paradise is not without human occupants; but when you enter it you find joy and gladness therein, and hear thanksgiving at the wondrous change that has taken place, as well as the voice of melody (zimrdh as in Amos v. 23). The pleasant land is therefore full of men in the midst of festal enjoyment and activity. As Sarah gave birth to Isaac after a long period of barrenness, so Zion, a second Sarah, will be surrounded by a joyous multitude of children after a long period of desolation.
But the great work of the future extends far beyond the restoration of Israel, which becomes the source of salvation to all the world. Vers. 4, 5. " Hearken unto me, my people, and give ear unto me, 0 my congregation! for instruction will go forth from me, and I make a place for my rigid, to be a light of the nations. My righteousness is near, my salvation is drawn out, and my arms ivill judge nations: the hoping of the islands looks to me, and for mine arm is their waiting." It is Israel which is here summoned to hearken to the promise introduced with kl. ^Kp is only used here of Israel, like Al in Zeph. ii. 9; and the LXX. (/cat ol /SaatXet?) have quite misunderstood it. An address to the heathen would be quite out of harmony with the character of the whole prophecy, which is carried out quite consistently throughout. '•Dy and *,D1^, therefore, are not plurals, as the Syriac supposes, although it cannot be disputed that it is a rare thing to meet with the plural form apocopated thus, after the form of the talmudic Aramaean (see, for example, p. 89; and see also at Ps. xlv. 9). What ch. xlii. 1 sqq. describes as the calling of the servant of Jehovah, viz. to carry out justice among the nations, and to plant it on the earth, appears here as the act of Jehovah; but, as a comparison *of ^NE with Ps2tt? (ch. ii. 3) clearly shows, as the act of the God who is present in Israel, and works from Israel outwards. Out of Israel sprang the Saviour; out of Israel the apostleship; and w7hen God shall have mercy upon Israel again, it will become to the whole world of nations " life from the dead." The thordh referred to here is that of Sion, as distinguished from that of Sinai, the gospel of redemption, and mishpdt the new order of life in which Israel and the nations are united. Jehovah makes for this a place of rest, a firm standing-place, from which its light to lighten the nations streams forth in all directions. WW as in Jen xxxi. 2, 1. 34, from W"J, in the sense of the Arabic +frj> to return, to procure return, entrance, and rest; a different word from V^ in ch. li. 15, which signifies the very opposite, viz. to disturb, literally to throw into trembling, pro and VW, which occur in ver. 5a, are synonyms throughout these prophecies. The meaning of the former is determined by the character of the thorah, which gives " the knowledge of salvation" (Luke i. 77), and with that " the righteousness of God" (Rom. i. 17; cf. Isa. liii. 11). This righteousness is now upon the point of being revealed; this salvation has started on the way towards the fullest realization. The great mass of the nations fall under the judgment which the arms of Jehovah inflict, as they cast down to the ground on the right hand and on the left. When it is stated of the islands, therefore, that they hope for Jehovah, and wait for His arm, the reference is evidently to the remnant of the heathen nations which outlives the judgment, and not only desires salvation, and is susceptible of it, but which actually receives salvation (compare the view given in John xi. 52, which agrees with that of Isaiah, and which, in fact, is the biblical view generally, e.g. Joel iii. 5). To these the saving arm (the singular only was suitable here; cf. Ps. xvi. 11) now brings that salvation, towards which their longing was more or less consciously directed, and which satisfied their inmost need. Observe in ver. 5 the majestic and self-conscious movement of the rhythm, with the effective tone of y'yachelun.
