English · KJV

Isaiah 53:1

“The Servant's Rejection and Humiliation”Isaiah 53:1–3

King James Version
Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed?

Bible text: King James Version (1769 Blayney text) · Public domain

KJV (with Strong's)
Who hath believed H539 our report H8052? and to whom is the arm H2220 of the LORD H3068 revealed H1540?

Bible text: King James Version with Strong's numbers · Public domain

Berean Standard Bible
Who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?

Bible text: Berean Standard Bible · Public domain

American Standard Version
Who hath believed our message? and to whom hath the arm of Jehovah been revealed?

Bible text: American Standard Version (1901) · Public domain

World English Bible Messianic
Who has believed our message? To whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?

Bible text: World English Bible, Messianic edition · Public domain

Geneva Bible (1599)
Who will beleeue our report? and to whom is the arme of the Lord reueiled?

Bible text: Geneva Bible (1599) · Public domain

Young's Literal Translation
Who hath given credence to that which we heard? And the arm of Jehovah, On whom hath it been revealed?

Bible text: Young's Literal Translation · Public domain

King James Version — Interlinear
8 Hebrew words
  1. מִיmiwho?H4310InterrogPronoun Interrogative
  2. הֶאֱמִיןhe·'e·Minhas he believedH539V-Hiphil-Perf-3msVerb Hiphil Perfect 3rd Singular Masculine
  3. לִשְׁמֻעָתֵנוּlish·mu·'a·Te·nu[to] our reportH8052Prep-l ¦ N-fsc ¦ 1cpNoun Singular Feminine Construct with suffixלִ[to]שְׁמֻעָתֵreportנוּour
  4. וּזְרוֹעַu·ze·Ro·a'and [the] arm ofH2220Conj-w ¦ N-fscNoun Singular Feminine Constructוּandזְרוֹעַ[the] arm of
  5. יְהוָהYah·wehYahwehH3068N-properNoun Proper Title
  6. עַל'altoH5921PrepPreposition
  7. מִיmiwhom?H4310InterrogPronoun Interrogative
  8. נִגְלָתָהnig·La·tahhas it been revealedH1540V-Niphal-Perf-3fsVerb Niphal Perfect 3rd Singular Feminine
English is a literal word-by-word gloss of the Hebrew, not the KJV's wording. Why?

This is the original text the KJV's translators worked from — each Hebrew word with its own literal English meaning in this verse, prepared by scholars at Tyndale House, Cambridge. The KJV translates whole sentences, not word by word, so its wording differs: one Hebrew word can become several English words, and the KJV may choose “the LORD” where the gloss reads “Yahweh”. Both are faithful — they answer different questions. For the KJV's own rendering, switch to the KJV text.

Words in [ ] are added by the English.

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In the KJVVerse 18,713 of 31,102 · 60.2%

Study this verse

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This verse

Isaiah grieves that so few believe the message about the Servant, because God’s saving power comes in a form people least expect, and only those whose eyes God opens see it.

“Who hath believed our report?”

A lament, asked to grieve over unbelief. The report, shᵉmûwʻâh, is the message about the Servant that the rest of the song unfolds.

“and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed?”

The same question from God’s side. His saving power is there to be seen, and the people who see it are those to whom he uncovers it.

Passage studyIsaiah 53:1–3

The Servant Despised and Rejected

1Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed? 2For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. 3He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Summary

Isaiah opens the heart of his fourth Servant Song with a cry of sorrow: who has believed the message we brought, and who has seen the LORD’s arm at work? Then he tells why so few did. The Servant grew up before God like a young shoot out of dry ground, from humble beginnings and with an ordinary appearance that gave people little reason to desire him. He was despised and forsaken by men, a man of sorrows who knew grief from the inside, and those who saw him hid their faces and counted him of little worth. John and Paul both quote these words of Jesus Christ and the unbelief he met. The rejection described here is the setting for the rest of the chapter, where we learn that the one men despised “was wounded for our transgressions” (Isaiah 53:5).

