7, it was proved that covering has every where the meaning of being put to shame--of being in a shameful condition. The leper was by the law condemned to be a living representation of _sin_. No horror was like that which was felt in his presence. _Hence_ [Pg 281] _it is the highest degree of humiliation and abasement which is expressed by the comparison with the leper, who must hide his face, whom God has marked._ It is the more natural to suppose this reference to the leper, that probably, the חדל אישים likewise pointed to the leper. The leper was "one ceasing from men." In 2 Kings xv. 5; 2 Chron. xxvi. 21, a house in which lepers dwell is called a "house of liberty," _i.e._, of separation from all human society; compare the expression "free among the dead," in Ps. lxxxviii. 6. Lepers were considered as dead persons. Uzziah, while in his leprosy, was, according to the passage in Chronicles already cited, cut off from the house of the Lord, and forfeited his place there, where all the servants of the Lord dwell with Him. To leprosy, the term נגוע in ver. 4 likewise points. _Beck's_ objection: "The point in question here is not that which the unfortunate man does but that which others do in reference to him," is based upon a misconception. Neither the one nor the other is spoken of The comparative כ must not be overlooked. The comparison with the leper, the culminating point of all contempt, is highly suitable to the parallelism with נבזה. Ordinarily מסתר is now understood as a _substantivum verbale_: "He was like hiding of the face before Him," _i.e._, like a thing or person before which or whom we hide our face, because we cannot bear its horrible and disgusting appearance. But with one before whom we hide our face, the Servant of God could not be compared; the comparison would, in that case, be weak.--נבזה is not the 1st pers. Fut. but Partic. Niph., "despised."--The close of the verse returns to its beginning, after having been, in the middle, established and made good. The second subdivision from ver. 4 to ver. 7 furnishes us with the key to the sufferings of the Servant of God described in what precedes, by pointing to their _vicarious character_, to which (ver. 7) the conduct of the Servant of God under His sufferings corresponds. Ver. 4. "_But our diseases He bore, and our pains He took upon Him: and we esteemed Him plagued, smitten of God, and afflicted._"