The people of God are now summoned to turn their eyes upwards and downwards: the old world above their heads and under their feet is destined to destruction. Ver. 6. " Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look upon the earth beneath: for the heavens will pass away like smoke, and the earth fall to pieces like a garment, and its inhabitants die out like a nonentity; and my salvation will last for ever, and my righteousness does not go to ruin." The reason for the summons follows with kl. The heavens will be resolved into atoms, like smoke: nimldchu from mdlach, related to mdrach, root mal, from which comes mdlal (see at Job xiv. 2), to rub to pieces, to crumble to pieces, or mangle; Aquila, rj\orj6r]crav, from aXoav, to thresh. As m'ldchlm signifies rags, the figure of a garment that has fallen to pieces, winch was then quite ready to hand (ch. 1. 9), presented itself from the natural association of ideas. Rrt&fj however, cannot mean " in like manner" (LXX., Targ., Jerome); for if we keep to the figure of a garment falling to pieces, the figure is a very insipid one; and if we refer it to the fate of the earth generally, the thought which it offers is a very tame one. The older expositors were not even acquainted with what is now the favourite explanation, viz. " as gnats perish" (Hitzig, Ewald, Umbreit, Knobel, Stier, etc.); since the singular of kinnlm is no more ken than the singular of D^3 is J*?3. The gnat (viz. a species of stinging gnat, probably the diminutive but yet very troublesome species which is called akol uskut, u eat and be silent," in Egyptian) is called kinndh, as the talmudic usage shows, where the singular, which does not happen to be met with in the Old Testament, is found in the case of kinnlm as well as in that of betslm} We must explain the word in the same manner as in 2 Sam. xxiii. 5, Num. xiii. 33, Job ix. 35. In all these passages ken merely signifies " so" (ita, sic); but just as in the classical languages, these words often derive their meaning from the gesture with which they are accompanied (e.g. in Terence's Eunuch: Cape hoc flabellum et ventulum sic facito). This is probably Ruckert's opinion, when he adopts the rendering: and its inhabitants " like so" (so zvie so) do they die. But " like so" is here equivalent to " like nothing." That the heavens and the earth do not perish without rising again in a renewed form, is a thought which may naturally be supplied, and which is distinctly expressed in ver. 16, ch. lxv. 17, lxvi. 22. Righteousness (ts'ddqdh) and salvation (yeshudh) are the heavenly powers, which acquire dominion through the overthrow of the ancient world, and become the foundations of the new (2 Pet. iii. 13). That the tseddqdh will endure for ever, and the yeshudh will not be broken (yechath, as in ch. vii. 8, confringetur, whereas in ver. 7 the meaning is consternemini), is a prospect that opens after the restoration of the new world, and which indirectly
1 Kinnam, in Ex. viii. 13, 14, whether it be a collective plural or a singular, also proves nothing in support of ken, any more than middah in Job xi. 9 (which see) in favour of mad, in the sense of measure. It does not follow, that because a certain form lies at the foundation of a derivative, it must have been current in ordinary usage.
applies to men who survive the catastrophe, having become partakers of righteousness and salvation. For righteousness and salvation require beings in whom to exert their power.
Upon this magnificent promise of the final triumph of the counsel of God, an exhortation is founded to the persecuted church, not to be afraid of men. Vers. 7, 8. " Hearken unto me, ye that know about righteousness, thou people with my law in the heart; fear ye not the reproach of mortals, and be ye not alarmed at their revilings. For the moth will devour them like'a garment, and the worm devour them like woollen cloth; and my righteousness will stand for ever, and my salvation to distant generations." The idea of the "servant of Jehovah," in its middle sense, viz. as denoting the true Israel, is most clearly set forth in the address here. They that pursue after righteousness, and seek Jehovah (ch. li. 1), that is to say, the servants of Jehovah (ch. lxv. 8, 9), are embraced in the unity of a " people," as in ch. lxv. 10 (cf. ch. x. 24), i.e. of the true people of God in the people of His choice, and therefore of the kernel in the heart of the whole mass, — an integral intermediate link in the organism of the general idea, which Havernick and, to a certain extent, Hofmann eliminate from it,1 but not without thereby destroying the typical mirror in which the prophet beholds the passion of the One. The words are addressed to those who know from their own experience what righteousness
1 Havernick, in his Lectures on the Theology of the Old Testament, published by H. A. Hahn, 1848, and in a second edition by H. Schultz, 1863; Drechsler, in his article on the Servant of Jehovah, in the Lath. Zeitschrift, 1852; v. Hofmann, in his Schriftbeweis, ii. 1, 147. The first two understand by the servant of Jehovah as an individual, the true Israel personified: the idea has simply Israel as a whole at its base, i.e. Israel Avhich did not answer to its ideal, and the Messiah as the summit, in whom the ideal of Israel was fully realized. Drechsler goes so far as to call the central link, viz. an Israel true to its vocation, a modern abstraction that has no support in the Scriptures. Hofmann, however, says that he has no wish to exclude this central idea, and merely wishes to guard against the notion that a number of individuals, whether Israelites generally or pious Israelites, are ever intended by the epithet " servant of Jehovah." " The nation," he says himself at p. 145, " was called as a nation to be the servant of God, but it fulfilled its calling as a church of believers." And so say we; but we also add that this church is a kernel always existing within the outer ecclesia mixta, and therefore always a number of individuals, though they are only known to God.