Who hath believed our report?

These verses belong to the fourth and fullest of Isaiah’s Servant Songs, which runs from Isaiah 52:13–53:12 and stands at the heart of the book. The earlier songs show the Servant’s mission (Isaiah 42:1–9), his call and the rejection he meets (Isaiah 49:1–13), and his obedience in suffering (Isaiah 50:4–11). Just before chapter 53 begins, the LORD says that his Servant shall be “exalted and extolled, and be very high”, and yet that his visage was “so marred more than any man” (Isaiah 52:13–15). Isaiah 53 then begins abruptly, with two questions that grieve over how few will understand and accept what comes next.

The “report”, shᵉmûwʻâh, is literally “something heard”: an announcement, news, tidings. Here it is the message about the Servant, God’s chosen one, who would bring salvation through humility, suffering and a death in the place of others. The “our” most likely belongs to the prophet and those who proclaimed this message with him. To have “believed”, ʼâman, is to accept that message as true and to put one’s trust in it, which takes in the whole person as well as the mind. In its simplest form the same root means to support or nourish, as a nurse or foster-parent does.

Both questions are rhetorical. Isaiah asks them to lament, with dismay and something close to disbelief, that so few would receive God’s word about his Servant. The two lines say one thing twice, as Hebrew poetry often does: to believe the report and to have the LORD’s arm revealed to you are the same thing seen from two sides.

Why the report was so hard to believe

The people of Israel longed for a powerful king of David’s line who would defeat their enemies and restore their fortunes. A Servant who would save through humility, rejection and death ran against those hopes, so the message about him met the unbelief Isaiah grieves over here. The gospel meets the same unbelief today, because the news of Christ’s atoning death and resurrection still runs against what people expect of power and glory.

The New Testament quotes this verse twice. John writes that although Jesus had done so many signs before the people, they still did not believe on him, and he sees in that unbelief the fulfilment of Isaiah’s words (John 12:37–38). He quotes the verse in full in John 12:38. Paul quotes it in Romans 10:16, where he grieves that all have not obeyed the gospel. The unbelief Isaiah foresaw is the unbelief Jesus met, and it is a resistance of the heart as well as a doubt of the mind.

The arm of the LORD

The word zᵉrôwaʻ is the arm of the body, and it stands for force, strength and help. “The arm of the LORD” (zᵉrôwaʻ Yᵉhôvâh) is God’s own power reaching into history to deliver and save. A few verses earlier Isaiah writes, “The LORD hath made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God” (Isaiah 52:10).

Israel would have expected that arm to show itself in victory in battle, in miraculous rescue and in overwhelming strength. In this song it is revealed in a Servant who is humble, weak and suffering, which is why so few recognised it. Paul says the same of the cross: “For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God” (1 Corinthians 1:18). The gospel of Christ “is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth” (Romans 1:16).

“Revealed” means uncovered, made plain to someone. Those who see God’s saving arm in the crucified and risen Christ see it because God by his Spirit has opened their eyes, and so seeing it is a gift of his grace.

A tender plant out of a dry ground

Verse 2 begins with “For”, and it gives the reason so few believed. The “tender plant” is yôwnêq, a sucker or young twig, the kind of shoot that springs up from a tree that has been cut down. Beside it Isaiah sets a root, sheresh, coming up out of tsîyâh ʼerets, dry ground, a barren place with little to feed it. Together the two pictures speak of small, fragile and humble beginnings, and of an arrival that came quietly from an unpromising place. They also speak of God bringing life where nobody expected any.

“Before him” means before God. The Servant grows up under the LORD’s eye, watched over and guided by him even while people overlook him.

Believers differ on what the dry ground pictures. It may picture the spiritual barrenness of Israel at the time the Messiah came, or the nation’s subjection to foreign rulers, or the humble Galilean setting of his upbringing, far from the centres of power and religious authority. Each of these fits the main point, which is that the Servant would come from a place where the world would least look for him.

