Nos. 22-26: Chorus - “Behold the Lamb of God”; Aria - “He was despised”; Chorus - “Surely he hath borne our griefs”; Chorus - “And with his stripes we are healed”; Chorus - “All we like sheep have gone astray”
John 1:29b; Isaiah 53:3a; 50:6; 53:4-6
“Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world.
He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting.
Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: [yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.] But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.”
A stark contrast in tone and texture greets us at the opening of Part Two. Rather than a solo aria, Handel uses the full chorus to proclaim John the Baptist’s words, perhaps for greater power and dramatic effect. This also invites the listeners to see their own response to Christ in the form of each chorus throughout Part Two. Here this means that the listeners/chorus play the roles of sinful humanity, the hostile crowd around the cross, and finally the “church triumphant.”
“Behold the Lamb of God” takes the form of a solemn procession, rather than the joyful context of its original setting in Scripture. Handel is here using the text as a meditation on how the Messiah takes away the sins of the world - not simply by decree or by symbolic ritual, but through undergoing one of the most shameful public methods of execution ever devised by man. The consistent dotted rhythms go beyond signifying a procession to also hint at the methods of physical punishment inflicted on Jesus throughout the Passion.
All of the movements in this section are on the flat side of the circle of fifths - G minor, E-flat major, and F minor/major. This shades the tonal palette toward the darker side of things, and by the end of “All we like sheep,” which begins in F major, the words “and the Lord hath laid on him” bring us back to F minor, the darkest of keys in the Baroque time and one that was still used to reference death much later in time (Liszt, in particular, uses F minor as a key of death in “Funerailles” and the core of the B-minor sonata).
”He was despised” is one of the emotional centers of Messiah, with its exquisite combination of deep pain, tenderness, and identification with sorrow. E-flat major, the “royal” key (Mozart’s Magic Flute overture, Beethoven Emperor concerto and Eroica symphony), gives a subtext of Christ’s status as Lord even in the midst of His suffering at the hands of His creation. The B section of the aria gives us the clearest text painting of the beating inflicted on Jesus, with incessant dotted rhythms doubling down on the texture that was hinted at in the opening chorus.
A remarkable “triplet” of choruses rounds off this section, all sharing a tonal center on F as well as words from the famous “suffering servant” chapter of Isaiah. Handel doubles the word “surely” at the opening of the piece to drive the point home, and continues the motif of dotted rhythms throughout the text, especially at “the chastisement of our griefs”. “And with his stripes” opens with a classic example of the figure of the Cross in music - two notes close together (the crossbar) followed by two notes a large distance apart (the post). Handel’s extremely unusual 4/2 time signature makes this music especially heavy and ponderous. “All we like sheep” is a fantastic portrait of scattered attention and stubbornness. At the word “astray” the musical texture splits in to all number of directions, and at the first few appearances of “every one to his own way” Handel gives the chorus an obnoxious repeating single note. Here the chorus/listeners are acknowledging both their inability to remain focused on God and their insistence on following their own path. The section closes with a solemn recitation of the consequences of these actions - “and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquities of us all.”