostasy under the proclamation of a feast to Jehovah. Wherefore that generation perished in the wilderness.
Were their sons any better under Joshua in the conquest of Canaan? Jehovah failed in nothing, they in everything; and so in Josh. 24:19 he told them, “Ye cannot serve Jehovah for he is a holy God; he is a jealous God; he will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins. If ye forsake Jehovah and serve strange gods, then will he turn and do you evil, and consume you after he hath done you good. And the people said to Joshua, Nay, but we will serve Jehovah.” But the covenant he made in this last interview of his had no more heed than that of Moses. And the book of Judges occupies its first chapter with the failure even of Judah to dispossess the defilers of the land, as the second declares that Israel served the Baalim, forsaking the God of their fathers who brought them out of Egypt. Though He raised up judges to restore them and to save them out of the hand of their enemies, they ungratefully on the death of each turned back, and behaved more corruptly than their fathers; so that His anger was kindled against (not the Amorite or the Canaanite but) Israel, and refused to drive out their enemies, left to prove His people.
But they rebelled against the best of judges, even Samuel the prophet, and would have a king like the nations, though this meant rejecting Jehovah. They soon proved that the king of their choice brought them into dismal subjection to the Philistine. And God chose David, type of the true Beloved; and things looked bright comparatively, but not without dark blots, notwithstanding the outward show of Solomon's reign, another type of the same Messiah in a different aspect. But the ruin that impended became manifest in his son Rehoboam when ten tribes revolted out of the twelve, never to know reunion till Messiah's day of power and glory.
Meanwhile the people, the priests and the kings increased their transgressions (2 Chron. 36:14), though Jehovah sent to them by His messengers; but they mocked at them till His fury rose against His people. “There was no remedy”; and they were carried to Babylon. Was the remnant any better on their return? Let the Cross of Christ, and the destruction under the Romans answer.
Yet the dry bones must live, and stand up an exceeding great army, before the union of Judah and his companions with Ephraim and his, to be one in Jehovah's hand (Ezek. 37). The chapter before lets us know the primary work on their souls when He sprinkles clean water upon them, gives them also a new heart, and replaces their stony heart with a heart of flesh; so that they repent and loathe themselves in their own sight for their iniquities and their abominations.
On what ground will this “regeneration” stand? On that very humiliation and the propitiation for sins which till now the blinded nation refused in Jesus with scorn. This is what the godly remnant take up and in the deepest contrition acknowledge to Jehovah on His call to behold His Servant before whose exaltation the kings are struck dumb.
Not so the converted remnant. They open their lips to tell out to Jehovah, not only the unbelief of others notwithstanding the fullest proof on Jehovah's part, but their own. They acknowledge their past folly and the people's in misinterpreting His matchless grace in stooping so low to vindicate God's nature and word, and to be their substitute and Savior. “O foolish and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke!” Why fix on Isa. 63 and ignore Isa. 53? Why rejoice in Messiah's treading down their foes, and forget their own sins, and their need of Him to be trodden down under divine judgment for them to be saved and brought to feel their otherwise inexpiable guilt? “Ought not the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?” as He Himself told the mourning pair on the resurrection day.
The Lord therefore took His place in the ruin of the people and of its royal house. How unlike Adam who fell in the midst of pristine excellence, beauty, and sinless enjoyment! He accepted the lowliest position at Nazareth and under the dominion of the last heathen empire, because of the sins of the people. And thence He emerged, without a single advantage of birth, power, wealth, or human learning, to glorify His Father in His living ways, to glorify God as to sin in His death (rejected by all), yet dying for the lost as indeed for everything. For His is a twofold reconciliation, not only for all believers but for all the universe of heaven and earth, that all, save the wicked and the unbelieving, may be blessed forever by His redemption. If man despised, how did not God joy in Him that was His fellow humbling Himself for His Father's glory from first to last here below, as He expressed it from heaven repeatedly! In Him was His own best pleasure. How immeasurably above coming in power and pomp! “For He grew up before Him as a tender plant and as a root out of a dry ground. No form had He nor comeliness; and when (not Gentiles, but) we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him.” Yet had they not this very word and many more to win and warn them? “He is despised and shunned (or, rejected) by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief (yes, He alike Messiah and Jehovah), and as one from whom men hide their face, He was despised, and we esteemed Him not.”