Jesus grew up in Nazareth, a town so obscure that Nathanael asked, “Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?” (John 1:46). At his birth his mother “laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn” (Luke 2:7), and his neighbours knew him as “the carpenter’s son” (Matthew 13:55).

No form nor comeliness

The second half of verse 2 turns to how the Servant looked. Tôʼar, “form”, is a figure or outline, a person’s general appearance. Hâdâr, “comeliness”, means ornament, splendour or majesty, the honour that marks a king. “Beauty” here is marʼeh, what the eye sees, and to “desire”, châmad, is to long for or covet. So the people who saw him found in his looks and bearing nothing to make them want him, follow him or honour him.

Israel was used to kings who looked the part. Saul was “a choice young man, and a goodly”, and “from his shoulders and upward he was higher than any of the people” (1 Samuel 9:2). The promises of a son of David who would reign in power (Isaiah 9:6–7, Psalm 2) had taught people to look for splendour. The Servant has none of that outward grandeur, and this sets up the rejection of the next verse.

In the eyes of the world Jesus had this plainness. He washed his disciples’ feet (John 13:1–17) and said, “the Son of man hath not where to lay his head” (Matthew 8:20). “He came unto his own, and his own received him not” (John 1:11), because they were looking for a conquering king.

Was Jesus plain to look at?

The verse tells us that the Servant would have an ordinary appearance, with no striking looks, regal bearing or commanding presence to draw people’s admiration. Tôʼar and hâdâr together describe the figure and splendour that make people look twice at a king, and he was unremarkable in both. Isaiah is speaking of plainness and humility, so the verse gives no reason to picture him as deformed or repulsive. His appeal lay in who he is and what he came to do, and his ordinary appearance made him approachable to everyone, the lowly most of all.

Why would God send a Messiah who drew no one’s eye?

God chose this way so that faith would rest on his power alone. Paul writes, “But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty”, and he gives the reason: “That no flesh should glory in his presence” (1 Corinthians 1:27–29).

It also shows what kind of kingdom the Messiah brings. Jesus told Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36), and with no worldly splendour to attract them, people could follow him only for his own sake, apart from any hope of political power or earthly glory.

Above all, his lowliness belonged to his saving work. He “made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant”, and “he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:6–8). In that humility he stood fully with suffering people, and God’s word to Paul holds true of him: “my strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9).

Despised and rejected of men

Verse 3 moves from how the Servant looked to how people treated him. “Despised” is bâzâh, to scorn and hold in contempt, and it comes twice in the verse, at its start and at its close, so that contempt surrounds everything in between. “Rejected” is châdêl, from a root meaning to cease or leave off. It describes one left destitute and forsaken. The words “of men” make plain that this rejection comes from people.

In Israel, where honour and shame mattered greatly, public contempt meant the loss of all standing and dignity. For a deliverer whom God had appointed, that was an unthinkable end. The psalmist speaks in the same way: “But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people” (Psalm 22:6). God’s messengers had often met scorn, as Jeremiah’s complaint shows (Jeremiah 20), and Israel had turned against God himself: “I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me” (Isaiah 1:2–4). The Servant meets that same rejection in its fullest form.

Jesus met it throughout his ministry, from the religious leaders and from his own people, and in the end even his disciples left him. His crucifixion was the height of being despised and esteemed of no account.

A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief

The word for sorrows, makʼôb, means pain, anguish and affliction, and its plural speaks of many sorrows, deeply felt. A “man of sorrows” is a man whose whole life is marked by them, in body and in spirit.

“Acquainted” is yâdaʻ, the common verb to know, which often means knowing by experience. The Hebrew phrase is y’du’a choli, “knowing grief”, and chŏlîy is the word the KJV renders “grief”. The Servant knows grief the way a person knows a close companion. He has entered into it and made it his own.

Jesus showed this most clearly in Gethsemane, where he “began to be sorrowful and very heavy” and said, “My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death” (Matthew 26:37–38), and then on the cross, in anguish of body and spirit. Because he knows grief from the inside, he is the High Priest of whom Hebrews says, “For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). In the Servant, God comes near to human pain and takes its weight on himself.

