(Isa. 53:7)
Herod began to question the Prisoner; but Jesus remained silent. The chief priests and scribes vehemently voiced their accusations; but not a word was uttered by the Lord. Herod is the only character in history to whom Jesus is known to have applied a personal epithet of contempt. “Go ye and tell that fox” He once said to certain Pharisees … As far as we know, Herod is further distinguished as the only being who saw Christ face to face and spoke to Him, yet never heard His voice… . Christ had words—of comfort or instruction, of warning or rebuke, of protest or denunciation—yet for Herod the fox He had but disdainful and kingly silence.
(James E. Talmage Jesus the Christ: A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy Scriptures both Ancient and Modern [Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1981], 636.)
Here the image of wayward sheep in verse 6 (the human family) is shifted in verse 7 to that of an innocent sheep (Christ), who goes to the slaughter without utterance. When confronted by the high priest Caiaphas, Jesus “held his peace.” Later Herod questioned with him in many words; but he answered him nothing. Finally with Pilate, the one man who could have spared his life, Jesus “gave him no answer.” He was the Lamb of God prepared from before the foundation of the world for this ultimate and infinite sacrifice. In his sacrifice he was giving millennia of meaning to the untold number of lambs that had been offered on an untold number of altars in anticipation and similitude of this final blood offering of God’s Firstborn.”
(Jeffrey R. Holland, Christ and the New Covenant [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1997], 92–93.)
blockquote>The vivid image of Christ’s suffering in silence is symbolized by a sheep, which makes no sound as it is being sheared. Even though all our iniquities have been laid on him, “yet he opened not his mouth.” We, the straying sheep for whom he paid the debt, can hardly understand such restraint. We cry out at the slightest hurt. He conserved his power for Gethsemane and the cross.
(Ann Madsen, “What Meaneth the Words That Are Written?”, Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, vol. 10, no. 1:10.)