Isaiah 53:2 prophesied of Jesus:

“He has no form or comeliness, and when we see Him, there is no beauty [literally ‘appearance’] that we should desire Him.”

For this reason, I have heard it said that Jesus must have been ugly. However, that doesn’t harmonize with the obvious pattern of Old Testament types of Christ being particularly handsome. For example:

Now Joseph was handsome in form and appearance. (Genesis 39:6)

So the woman conceived and bore a son [Moses]. And when she saw that he was a beautiful child, she hid him three months. (Exodus 2:2)

Now [David] was ruddy, with bright eyes, and good-looking. And the Lord said, “Arise, anoint him; for this is the one!” (1 Samuel 16:12)

Then one of the servants answered and said, “Look, I have seen a son of Jesse the Bethlehemite [David], who is skillful in playing, a mighty man of valor, a man of war, prudent in speech, and a handsome person; and the Lord is with him.” (1 Samuel 16:18)

Then the king instructed Ashpenaz, the master of his eunuchs, to bring some of the children of Israel and some of the king’s descendants and some of the nobles, young men in whom there was no blemish, but good-looking, gifted in all wisdom, possessing knowledge and quick to understand, who had ability to serve in the king’s palace, and whom they might teach the language and literature of the Chaldeans… Now from among those of the sons of Judah were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. (Daniel 1:3-4, 6)

It would be odd for these types of Christ to be called out as handsome, only to have their antitype be ugly. A more logical interpretation of this verse from Isaiah is that it refers not to Jesus’ physical beauty, but His appeal on a surface level.

Consider: Jesus’s life circumstances significantly subverted Israelite expectations for their Messiah. He was a King who grew up poor in a backwater town (John 1:46) and then was a blue-collar worker for most of His life (Mark 6:3). Eventually He became a rabbi, which was a respectable position, but the masses were expecting Him to march into Jerusalem and cast off Roman rule. Instead, He wandered around preaching about personal morality.

Jesus spent lots of time partying with the scum of society and breaking social norms that defined what a “good” person looked life. And even when He did finally come to Jerusalem as a triumphant King, He continued to preach about morality and holiness instead of taking any political action. The Jews got so disillusioned with Him that they went ahead and called for His execution rather than bother paying attention to anything He was actually saying.

A poor itinerant ex-carpenter keeping company with nobodies and harping on the nuances of interpreting the Old Testament is not what people expected from the Savior of mankind. In this way, Jesus had “no form or comeliness, and when they saw Him, there was no appearance that they should desire Him,” even though He was most likely physically handsome.