We hid our faces, and esteemed him not

The KJV’s “we hid as it were our faces from him” pictures people turning their heads away. Maçtêr is a hiding, and pânîym is the face, a word plural in form that is always used as a singular. To hide the face is to show aversion, or shame, or a wish to avoid being seen with someone. People may have turned from the Servant because of how marred he was, or because his truth made them uncomfortable, or because they wanted to stay clear of a man so despised. Jesus said, “men loved darkness rather than light” (John 3:19).

“Esteemed” is châshab, to reckon or count, to put a value on something. “We esteemed him not” means we reckoned him of no worth. The line goes further than overlooking him. It describes people who looked at the Servant and judged him worthless.

The speakers here say “we”. Those who confess this are the people who saw the Servant and turned away, and the same “we” goes on to discover in the next verses that his suffering was for them: “he was wounded for our transgressions” (Isaiah 53:5). Verse 3 prepares for that discovery. The one men despised was the Lamb of God “which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). He “made himself of no reputation” and was “found in fashion as a man” (Philippians 2:7–8), and he “his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree” (1 Peter 2:24).

Esteeming the Servant the world passed over

These three verses ask whether we have believed the report. God’s greatest work came through a Servant with no outward splendour, and the gospel of the cross still looks weak and foolish to the world. Believing it means trusting God’s way of saving even where it runs against our own sense of what power and glory ought to look like.

They also correct how we value people. We are quick to judge by looks, charm and success, and these verses show the Son of God passed over on exactly those grounds. God often does his greatest work through people and means the world overlooks, and the humble service and quiet faithfulness he values are worth our honour too.

And they tell us who our Saviour is. He was a man of sorrows, so the grief we carry is something he knows from the inside, and we can bring it to him as to one who has felt it. He was despised and rejected of men, so we have reason to stand beside the people others despise and reject, giving compassion where the world gives scorn. The faces once hidden from him can turn back to him now, and in him we find the one who bore our sins.

Last revised

Public-domain commentary

Matthew Henry

From his Commentary on the Whole Bible. Henry wrote on whole passages, and this entry covers Isaiah 53:1–3. He set out his notes in a three-level outline, kept here as he numbered it.

1662–1714 · 3 verses
Passage under commentIsaiah 53:1–3
I. II. Main points1. 2. Sub-points(1.) (2.) Details

The prophet, in the close of the former chapter, had foreseen and foretold the kind reception which the gospel of Christ should find among the Gentiles, that nations and their kings should bid it welcome, that those who had not seen him should believe in him; and though they had not any prophecies among them of gospel grace, which might raise their expectations, and dispose them to entertain it, yet upon the first notice of it they should give it its due weight and consideration. Now here he foretels, with wonder, the unbelief of the Jews, notwithstanding the previous notices they had of the coming of the Messiah in the Old Testament and the opportunity they had of being personally acquainted with him. Observe here,

I.The contempt they put upon the gospel of Christ, Isaiah 53:1.

The unbelief of the Jews in our Saviour's time is expressly said to be the fulfilling of this word, John 12:38. And it is applied likewise to the little success which the apostles' preaching met with among Jews and Gentiles, Romans 10:16. Note,

1.Of the many that hear the report of the gospel there are few, very few, that believe it. It is reported openly and publicly, not whispered in a corner, or confined to the schools, but proclaimed to all; and it is so faithful a saying, and so well worthy of all acceptation, that one would think it should be universally received and believed. But it is quite otherwise; few believed the prophets who spoke before of Christ; when he came himself none of the rulers nor of the Pharisees followed him, and but here and there one of the common people; and, when the apostles carried this report all the world over, some in every place believed, but comparatively very few. To this day, of the many that profess to believe this report, there are few that cordially embrace it and submit to the power of it.

