"He was despised and forsaken of men,/A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;/And like one from whom men hide their faces, / He was despised; and we did not esteem Him" (v. 3). The Hebrew word translated sorrows in verses 3 and 4 literally means pains, either physical or mental. According to Keil and Delitzsch, Christ was a "man whose chief distinction was, that His life was one of constant painful endurance." He, as a man of sorrows, was a despised person.
Christ's death was a vicarious death (vv. 4-10a, 12b). This means that He died not for Himself but for us. He died in our place. Christ's death was not a martyrdom; Christ was put to death by God for us (v. 4b). Thus, His death was a vicarious death.
In His vicarious death, Christ bore our sicknesses and carried our sorrows. "Surely He has borne our sicknesses,/ And carried our sorrows;/Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken,/Smitten of God and afflicted. But He was pierced because of our transgressions;/He was crushed because of our iniquities;/The chastening for our peace was upon Him, / And by His stripes we have been healed./We all like sheep have gone astray;/Each of us has turned to his own way,/ And Jehovah has caused the iniquity of us all/To fall on Him" (vv. 4-6). These verses use the words sicknesses and sorrows along with transgressions and iniquities (that is, sins). This raises a question: Do our sicknesses and sorrows need Christ's redemption? Sicknesses and sorrows are mentioned with transgressions and iniquities because our sicknesses and sorrows come from one thing—sin. If we had never sinned, we could never be sick and we would have no sorrow. Our transgressions and sins surely need Christ's redemption. Since our sicknesses and sorrows come from sin, they also need Christ's redemption. In Isaiah 53 we are told clearly that Christ bore our sicknesses and carried our sorrows in His vicarious death. Therefore, when we are sick, it is proper for us to pray, "Lord, because in Your death for me You bore my sicknesses, I do have the ground to ask You to take my sickness away."