This verse makes three symbolic/descriptive comparisons to the coming Messiah: (1) a “tender plant,” (2) a “root” from “dry ground,” and (3) a lack of “beauty that we should desire him.” These passages are typically labeled the “suffering servant” songs; and in traditional Jewish interpretation, Israel is the suffering servant.
Ludlow suggests that the image of the Messiah as a tender plant is the infant Jesus, growing up as all children must. This image may perhaps echo the metaphor of the Messiah as a “branch” (Isa. 11:1; Jer. 23:5, 15). Both are botanical references, suggesting at least an association that should be considered.
The second image focuses on the plant’s root, rather then the tender stem and foliage. Again, it may echo such established Messianic imagery as Isaiah 11:10: “And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek: and his rest shall be glorious.” Here the “root” clearly personifies the Triumphant Messiah while in Isaiah 53:2, the “root” is the suffering Messiah. Nevertheless, the similarity is so close that Isaiah probably not only used them purposefully but understood that the suffering Messiah and the Triumphant Messiah were indeed the same person.
The dry ground contrasts with fertile soil, communicating that the Messiah’s environment will be grudging and harsh, inhospitable to his message and unwilling to accept him.
The third image describes a being who lacks physical beauty (as the KJV translates it). Joseph Fielding Smith interprets this passage: “There was nothing about him to cause people to single him out. In appearance he was like men; and so it is expressed here by the prophet that he had no form or comeliness, that is, he was not so distinctive, so different from others that people would recognize him as the Son of God. He appeared as a mortal man.” This interpretation is less pejorative and more neutral in its interpretation. However, while it is certainly true that Jesus did not attract others because of his striking physical beauty, Isaiah may be suggesting that this lack of comeliness paralleled the other “negatives” of the suffering servant. Certainly the earthly Jesus labored with his hands. Mark describes him as a tekton in Greek (Mark 6:3), which has been traditionally translated as a carpenter. John Dominic Crossan’s study of the first-century social context of the carpenter suggests that it may have been a rather undesirable profession, connoting a landless man. He also reads other statements by writers of the Gospels as hints that they may have been somewhat embarrassed by their leader’s less-than-admirable profession. (See commentary accompanying 3 Nephi 14:24–27.) James D. Tabor, chair of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, agrees with this vision of Jesus’s occupation: “To be tekton meant first and foremost that one had no land and took work as one could find it with no guarantees of security. These itinerant peasants were left to eke out a subsistence existence on two or three sesterces a day—barely enough to sustain a slave.” The more negative aspects of Isaiah’s descriptions might also apply to the mortal Messiah.
A further indication that Isaiah meant to provide a contrast between the divine nature and the physical appearance of the Atoning Messiah lies in the Hebrew word (hadar) that was translated as “comeliness” in the KJV. Kevin Barney, an attorney and student of the scriptures, notes: “Hadar means ‘ornament, splendour, honor.’ It is used, for example, to refer to grey hair for old men (Prov. 20:29), in Exodus 16:14 figuratively of the ornaments of Jerusalem as the bride of Yahweh, and in Leviticus 23:40 of the fruit of goodly (i.e., ornamental, beautiful) trees. Here it seems to mean that he had no splendour or majesty.” Isaiah is contrasting the Messiah’s real splendor with his lack of apparent earthly glory. This poetic contradiction is a stylistic feature of many of Isaiah’s writings.