is as a gift of grace, and as conduct in harmony with the plan of salvation, i.e. to the nation, which bears in its heart the law of God as the standard and impulse of its life, the church which not only has it as a letter outside itself, but as a vital power within (cf. Ps. xl. 9). None of these need to be afraid of men. Their despisers and blasphemers. are men (Jenosh; cf. vcr. 12, Ps. ix. 20, x. 18), whose pretended omnipotence, exaltation, and indestructibility, are an unnatural self-convicted lie. The double figure in ver. 8, which forms a play upon words that cannot well be reproduced, affirms that the smallest exertion of strength is quite sufficient to annihilate their sham greatness and sham power; and that long before they are actually destroyed, they carry the constantly increasing germ of it within themselves. The sds, says a Jewish proverb, is brother to the 'ash. The latter (from 'dsliesh, collabi, Arab. \iththa, trans, corrodere) signifies a moth; the former (like the Arabic sus, suse, Gr. 0-779) a moth, and also a weevil, curculio. The relative terms in Greek are cr?;? (Armen. tzetz) and /a'9. But whilst the persecutors of the church succumb to these powers of destruction, the righteousness and salvation of God, which are even now the confidence and hope of His church, and the full and manifest realization of which it will hereafter enjoy, stand for ever, and from " generation to generation," ledor dorim, i.e. to an age which embraces endless ages within itself. But just as such an exhortation as this followed very naturally from the grand promises with which the prophecy commenced, so does a longing for the promised salvation spring out of this exhortation, together with the assurance of its eventual realization. Vers. 9-11. "Awake, awake, clothe thyself in mighty 0 arm of Jehovah; awake, as in the days of ancient time, the ages of the olden world! Was it not thou that didst split Rahab in pieces, and pierced the dragon? Was it not thou that didst dry up the sea, the waters of the great billow; that didst turn the depths of the sea into a way for redeemed to pass through f And the emancipated of Jehovah will return, and come to Zion with shouting, and everlasting joy upon their head: they grasp at gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing flee away." The paradisaical restoration of Zion, the new world of righteousness and salvation, is a work of the arm of Jehovah, i.e. of the manifestation of His might. His arm is now in a sleeping state. It is not lifeless, indeed, but motionless. Therefore the church calls out to it three times, " Awake " (uri: to avoid monotony, the milra and milel tones are interchanged, as in Judg. v. 12).1 It is to arise and put on strength out of the fulness of omnipotence (Idbhesh as in Ps. xciii. 1; cf. \a/j,/3dveiv Svvafiiv, Rev. xi. 17, and Bvaeo aXfctfv, arm thyself with strength, in //. xix. 36, ix. 231). The arm of Jehovah is able to accomplish what the prophecy affirms and the church hopes for; since it has already miraculously redeemed Israel once. Rahabh is Egypt represented as a monster of the waters (see ch. xxx. 7), and tannin is the same (cf. xxvii. 1), but with particular reference to Pharaoh (Ezek. xxix. 3). ^iTTINj tu illud, is equivalent to "thou, yea thou" (see at ch. xxxvii. 16). The Red Sea is described as the " waters of the great deep " (tfhom rabbdh), because the great storehouse of waters that lie below the solid ground were partially manifested there (see Genesis, p. 259). ntpfe>n has double pashta; it is therefore milel, and therefore the* third pr. = HDb nefc (Ges. § 109, Anf.). Ch. xxxv. 10 is repeated in ver. 11, being attached to Dv^KJ of the previous verse, just as it is there. Instead of *W piW^ which we find here, we have there ^DJI WtS^; in everything else the two passages are word for word the same. Hitzig, Ewald, and Knobel suppose that ver. 11 was not written by the author of these addresses, but wras interpolated by some one else. But in ch. lxv. 25 we meet with just the same kind of repetition from ch. i.-xxxix.; and in the first part we find, at any rate, repetitions in the form of refrains and others of a smaller kind (like ch. xix. 15, cf. ch. ix. 13). And ver. 11 forms a conclusion here, just as it does in ch. xxxv. 10. An argument is founded upon the olden time with reference to the things to be expected now; the look into the future is cleared and strengthened by the look into the past. And thus will the emancipated of Jehovah return, being liberated from the present calamity as they were delivered from the Egyptian then. The first half of this prophecy is here brought to a close. It concludes with expressions of longing and of hope, the echo of promises that had gone before.
