mercy, He would be hated and rejected by His own people: "Despised and the most abject of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with infirmity."[1]
One of His chosen friends would sell Him to His enemies: "And they weighed for My wages thirty pieces of silver."[2]
He would be scourged and spit upon, and buffeted, and crucified: "I have given my body to the strikers and my cheeks to them that plucked them; I have not turned away my face from them that rebuked me and spat upon me."[3] "They have dug my hands and feet. They have numbered all my bones. They have parted my garments among them, and upon my vesture they cast lots."[4]
After death He was to rise again: "For Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, nor suffer Thy Holy One to see corruption."[5]
These prophecies belonged to God's chosen people the Jews, who guarded them jealously, and studied them with diligence and delight, those especially that told of the Messiah's greatness and power: "I will make Him higher than the kings of the earth."[6] "Sit thou at My right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool."[7] They took these words to mean that He was to be a great king of this world who would make their nation the grandest of the earth, and give them in abundance honours, riches and all the pleasant things of this life. But other prophecies quite as clear which described Him as "a Man of sorrows, a Leper, One struck by God and afflicted," they passed by unnoticed. And when He came poor and lowly, a King indeed
