Isaiah 53:7

He prays, but he hears prayer. He weeps, but he causes tears to cease. He asks where Lazarus was laid, for he was man; but he raises Lazarus, for he was God. He is sold, and very cheap, for it is only for thirty pieces of silver, but he redeems the world, and that at a great price, for the price was his own blood. As a sheep he is led to the slaughter, but he is the shepherd of Israel, and now of the whole world also. As a lamb he is silent, yet he is the Word and is proclaimed by the voice of one crying in the wilderness. He is bruised and wounded, but he heals every disease and every infirmity. He is lifted up and nailed to the tree, but by the tree of life he restores us, yes, he saves even the robber crucified with him. … He dies, but he gives life, and by his death, he destroys death. He is buried, but he rises again; he goes down into hell, but he brings up the souls; he ascends to heaven and shall come again to judge the living and the dead.

It was fitting for him to heal like by like and to recall the other wandering sheep by becoming a sheep himself. He became a sheep, without being changed into one, or without being altered or without quitting his own essence.… For, according to Isaiah, …

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. For He endured the cross not out of necessity, but out of His own will, saying in the Gospel: 'The cup which My Father has given Me, shall I not drink it?' (John XVIII, 11). And to Peter, who was scandalized by the name of the cross because he did not know the mystery and was trembling with human fear, He said: 'Get behind me, Satan, you are a stumbling block to me; for you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of men' (Matthew XVI, 23). Otherwise, if He had not been willingly offered, He who could indicate and foretell the traitor and was speaking to the Apostles, 'You will all fall away because of Me this night,' could have caused those who were sent to him to turn away, but he boldly came to meet them and offered Himself saying, 'Whom do you seek?' (John XVIII, 4, 6). Those who immediately fell backward; for they could not bear the voice of the present God. And beautifully he added: And he did not open his mouth. When Pilate said to him: Don't you speak to me? he refused to answer. Or according to the Septuagint: He did not open his mouth in affliction. Or according to Symmachus and Theodotion, he did not open his mouth when he heard.

He was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before the shearer, so was he dumb. The Ethiopian eunuch on reading this passage asked Philip to interpret it to him, and he at once explained that it was spoken by the …

For Christ is of those who are humble-minded, and not of those who exalt themselves over His flock. Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Sceptre of the majesty of God, did not come in the pomp of pride or arrogance, although He might have done so, but in a lowly condition, as the Holy Spirit had declared regarding Him. For He says, "Lord, who has believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? We have declared [our message] in His presence: He is, as it were, a child, and like a root in thirsty ground; He has no form nor glory, yea, we saw Him, and He had no form nor comeliness; but His form was without eminence, yea, deficient in comparison with the [ordinary] form of men. He is a man exposed to stripes and suffering, and acquainted with the endurance of grief: for His countenance was turned away; He was despised, and not esteemed. He bears our iniquities, and is in sorrow for our sakes; yet we supposed that [on His own account] He was exposed to labour, and stripes, and affliction. But He was wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we were healed. All we, like sheep, have gone astray; [every] man has wandered in his own way; and the Lord has delivered Him up for our sins, while He in the midst of His sufferings opens not His mouth. He was brought as a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before her shearer is dumb, so He opens not His mouth. In His humiliation His judgment was taken away; who shall declare His generation? For His life is taken from the earth. For the transgressions of my people was He brought down to death. And I will give the wicked for His sepulchre, and the rich for His death, because He did no iniquity, neither was guile found in His mouth. And the Lord is pleased to purify him by stripes. […]

For the spiritually dead and unholy Caiaphas asked him, "I put you under oath to the living God to tell us if you are the Chist, the Son of God." And he answered him right away, saying, "From now on you will see the Son of man seated at the right hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven." And then Pilate asked him whether he was king of Israel, and Christ replied, "You say so." Pilate was complacent with the madness of the Jews and had Jesus beaten, and he ordered his soldiers to put him between two thieves in his suffering of death on the cross. So what the prophet said was true: "Because of his affliction he did not open his mouth." But he suffered a myriad of afflictions from the time of his arrest onwards, suffered insolence and spitting and the beatings of mindless underlings and other things beside these that could be wickedly arranged, before he was brought to Pilate.

When this one came from heaven to earth for the sake of the one who suffers, and had clothed himself with that very one through the womb of a virgin, and having come forth as man, he accepted the sufferings of the sufferer through his …

He was offered. Here he shows his meekness in suffering. And first, he sets out the meekness itself, and first, as to his voluntary offering of himself: he was offered, to God the Father as a victim for us, because it was his own will: …

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,....

Oppression is a sore affliction; it has made many a wise man mad ( Eccl. vii. 7 ); but our Lord Jesus, though, when he was oppressed, he was afflicted, kept possession of his own soul. He was judged and imprisoned, as is implied in his being taken from prison and judgment,

By this will we are sanctified, his making his own soul, his own life, an offering for our sin. It was for our good, and in our stead, that Jesus Christ suffered. This is asserted here plainly and fully, and in a very great variety of emphatical expressions.

He was oppressed - (נגשׂ niggas'). Lowth renders this, ‘It was exacted.’ Hengstenberg, ‘He was abased.’ Jerome (the Vulgate), ‘He was offered because he was willing.’ The Septuagint ‘He, on account of his affliction, opened not his mouth,’ implying that his silence arose from the extremity of his sorrows.

It is very suggestive of the way in which our Lord Jesus took the sinner's place that we are here, in the context, compared to sheep—"All we like sheep have gone astray," and then He who comes to take our place is also compared to a sheep—"As a sheep before her shearers is dumb." It is wonderful how complete was the interchange of positions between Christ and His people so that what they were He became in order that what He is they may become! See how closely He became like His brethren?

LOWTH'S translation, "He was made answerable," is hardly admitted by the Hebrew. opened not . . . mouth-- Jer 11:19; and David in Ps 38:13, 14; 39:9, prefiguring Messiah (Mt 26:63;

quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — unbalanced-parens

It is very suggestive of the way in which our Lord Jesus took the sinner's place that we are here, in the context, compared to sheep—"All we like sheep have gone astray," and then He who comes to take our place is also compared to a sheep—"As a sheep before her shearers is dumb." It is wonderful how complete was the interchange of positions between Christ and His people so that what they were He became in order that what He is they may become! See how closely He became like His brethren? I can very well understand how we should be compared to the sheep and He to the shepherd, but I should never have dared to coin the comparison which likens Him to a sheep! I dare try to explain, but I should never have dared to utter it if I had not found it here. To liken the Son of the Highest to a sheep would have been unpardonable presumption had not His own Spirit employed the condescending figure. Though the emblem is very gracious, it is by no means novel, for our Lord had been long before Isaiah's day typified in the Lamb of the Passover. To call Him, "the Lamb of God which takes away the sin of the world," is a very frequent mode of explaining to us how He made expiation for our transgressions and, indeed, even in His Glory He is the Lamb in the midst of the Throne before whom angels and the redeemed are bowing. I delight to bring before your minds the amazing communion between yourselves and Jesus—you "like sheep" and He "as a sheep"—you like sheep in your wanderings, He like a sheep in His patience. You more like sheep—I mean myself and you—more like sheep for foolishness, but He only like a sheep for the sweet submissiveness of His Spirit, so that beneath the shearer's hand, "He opens not His mouth." I will not keep you with any preface, but invite you to consider, first, OUR SAVIOR'S PATIENCE under the figure of a sheep before her shearers.