I would weigh with you two of those larger, and at the same time intense paradoxes of prophecy, which run throughout the prophetic word, and which Isaiah, in these wonderful words concentrates in one.
1. That He, who was foretold should Himself be the light and salvation of those who knew not God unto earth’s utmost bound, yet should fail as to those to whom He should first come, the prophet’s own nation, the people among whom alone, before He came, He was looked for, hoped for, believed in.
2. That He, whom to adore should be the glory of kings, before whose presence they should “arise” from their thrones and bow down before Him, should be first “despised of man, abhorred by the” Jewish “people,” be in the power of the rulers of this world, as a slave is in the power of his masters. (E. B. Pusey, D. D.)
