Verse 4
4. Surely . . . our griefs—literally, "But yet He hath taken (or borne) our sicknesses," that is, they who despised Him because of His human infirmities ought rather to have esteemed Him on account of them; for thereby "Himself took OUR infirmities" (bodily diseases). So :- quotes it. In the Hebrew for "borne," or took, there is probably the double notion, He took on Himself vicariously (so Isaiah 53:5; Isaiah 53:6; Isaiah 53:8; Isaiah 53:12), and so He took away; His perfect humanity whereby He was bodily afflicted for us, and in all our afflictions (Isaiah 63:9; Hebrews 4:15) was the ground on which He cured the sick; so that Matthew's quotation is not a mere accommodation. See Note 42 of ARCHBISHOP MAGEE, Atonement. The Hebrew there may mean to overwhelm with darkness; Messiah's time of darkness was temporary (Hebrews 4:15- :), answering to the bruising of His heel; Satan's is to be eternal, answering to the bruising of his head (compare Isaiah 50:10).
carried . . . sorrows—The notion of substitution strictly. "Carried," namely, as a burden. "Sorrows," that is, pains of the mind; as "griefs" refer to pains of the body (Psalms 32:10; Psalms 38:17). Psalms 38:17- : might seem to oppose this: "And bare our sicknesses." But he uses "sicknesses" figuratively for sins, the cause of them. Christ took on Himself all man's "infirmities;" so as to remove them; the bodily by direct miracle, grounded on His participation in human infirmities; those of the soul by His vicarious suffering, which did away with the source of both. Sin and sickness are ethically connected as cause and effect (Isaiah 33:24; Psalms 103:3; Matthew 9:2; John 5:14; James 5:15).
we did esteem him stricken—judicially [LOWTH], namely, for His sins; whereas it was for ours. "We thought Him to be a leper" [JEROME, Vulgate], leprosy being the direct divine judgment for guilt (Leviticus 13:1-59; Numbers 12:10; Numbers 12:15; 2 Chronicles 26:18-21).
smitten—by divine judgments.
afflicted—for His sins; this was the pointin which they so erred (Luke 23:34; Acts 3:17; 1 Corinthians 2:8). He was, it is true, "afflicted," but not for His sins.
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