2.Therefore people believe not the report of the gospel, because the arm of the Lord is not revealed to them; they do not discern, nor will be brought to acknowledge, that divine power which goes along with the word. The arm of the Lord is made bare (as was said, Isaiah 52:10) in the miracles that were wrought to confirm Christ's doctrine, in the wonderful success of it, and its energy upon the conscience; though it is a still voice, it is a strong one; but they do not perceive this, nor do they experience in themselves that working of the Spirit which makes the word effectual. They believe not the gospel because, by rebelling against the light they had, they had forfeited the grace of God, which therefore he justly denied them and withheld from them, and for want of that they believed not.

3.This is a thing we ought to be much affected with; it is to be wondered at, and greatly lamented, and ministers may go to God and complain of it to him, as the prophet here. What a pity is it that such rich grace should be received in vain, that precious souls should perish at the pool's side, because they will not step in and be healed!

II.The contempt they put upon the person of Christ because of the meanness of his appearance, Isaiah 53:2, Isaiah 53:3.

This seems to come in as a reason why they rejected his doctrine, because they were prejudiced against his person. When he was on earth many that heard him preach, and could not but approve of what they heard, would not give it any regard or entertainment, because it came from one that made so small a figure and had no external advantages to recommend him. Observe here,

1.The low condition he submitted to, and how he abased and emptied himself. The entry he made into the world, and the character he wore in it, were no way agreeable to the ideas which the Jews had formed of the Messiah and their expectations concerning him, but quite the reverse.

(1.)It was expected that his extraction would be very great and noble. He was to be the Son of David, of a family that had a name like to the names of the great men that were in the earth, 2 Samuel 7:9. But he sprang out of this royal and illustrious family when it was reduced and sunk, and Joseph, that son of David, who was his supposed father, was but a poor carpenter, perhaps a ship-carpenter, for most of his relations were fishermen. This is here meant by his being a root out of a dry ground, his being born of a mean and despicable family, in the north, in Galilee, of a family out of which, like a dry and desert ground, nothing green, nothing great, was expected, in a country of such small repute that it was thought no good thing could come out of it. His mother, being a virgin, was as dry ground, yet from her he sprang who is not only fruit, but root. The seed on the stony ground had no root; but, though Christ grew out of a dry ground, he is both the root and the offspring of David, the root of the good olive.

(2.)It was expected that he should make a public entry, and come in pomp and with observation; but, instead of that, he grew up before God, not before men. God had his eye upon him, but men regarded him not: He grew up as a tender plant, silently and insensibly, and without any noise, as the corn, that tender plant, grows up, we know not how, Mark 4:27. Christ rose as a tender plant, which, one would have thought, might easily be crushed, or might be nipped in one frosty night. The gospel of Christ, in its beginning, was as a grain of mustard-seed, so inconsiderable did it seem, Matthew 13:31, Matthew 13:32.

(3.)It was expected that he should have some uncommon beauty in his face and person, which should charm the eye, attract the heart, and raise the expectations of all that saw him. But there was nothing of this kind in him; not that he was in the least deformed or misshapen, but he had no form nor comeliness, nothing extraordinary, which one might have thought to meet with in the countenance of an incarnate deity. Those who saw him could not see that there was any beauty in him that they should desire him, nothing in him more than in another beloved, Song of Solomon 5:9. Moses, when he was born, was exceedingly fair, to such a degree that it was looked upon as a happy presage, Acts 7:20; Hebrews 11:23. David, when he was anointed, was of a beautiful countenance, and goodly to look to, 1 Samuel 16:12. But our Lord Jesus had nothing of that to recommend him. Or it may refer not so much to his person as to the manner of his appearing in the world, which had nothing in it of sensible glory. His gospel is preached, not with the enticing words of man's wisdom, but with all plainness, agreeable to the subject.

(4.)It was expected that he should live a pleasant life, and have a full enjoyment of all the delights of the sons and daughters of men, which would have invited all sorts to him; but, on the contrary, he was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. It was not only his last scene that was tragical, but his whole life was so, not only mean, but miserable,

- but one continued chain

Of labour, sorrow, and consuming pain.