In the second half the promise commences again, but with more distinct reference to the oppression of the exiles and the 1 See Norzi and Luzzatto's Grammatica delta Lingua Ebr. § 513.
sufferings of Jerusalem. Jehovah Himself begins to speak now, setting His seal upon what is longed and hoped for. Vers. 12-15. " /, I am your comforter: who art thou, that thou shouldst be afraid of a mortal who will die, and of a son of man who is made a blade of grass; that thou shouldst forget Jehovah thy Creator, who stretched out the heavens and founded the earth; thai thou shouldst be afraid continually all the day of the fury of the tormentor, as he aims to destroy? and where is the fury of the tormentor left? lie that is bowed down is quickly set loose, and does not die to the grave, and his bread does not fail him; as truly as I Jehovah am thy God, who frighteneth up the sea, so that its waves roar: Jehovah of hosts is His name" wn after \pix ^JX is an emphatic repetition, and therefore a strengthening of the subject (civtos iyco), as above, in ver. 10, in IWTFIR. From this major, that Jehovah is the comforter of His church, and by means of a minor, that whoever has Him for a comforter has no need to fear, the conclusion is drawn that the church has no cause to fear. Consequently we cannot adopt Knobel's explanation, " How small thou art, that thou art afraid." The meaning is rather, u Is it really the case with thee (i.e. art thou then so small, so forsaken), that thou hast any need to fear" (fut. consec, according to Ges. § 129, 1; cf. ki, Ex. iii. 11, Judg. ix. 28)? The attributive sentence tdmuth (who will die) brings out the meaning involved in the epithet applied to man, viz. 'gnosh (compare in the Persian myth Gayomard, from the old Persian gaya meretan, mortal life); TVn = TOT3 (Ps. xxxvii. 2, xc. 5, ciii. 15; compare above, ch. xl. 6-8) is an equation instead of a comparison. In ver. 12b the address is thrown into a feminine form, in ver. 13a into a masculine one; Zion being the object in the former, and (what is the same thing) Israel in the latter: that thou forgettest thy Creator, who is also the almighty Maker of the universe, and soarest about in constant endless alarm at the wrath of the tormentor, whilst he is aiming to destroy (pichad, contremiscere, as in Prov. xxviii. 14; kdaslier as in Ps. lvi. 7, Num. xxvii. 14, lit. according as; konen, viz. his arrows, or even his bow, as in Ps. xi. 2, vii. 13, cf. xxi. 13). We must not translate this quasi disposuisset, which is opposed to the actual fact, although syntactically possible (Job x. 19; Zech. x. 6). The question with which the fear is met; " And where is the fury of tho VOL. II. T tormentor?" looks into the future: " There is not a trace of him to be seen, he is utterly swept away." If hammetslq signifies the Chaldean, ver. 14, in which the warning passes into a promise, just as in the first half the promise passed into a warning, is not to be understood as referring to oppression by their own countrymen, who were more heathenish than Israelitish in their disposition, as Knobel supposes; but tsoeh (from tsct dht to stoop or bend) is an individualizing description of the exiles, who were in captivity in Babylon, and some of them actually in prison (see ch. xlii. 7, 22). Those who were lying there in fetters, and were therefore obliged to bend, hastened to be loosed, i.e. would speedily be set at liberty (the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus may be referred to here); they would not die and fall into the pit (constr. pro?gnans), nor would their bread fail; that is to say, if we regard the two clauses as the dissection of one thought (which is not necessary, however, though Hitzig supports it), " he will not die of starvation." The pledge of this is to be found in the all-sufficiency of Jehovah, who throws the sea into a state of trembling (even by a threatening word, g^drdh; V^ is the construct of the participle, with the tone upon the last syllable, as in Lev. xi. 7, Ps. xciv. 9: see Bar's Psalter, p. 132, from rdgd, tremefacere), so that its waves roar (cf. Jer. xxxi. 35, and the original passage in Job xxvi. 12).
