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pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none.”
Psalm
22:6-8, 17, 18
;
69:8, 9, 20
.
How unmistakably plain were Isaiah’s prophecies of Christ’s suf-
ferings and death! “Who hath believed our report? “the prophet
inquires, “and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? For He shall
grow up before Him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground:
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He hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see Him, there
is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and rejected
of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as
it were our faces from Him; He was despised, and we esteemed Him
not.
“Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we
did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was
wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the
chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are
healed.
“All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone to
his own way; and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He
was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth:
He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her
shearers is dumb, so He openeth not His mouth. He was taken from
prison and from judgment: and who shall declare His generation? for
He was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of
my people was He stricken.”
Isaiah 53:1-8
.
Even the manner of His death had been shadowed forth. As the
brazen serpent had been uplifted in the wilderness, so was the coming
Redeemer to be lifted up, “that whosoever believeth in Him should not
perish, but have everlasting life.”
John 3:16
.
“One shall say unto Him, What are these wounds in Thine hands?
Then He shall answer, Those with which I was wounded in the house
of My friends.”
Zechariah 13:6
.
“He made His grave with the wicked, and with the rich in His
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death; because He had done no violence, neither was any deceit in
His mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He hath put Him to
grief.”
Isaiah 53:9, 10
.
But He who was to suffer death at the hands of evil men was to
rise again as a conqueror over sin and the grave. Under the inspiration
of the Almighty the Sweet Singer of Israel had testified of the glories