- Sir R. Blackmore

Thus, being made sin for us, he underwent the sentence sin had subjected us to, that we should eat in sorrow all the days of our life (Genesis 3:17), and thereby relaxed much of the rigour and extremity of the sentence as to us. His condition was, upon many accounts, sorrowful. He was unsettled, had not where to lay his head, lived upon alms, was opposed and menaced, and endured the contradiction of sinners against himself. His spirit was tender, and he admitted the impressions of sorrow. We never read that he laughed, but often that he wept. Lentulus, in his epistle to the Roman senate concerning Jesus, says, "he was never seen to laugh;" and so worn and macerated was he with continual grief that when he was but a little above thirty years of age he was taken to be nearly fifty, John 8:57. Grief was his intimate acquaintance; for he acquainted himself with the grievances of others, and sympathized with them, and he never set his own at a distance; for in his transfiguration he talked of his own decease, and in his triumph he wept over Jerusalem. Let us look unto him and mourn.

2.The low opinion that men had of him, upon this account. Being generally apt to judge of persons and things by the sight of the eye, and according to outward appearance, they saw no beauty in him that they should desire him. There was a great deal of true beauty in him, the beauty of holiness and the beauty of goodness, enough to render him the desire of all nations; but the far greater part of those among whom he lived, and conversed, saw none of this beauty, for it was spiritually discerned. Carnal hearts see no excellency in the Lord Jesus, nothing that should induce them to desire an acquaintance with him or interest in him. Nay, he is not only not desired, but he is despised and rejected, abandoned and abhorred, a reproach of men, an abject, one that men were shy of keeping company with and had not any esteem for, a worm and no man. He was despised as a mean man, rejected as a bad man. He was the stone which the builders refused; they would not have him to reign over them. Men, who should have had so much reason as to understand things better, so much tenderness as not to trample upon a man in misery - men whom he came to seek and save rejected him: "We hid as it were our faces from him, looked another way, and his sufferings were as nothing to us; though never sorrow was like unto his sorrow. Nay, we not only behaved as having no concern for him, but as loathing him, and having him in detestation." It may be read, He hid as it were his face from us, concealed the glory of his majesty, and drew a veil over it, and therefore he was despised and we esteemed him not, because we could not see through that veil. Christ having undertaken to make satisfaction to the justice of God for the injury man had done him in his honour by sin (and God cannot be injured except in his honour), he did it not only by divesting himself of the glories due to an incarnate deity, but by submitting himself to the disgraces due to the worst of men and malefactors; and thus by vilifying himself he glorified his Father: but this is a good reason why we should esteem him highly, and study to do him honour; let him be received by us whom men rejected.

Historical interpretation

Five Centuries of Reception

13 surviving comments on this verse. Each one is dated, so this reads as a timeline rather than a list.

13 quotes · AD 56–542
Ante-NicenePost-Nicene
100200300400500

Select a marker to jump to its quote. Markers stagger vertically where authors wrote within a few decades of each other.