The promise, as the pledge of which Jehovah has staked His absolute power, to which everything must yield, now rises up to an eschatological height, from the historical point at which it began. Ver. 16. "And I put my words into thy mouth, and in the shadow of my hand have I covered thee, to plant heavens, and to found an earth, and to say to Zion, Thou art my people" It is a lofty calling, a glorious future, for the preparation and introduction of which Israel, although fallen as low as vrer. 7 describes, has been equipped and kept in the shadow of unapproachable omnipotence. Jehovah has put His words into the mouth of this Israel — His words, the force and certainty of which are measured by His all-determining absoluteness. And what is the exalted calling which it is to subserve through the medium of these words, and for which it is preserved, without previously, or indeed at any time, passing away? We must not render it, " that thou mayest plant,"
etc., with which the conclusion docs not harmonize, viz. " that thou mayest say," etc.; for it is not Israel who says this to Israel, but Jehovah says it to Israel. The planter, founder, speaker, is therefore Jehovah. It is God's own work, to which Israel is merely instrumentally subservient, by means of the words of God placed in its mouth, viz. the new creation of the world, and the restoration of Israel to favour; both of them, the former as well as the latter, regalia of God. The reference is to the last times. The Targum explains it thus: " to restore the people of whom it is said, They will be as numerous as the stars of heaven; and to perfect the church, of which it is said, They will be as numerous as the dust of the earth.'* Knobel understands by this a completion of the theocracy, and a new arrangement of the condition of the world; Ewald, a new spiritual creation, of which the liberation of Israel is the first corner-stone. But the prophecy speaks of a new heaven and a new earth, in something more than a figurative sense, as a new creation of God (ch. lxv. 17). Jehovah intends to create a new world of righteousness and salvation, and practically to acknowledge Zion as His people. The preparation for this great and all-renewing work of the future is aided by the true Israel, which is now enslaved by the heathen, and disowned and persecuted by its own countrymen. A future of salvation, embracing Israel and the heaven and the earth, is implied in the words placed by Jehovah in the mouth of His church, which was faithful to its calling. These words in their mouth are the seed-corns of a new world in the midst of the old. The fact that the very same thing is said here of the true spiritual Israel, as in ch. xlix. 2 of the one servant of Jehovah, may be explained in the same manner as when the apostles apply to themselves, in Acts xiii. 47, a word of God relating to the one Servant of Jehovah, by saying, " So hath the Lord commanded us." The One is, in fact, one with this Israel; He is this Israel in its highest potency; He towers above it, but only as the head rises above the members of the body, with which it forms a living whole. There is no necessity, therefore, to assume, as Hengstenberg and Philippi do, that ver. 13 contains an address from the One who then stood before the mind of the prophet. " There is no proof," as Vitringa affirms, " of any change in the object in this passage, nor any solid reason for assuming it." The circumference of the idea is always the same. Here, however, it merely takes the direction towards the centre, and penetrates its smaller inner circle, but does not go back to the centre itself.
Just as we found above, that the exclamation u awake" (url), which the church addresses to the arm of Jehovah, grew out of the preceding great promises; so here there grows out of the same another " awake" (Jiith* or'ri), which the prophet addresses to Jerusalem in the name of his God, and the reason for which is given in the form of new promises. Vers. 17-23. " Wake thyself up, wake thyself up, stand up, 0 Jerusalem, thou that hast drunk out of the hand of Jehovah the goblet of His fury: the goblet cup of reeling hast thou drunk, sipped out. There was none who guided her of all the children that she had brought forth; and none who took her by the hand of all the children that she had brought up. There were two things that happened to thee; who should console thee? Devastation, and ruin, and famine, and the sword: how should I comfort thee? Thy children were benighted, lay at the corners of all the streets like a snared antelope: as those who were full of the fury of Jehovah, the rebuke of thy God. There' fore hearken to this, 0 wretched and drunken, but not with wine: Thus saith thy Lord, Jehovah, and thy God that defendeth His people, Behold, I take out of thine hand the goblet of reeling, the goblet cup of my fury: thou shalt not continue to drink it any more. A nd I put it into the hand of thy tormentors; who said to thy soul, Bow down, that ice may go over; and thou madest thy back like the ground, and like a public way for those who go over it." In ver. 17, Jerusalem is regarded as a woman lying on the ground in the sleep of faintness and stupefaction. She has been obliged to drink, for her punishment, the goblet filled with the fury of the wrath of God, the goblet which throws those who drink it into unconscious reeling; and this goblet, which is called qubbarath kos (icvireWov 7rorr}pLov, a genitive construction, though appositional in sense), for the purpose of giving greater prominence to its swelling sides, she has not only had to drink, but to drain quite clean (cf. Ps. lxxv. 9, and more especially Ezek. xxiii. 