Isaiah 52:14 - Exposition

As many were astonied at thee. The world was "astonied" to see, in One come to deliver it, no outward show of grandeur or magnificence, no special beauty or "comeliness" ( Isaiah 53:2 ), but a Presence unattractive to the mass of men at all times, and in the end so cruelly marred and disfigured as to retain scarcely any resemblance to the ordinary form and face of man. The prophet, as Delitzsch says, sits at the foot of the cross on Calvary, and sees the Redeemer as he hung upon the accursed tree, after he had been buffeted, and crowned with thorns, and smitten, and scourged, and crucified, when his face was covered with bruises and with gore, and his frame and features distorted with agony.