d. AD 56Romanson 10:14-17Ante-Nicene
How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things! But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report? [Isaiah 53:1] So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
d. AD 90Johnon 12:35-43Ante-Nicene
Then Jesus said unto them, Yet a little while is the light with you. Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you: for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth. While ye have light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light. These things spake Jesus, and departed, and did hide himself from them. But though he had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on him: That the saying of Esaias the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spake, Lord, who hath believed our report? and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed? [Isaiah 53:1] Therefore they could not believe, because that Esaias said again, He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them. These things said Esaias, when he saw his glory, and spake of him. Nevertheless among the chief rulers also many believed on him; but because of the Pharisees they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue: For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.
d. AD 99Clement of RomeAnte-NiceneSourceClement's First Letter to the Corinthians, Chapter 16
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. If you make an offering for sin, your soul shall see a long-lived seed. And the Lord is pleased to relieve Him of the affliction of His soul, to show Him light, and to form Him with understanding, to justify the Just One who ministers well to many; and He Himself shall carry their sins. On this account He shall inherit many, and shall divide the spoil of the strong; because His soul was delivered to death, and He was reckoned among the transgressors, and He bare the sins of many, and for their sins was He delivered." [Isaiah 53:1-12] And again He says, "I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people. All that see me have derided me; they have spoken with their lips; they have wagged their head, [saying] He hoped in God, let Him deliver Him, let Him save Him, since He delights in Him." [Psalm 22:6-8] You see, beloved, what is the example which has been given us; for if the Lord thus humbled Himself, what shall we do who have through Him come under the yoke of His grace?
d. AD 220TertullianAnte-NiceneSourceAGAINST PRAXEAS 13
Now he would most certainly have said “your arm” if he had not wished us to understand that the Father is Lord and the Son also is Lord.
AD 380Apostolic ConstitutionsPost-NiceneSourceCONSTITUTIONS OF THE HOLY APOSTLES 5:3.16
Due to their exceedingly great wickedness, they would not believe in him, as the Lord shows in these words, “Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” And afterward, “Hearing you shall hear and shall not understand; and seeing you shall see and shall not perceive, for the heart of this people has become desensitized.” Therefore, knowledge was taken from them, because when they saw, they overlooked, and when they heard, they heard nothing at all.
d. AD 411Tyrannius RufinusPost-NiceneSourceCOMMENTARY ON THE APOSTLES’ CREED 21
For it is incredible that God, the Son of God, should be spoken of and preached as having suffered these things. For this reason they are foretold by the prophets, lest any doubt should spring up in those who are about to believe.
d. AD 420JeromePost-NiceneSourceCommentary on Isaiah
(Chapter 53, verses 1 and following) Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground: he has no form or comeliness; and when we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and we hid, as it were, our faces from him; he was despised, and we did not esteem him. Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our sorrows; yet we considered him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. LXX: But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way, and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. A man in distress, and knowing how to bear infirmity, because his face is turned away, despised and not esteemed. He carries our sins, and grieves for us, and we have reckoned him to be in pain, and in affliction. After the words of the Father, by which he had announced to the world that his son would come; and before the scandal of the cross, about which he was going to say: His appearance will be inglorious, and his form unlike that of other men, he had foretold the glory of the resurrection: He will be exalted and lifted up, and will be greatly exalted: so that, by the humility of the cross, he might anticipate the glory of the resurrection. The choir of prophets responded that they had fulfilled their duty, and had proclaimed to all the power and strength of his arm, as much as they could. But concerning what he says: Who has believed our report, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? he signifies the rarity of those who believe among the Jews. And what follows: It shall spring up as a root before him; for which the LXX translated, We have announced it as a little one before him: for root, Symmachus interpreted as a branch, in order to show that the man who proceeded from the virgin womb was assumed. Of whom he infers: As a root from a thirsty land. For the thirsty one, the Eagle was interpreted as a sign, in order to demonstrate the privilege of virginity, that he was created from the earth without any human seed. This is the one about whom we read above: A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots (Isaiah 11:1), in order to signify his birth and ascent into the world. But he did not have appearance or glory; his form was ignoble and lacking compared to the sons of men, or as