He Made His Grave --- Isaiah 53; Part 9

"Then answered all the people, and said,
His blood be on us, and on our children."


The elders thereof are filled with violence;
The inhabitants of the city have spoken lies,
And their tongue is deceitful in their mouths.
To His righteousness He held fast and did not let go;
His heart did not reproach Him as long as He lived;
As the crimson gates of doom were opened unto Him,
And He passed through the doors of the shadow of death.

"I should have been as though I had not been;
I should have been carried from the womb to the grave."

His place was assigned among sinners and the condemned;
Yet He abhoreth all in the congregation of evil doers,
And God surely will not permit Him to rest with the aberrant;
For the wicked are ashamed, and are silent in the grave.
The Father in Heaven will not forsake His Anointed One:
'His days are preserved forever, in glory, at My right hand;
But the seed of the wicked shall soon be cut off.'

"Then took they the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen
 Clothes with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury."

Yet did the overruling providence of Almighty God
Bear witness unto His Servant and certify His testimony,
By appointing that He should be highly esteemed in death:
Carefully; so tenderly; and mournfully was He prepared,
For rest in a noble tomb amidst an honorary garden.
Forasmuch as, without any trace of deceit in His mouth,
Did He set before them the way of life, and the way of death;
And neither did His lips drink of the wine of violence.

"Have mercy upon Me, Oh Lord; consider My trouble which
I suffer of them that hate Me, Thou that liftest Me up
From the gates of death."