Eight hundred years before the birth of Christ, Isaiah paints the scene for the coming of the Messiah. The specific details of this prophesy describe how the messiah would come in the context of unbelief. The messiah, would grow up like a tender plant before Him.

For [the Servant of God] grew up before Him like a tender plant, and like a root out of dry ground; He has no form or comeliness [royal, kingly pomp], that we should look at Him, and no beauty that we should desire Him.

(Isaiah 53:2 AMPC)

When you see the words “tender plant” picture a seed that represents the sons of the next generation, then picture the sun at the horizon and the drawing in of light. Combined these mean "child drawn in". The bringing in and holding close of an infant to the breast. This babe was to be born in Bethlehem and as we know from the history of the story of Christ he was born in a manager to an unknown young couple from Nazareth. There was nothing special, on the surface, about this child. He was to become a man that would be “rejected and despised,” His “worth would not be appreciated.” But it was this child that would bear the grief, sorrow and distress of us all. The people would consider his affliction as coming from God Himself.

It says that he would be “wounded for our transgressions.” A transgression occurs when someone draws a line in the sand that is crossed. We have all crossed God’s intended line in the sand, we have failed to represent Him well in the Earth. He would be “bruised for our guilt and iniquities.” By “his stripes” (that wounded him) “we are healed and made whole.” Just like Israel “all we like sheep have gone astray,” but “the Lord (God) has made “our guilt” to be “upon him.”

It is as if Isaiah was standing at the foot of the cross describing the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth. It describes him being “oppressed, yet when He was afflicted, He was submissive and opened not His mouth. Whoever this Messiah would be he would be taken from judgement and for His Generation He would be considered “cut out of the land of the living” for a specific stated purpose. For the “transgression of my people, to whom the stroke was due.” So Isaiah describes a man dying specifically for sins that they should have instead died for themselves. He would “open not his mouth,” just like Christ did before Pilate when He was asked “Aren’t you going to say something to defend yourself?”

The prophesy continues by saying “they assigned him a grave with the wicked,” and Christ was crucified between two hardened criminals. “With a rich man in His death,” Joseph of Arimathea donated his own tomb for Jesus. It said “although He had done no violence,” Jesus was completely innocent of the charges set before Pilate and even Pilate said as much himself. “Nor was deceit in His mouth,” He completely told the truth. But then in the strangest of statements Isaiah says “Yet it was the will of the Lord to bruise him.” God’s plan all along was to be incarnated as a human (called the “Son of God”) and wrongly sentenced to die as one who was completely innocent, just like the spotless Lamb of the sacrifice. God intended for the Messiah to be “grieved and made sick,” so that He could “bear our sickness” in Himself. This was God’s will and Isaiah foretold it all hundreds of years before the birth of Christ.