it is said in Hebrew, despised and the last of men, as it is said in the Psalms: Gird your sword on your thigh, O mighty one, in your glory and majesty (Psalm 45:4). What is easily solved. He was despised and ignoble when he hung on the cross, and became a curse for us, bearing our sins. And he said to the Father: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? (Matthew 27:46). But he was famous and beautiful in appearance, when the earth trembled at his passion, rocks were split, and with the sun fleeing, the elements feared eternal night. Of whom the bride also says in the Song of Songs: My beloved is white and ruddy, chosen from thousands (Song of Solomon 5:10). Candidus, in the fullness and purity of virtues, ruddy in passion, about which we will read later: Who is this that comes from Edom, his garments yellowish; chosen from thousands for resurrection; so that the one who was the firstborn of all creation might be the firstborn from the dead. And he brings forth this: a man in sorrow and knowing how to bear weakness, a man of sorrows, and knowing weakness, a true human body, and a true soul, who, knowing how to bear weaknesses, overcame them all by divinity. And his hidden and despised appearance, so that the divine power might be concealed in a human body. Regarding which it has been said above: You are a hidden God, and we did not know. He truly carried our weaknesses and sins, and he grieves for us, not just in appearance, that is, to seem so, as the ancient and new heresies suspect; but he truly was crucified. He truly suffered, saying in the Gospel: My soul is sorrowful even unto death (Matthew 26:38). And: Now is my soul troubled (John XII, 27). And we thought him to be unclean, or in pain, as the Seventy translated, for which Aquila and Symmachus translated as a leper, Theodotion, as scourged. Which in other words is understood as leprosy in Hebrew idiom, according to what is written in the Psalms: And the scourge shall not come near your tent (Ps. XC, 10). And the sense is: We thought him to be struck by God for his sins, who was humiliated for us and crucified with thieves. Regarding what Symmachus translated as Ἐν ἁφῇ ὄντα, which means 'in lepra'; Aquila rendered it as ἁφημένον, meaning 'leprosum': many, not understanding, think it was left out, and others read καθήμενον, meaning 'sitting'. At the beginning of the chapter, where it is said according to the Septuagint: 'Lord, who has believed our report?': and the arm of the Lord, to whom it is revealed (Rom. X), which testimony the apostle Paul also uses in Romans, explaining about the passion of the Lord: 'Lord' is not in the Hebrew, but for the understanding of the person to whom it is said, it was added.
d. AD 420JeromePost-NiceneSourceHOMILIES ON THE PSALMS 67, ALTERNATE SERIES (PSALM 90)
May your right hand with which you fashioned the world bring light to the world. “To whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” May your right hand with which you formed humanity take on a human body and save human persons.
d. AD 430Augustine of HippoPost-NiceneSourceSERMON 363:2
Are we correct in understanding God’s right hand to be the one of whom Isaiah says, “And the arm of the Lord, to whom has it been revealed”? That, you see, is the only Son, whom the Father did not spare “but handed him over for us all.” And thus he stretched out his right hand on the cross, and the earth devoured the godless, when they thought of themselves as victorious and of him as despicable in defeat.
d. AD 430Augustine of HippoPost-NiceneSourceTRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 53:2
For just as it is your arm through which you work, so his Word was called the arm of God, because through the Word he constructed the world. For why does a person, in order to construct something, stretch out his arm except to directly execute his will?
d. AD 430Augustine of HippoPost-NiceneSourceTRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 53:3
Look and see that he alone is Father and his arm is the Son, and there are not two but one, a person and his arm. Not understanding or noticing how the words of one thing are transferred to other things on account of some similarity in everyday speech concerning visible and well-known things, how much more when ineffable things are spoken in some way, which are said in such a way to be impossible [in another way]? For a person calls another person “his arm” through whom he does whatever he does. And if he is taken away, he mourns and says, “I have lost my arm.” And to the one who took him away, he says, “You have taken my arm away.” We can thus understand how it can be said that the Son is the arm of the Father through which the Father works all things. Failing to understand this, we remain in the shadows of error, just like those of whom it was said, “To whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”
d. AD 430Augustine of HippoPost-NiceneSourceTRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 48:7
If we should understand “hand” as power, the power of the Father and the Son is one; but if we should understand “hand” as it was said through the prophet, “And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” the hand of the Father is the Son himself.
d. AD 542Caesarius of ArlesPost-NiceneSourceSERMON 163:2
God truly put his arm around the prodigal son when he clothed his Son in human flesh. Then he exclaimed and said to all, “Take my yoke on you.” Whoever accepts the yoke of Christ is embraced as with the arm of a father and is known to be reconciled with God.
Source: Quotations drawn from early Church Fathers and historical Christian theologians (AD 100–1500). Some quotes address the surrounding passage context rather than this verse alone.

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