ng in a
shameful condition. The leper was by the law condemned to be a living
representation of _sin_. No horror was like that which was felt in his
presence. _Hence_ [Pg 281] _it is the highest degree of humiliation and
abasement which is expressed by the comparison with the leper, who must
hide his face, whom God has marked._ It is the more natural to suppose
this reference to the leper, that probably, the [Hebrew: Hdl aiwiM]
likewise pointed to the leper. The leper was "one ceasing from men." In
2 Kings xv. 5; 2 Chron. xxvi. 21, a house in which lepers dwell is
called a "house of liberty," _i.e._, of separation from all human
society; compare the expression "free among the dead," in Ps. lxxxviii.
6. Lepers were considered as dead persons. Uzziah, while in his
leprosy, was, according to the passage in Chronicles already cited, cut
off from the house of the Lord, and forfeited his place there, where
all the servants of the Lord dwell with Him. To leprosy, the term
[Hebrew: ngve] in ver. 4 likewise points. _Beck's_ objection: "The
point in question here is not that which the unfortunate man does but
that which others do in reference to him," is based upon a
misconception. Neither the one nor the other is spoken of The
comparative [Hebrew: k] must not be overlooked. The comparison with the
leper, the culminating point of all contempt, is highly suitable to the
parallelism with [Hebrew: nbzh]. Ordinarily [Hebrew: mstr] is now
understood as a _substantivum verbale_: "He was like hiding of the face
before Him," _i.e._, like a thing or person before which or whom we
hide our face, because we cannot bear its horrible and disgusting
appearance. But with one before whom we hide our face, the Servant of
God could not be compared; the comparison would, in that case, be
weak.--[Hebrew: nbzh] is not the 1st pers. Fut. but Partic. Niph.,
"despised."--The close of the verse returns to its beginning, after
having been, in the middle, established and made good.

The second subdivision from ver. 4 to ver. 7 furnishes us with the key
to the sufferings of the Servant of God described in what precedes, by
pointing to their _vicarious character_, to which (ver. 7) the conduct
of the Servant of God under His sufferings corresponds.

Ver. 4. "_But our diseases He bore, and our pains He took upon Him: and
we esteemed Him plagued, smitten of God, and afflicted._"

The words [Hebrew: Hli] and [Hebrew: mkab] of the preceding verse here
appear