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WHEN THE PROPHET SAMUEL WAS COMMANDED to anoint Israel's next king from among the sons of Jesse, he was admonished not to be distracted by the outward form and superficialities that mark the way of men and their vanities. After being initially impressed with the looks of Jesse's firstborn son Eliab, the LORD said: "Do not look on his appearance or the height of his stature..." That is, do not regard a man according to the superficial standards of worldly sagacity. Why? Because God delights to choose the least likely of candidates to confound those who are esteemed in their own eyes: "For it is not as a man sees - for man looks "according to the eyes," but the LORD looks "according the heart" (1 Sam. 16:7). Therefore it was David - the youngest son, the overlooked one, the lowly family servant covered with "schmutz" from tending his father's sheep - who was chosen; it was David who had the "beautiful eyes" (יְפֵה עֵינַיִם) of faith that were able to behold the beauty and goodness of the LORD (1 Sam. 16:12). Man looks on the outside, but God searches the heart (1 Chron. 28:9; Prov. 21:2). God turns everything upside down: what is esteemed as big in this world is small in the world to come, and vice-versa (see Luke 16:5).
A principle of spiritual life is that the "inner is not the outer," and vice-versa. People are easily deceived by mere appearances, yet the eye of faith must be trained to look beyond surface phenomena to discern the underlying Reality that upholds the world. This is perhaps most evident in the case of the cross of Yeshua, which the carnal eye regards as a matter of shame and defeat, but the eye of faith regards as the very wisdom, power, and love of Almighty God Himself. "God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God" (1 Cor. 1:27-29).
Those who rely on appearances will invariably find themselves confounded. The LORD therefore commissioned the prophet: "Go, and say to this people: 'Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive'" (Isa. 6:9). Where it is written, "God gave them over to their stubborn hearts, to follow their own devices" (Psalm 81:12; Rom. 1:24); and "they went backward and not forward" (Jer. 7:24), we learn there is no place of "neutrality" or studied indifference toward God... We are either going forward with Him or going backward; we are either drawing near or pulling our hearts away (Rev. 3:16).
"For God so loved the world" that He became entirely unesteemed -- "despised and rejected of men, a man of pains, acquainted with grief" (Isa. 53:3) – so that he could taste rejection, sorrow, pain, and death for every man (Heb. 2:9). "For our sake God made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Cor. 5:21). It was the love of God that put Yeshua on the Cross, and because of Yeshua, God exchanges our inner hell and abandonment with His everlasting love and acceptance.
נִבְזֶה וַחֲדַל אִישִׁים
אִישׁ מַכְאבוֹת וִידוּעַ חלִי
וּכְמַסְתֵּר פָּנִים מִמֶּנּוּ
נִבְזֶה וְלא חֲשַׁבְנֻהוּ
neev·zeh · va·cha·dahl · ee·sheem
eesh · makh·oh·voht · vee·doo'·a · choh·lee
oo·khe·mahs·teir · pah·neem · mee·me'·noo
neev·zeh · ve·loh · cha·shav·noo'·hoo
"He was despised and rejected by men;
a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief
and we hid, as it were our faces from Him.
He was despised and we esteemed him not"
(Isa. 53:3)
Hebrew Lesson
1 Sam. 16:7c Hebrew reading:
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