What Does Isaiah 53:2 Mean in the King James?
For 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.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The life that looks least promising can already be rooted where no one expects life to grow.
THE MEANING
A life is growing before God as a tender shoot from dry ground, while its visible form offers no beauty to attract desire. Its hidden root and unlikely source expose how easily the eye mistakes unimpressive appearance for an absence of life.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that what lacks visible beauty or favorable conditions must therefore lack life or worth.
THE ROOT
שֹׁרֶשׁ
shoresh
GROWS FROM
שרש
Root; to take or become rooted.
The Hebrew word keeps the hidden source in view: the shoot is growing from a root in dry ground. In Isaiah 27:6, the same word family names taking root before blossoming and bearing fruit, joining unseen establishment to visible growth.
ALSO GROWS
sharash: To take root; become rooted.
שָׁרַשׁ
The root also names the act of becoming established, so the verse’s shoot is not merely present in dry ground, it has taken root there.
yashrish: Takes root; sends down roots.
יַשְׁרִישׁ
Isaiah 27:6 uses this form before describing Israel blossoming and bearing fruit, showing the hidden rooting that precedes what becomes visible.
יוֹנֵק
yoneq
GROWS FROM
ינק
To suck; draw nourishment by suckling.
The word rendered “tender plant” also means “suckling.” Hebrew joins the shoot’s tenderness to a living dependence on nourishment, making its growth from dry ground all the more striking.
ALSO GROWS
yanaq: To suckle or nurse.
יָנַק
The verb names drawing nourishment, so the plant image carries the sense of life still receiving what sustains it.
yonqim: Sucklings; nursing infants.
יוֹנְקִים
Psalm 8:2 uses this word family for sucklings. The same image can describe a dependent child and a tender shoot, joining vulnerability with living growth.
THE PATTERN
Life can emerge and take root in conditions that appear to deny it, before flourishing becomes visible.
For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease.He shall cause them that come of Jacob to take root: Israel shall blossom and bud, and fill the face of the world with fruit.Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.THE THREAD
And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots:The Hebrew word translated “roots” comes from the same root, שרש, as “root” in Isaiah 53:2. One verse shows a shoot rising from dry ground; the other shows a Branch growing from Jesse’s roots, repeating the image of hidden life producing new growth.
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