And he shall grow up as a tender plant before him, and as a root out of a thirsty ground: there is no beauty in him, nor comeliness: and we have seen him, and there was no sightliness, that we should be desirous of him:
Rashi
And he came up like a sapling before it This people, before this greatness came to it, was a very humble people, and it came up by itself like a sapling of the saplings of the trees. and like a root he came up from dry land. neither form had he in the beginning, nor comeliness. and we saw him that he had no appearance. Now shall we desire him? And when we saw him from the beginning without an appearance, how could we desire him? Now shall we desire him? This is a question.
Hebrew and Aramaic words are the commentator’s citations of the sacred text; the English translation that follows each is the translator’s.
Imported from an open dataset — not yet checked against the printed edition.