Isaiah 53:3

53:3 He was despised and rejected by people, ¹ 

one who experienced pain and was acquainted with illness;

people hid their faces from him; ² 

he was despised, and we considered him insignificant. ³ 

Isaiah 37:22

37:22 this is what the Lord says about him: ⁴ 

“The virgin daughter Zion ⁵ 

despises you – she makes fun of you;

daughter Jerusalem

shakes her head after you. ⁶ 

[53:3]  ¹ tn Heb “lacking of men.” If the genitive is taken as specifying (“lacking with respect to men”), then the idea is that he lacked company because he was rejected by people. Another option is to take the genitive as indicating genus or larger class (i.e., “one lacking among men”). In this case one could translate, “he was a transient” (cf. the use of חָדֵל [khadel] in Ps 39:5 HT [39:4 ET]).

[53:3]  ² tn Heb “like a hiding of the face from him,” i.e., “like one before whom the face is hidden” (see BDB 712 s.v. מַסְתֵּר).

[53:3]  ³ sn The servant is likened to a seriously ill person who is shunned by others because of his horrible disease.

[37:22]  ⁴ tn Heb “this is the word which the Lord has spoken about him.”

[37:22]  ⁵ sn Zion (Jerusalem) is pictured here as a young, vulnerable daughter whose purity is being threatened by the would-be Assyrian rapist. The personification hints at the reality which the young girls of the city would face if the Assyrians conquer it.

[37:22]  ⁶ sn Shaking the head was a mocking gesture of derision.