Abstract: In two separate passages Isaiah appears to describe the mortal Messiah as lacking in physical beauty and perhaps as even having some type of physical disfigurement (see Isaiah 52:14 and 53:2–4). On the contrary, Joseph, David, Esther, and Judith — portrayed in the biblical text as physical saviors or deliverers of Israel — are represented as beautiful in form and appearance. In fact, their beauty seems to be a significant factor in the successful exercise of their power as physical saviors of Israel. Unlike Joseph, David, Esther, and Judith, Christ may have been foreordained to descend to his mortal state with a less than attractive physical appearance and as someone who experienced illness throughout his life so that “he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities” (Alma 7:12).

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Following his initial rejection by the people of King Noah, “after the space of two years … Abinadi came among them in disguise, that they knew him not, and began again to prophesy among them” (Mosiah 12:1).1 During this second period of preaching Abinadi2 cited many of the words of Isaiah, including:

For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground. He hath no form [לא־תאר lo-toar] nor comeliness [ולא הדר ve’lo hadar]. And when we shall see him, there is no beauty [ולא־מראה ve’lo-mareh] that we should desire him [ונחמדהו ve’nechmedehu].3 He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows [מכאבות machovot] and acquainted [וידוע vidua] with grief [חלי choli]. And we hid, as it were, our faces from him. He was despised and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs [חלינו cholaenu] and car...