32-34). Observe the plaintive falling of the tone in shdthlth mdtslth. In this state of unconscious stupefaction was Jerusalem lying, without any help on the part of her children; there was not one who came to guide the stupefied one, or took her by the hand to lift her up. The consciousness of the punishment that their sins had deserved, and the greatness of the sufferings that the punishment had brought, pressed so heavily upon all the members of the congregation, that not one of them showed the requisite cheerfulness and strength to rise up on her behalf, so as to make her fate at any rate tolerable to her, and ward off the worst calamities. What elegiac music we have here in the deep cadences: mikkol-bdrilm ydldddh, milckol-bdnim giddeldh I So terrible was her calamity, that no one ventured to break the silence of the terror, or give expression to their sympathy. Even the prophet, humanly speaking, is obliged to exclaim, " How (mi, literally as who, as in Amos vii. 2, 5) should I comfort thee!" He knew of no equal or greater calamity, to which he could point Jerusalem, according to the principle which experience confirms, solamen miseris socios habuisse malorum. This is the real explanation, according to Lam. ii. 13, though we must not therefore take ml as an accusative = beml, as Hitzig does. The whole of the group is in the tone of the Lamentations of Jeremiah. There were two kinds of things (i.e. two kinds of evils: mishpdchoth, as in Jer. xv. 3) that had happened to her (K"jij = rnjjj with which it is used interchangeably even in the Pentateuch), — namely, the devastation and ruin of their city and their land, famine and the sword to her children, their inhabitants. In ver. 20 this is depicted with special reference to the famine. Her children were veiled (ullaph, deliquium pati, lit. obvelari), and lay in a state of unconsciousness like corpses at the corner of every street, where this horrible spectacle presented itself on every hand. They lay k€thd> mikhnar (rendered strangely and with very bad taste in the LXX., viz. like a half-cooked turnip; but given correctly by Jerome, sicut oryx, as in the LXX. at Deut. xiv. 5, illaqueatus), i.e. like a netted antelope (see at Job xxxix. 9), i.e. one that has been taken in a hunter's net and lies there exhausted, after having almost strangled itself by ineffectual attempts to release itself. The appositional 'ttl Dsfr6pn? which refers to!p33, gives as a quippe qui the reason for all this suffering. It is the punishment decreed by God, which has pierced their very heart, and got them completely in its power. This clause assigning the reason, shows that the expression " thy children "
(bdnayikh) is not to be taken here in the same manner as in Lam. ii. 11, 12, iv. 3, 4, viz. as referring to children in distinction from adults; the subject is a general one, as in ch. v. 25. With Idhlien (therefore, ver. 21) the address turns from the picture of sufferings to the promise, in the view of which the cry was uttered, in ver. 17, to awake and arise. Therefore, viz. because she had endured the full measure of God's wrath, she is to hear what His mercy, that has now begun to move, purposes to do. The connecting form sh'khurath stands here, according to Ges. § 116, 1, notwithstanding the (epexegetical) Vav which comes between. We may see from ch. xxix. 9 how thoroughly this " drunk, but not with wine," is in Isaiah's own style (from this distinction between a higher and lower sphere of related facts, compare ch. xlvii. 14, xlviii. 10). The intensive plural 'adonlm is only applied to human lords in other places in the book of Isaiah; but in this passage, in which Jerusalem is described as a woman, it is used once of Jehovah. Ydrlbh 'ammo is an attributive clause, signifying " who conducts the cause of His people," i.e. their advocate or defender. He takes the goblet of reeling and wrath, which Jerusalem has emptied, for ever out of her hand, and forces it newly filled upon her tormentors. There is no ground whatever for reading?I)3iD (from njj, to throw down, related to |V, whence comes |?T, a precipitate or sediment) in the place of?PJ8 (pret. hi. of H£, (laborare, dolere), that favourite word of the Lamentations of Jeremiah (ch. i. 5, 12, iii. 32, cf. i. 4), the tone of which we recognise here throughout, as Lowth, Ewald, and Umbreit propose after the Targum T?!?D ^Dl- The words attributed to the enemies, s7iec7il vena dbhordh (from shdchdh, the hal of which only occurs here), are to be understood figuratively, as in Ps. cxxix. 3. Jerusalem has been obliged to let her children be degraded into the defenceless objects of despotic tyranny and caprice, both at home in their own conquered country, and abroad in exile. But the relation is reversed now. Jerusalem is delivered, after having been punished, and the instruments of her punishment are given up to the punishment which their pride deserved.
The same call, which was addressed in ch. li. 9 to the arm of Jehovah that was then represented as sleeping, is here addressed to Jerusalem, which is represented as a sleeping woman. Vers. 1, 2. "Awake, avmke; clothe thyself in thy mighty 0 Zion; clothe thyself in thy state dresses, 0 Jerusalem, thou holy city: for henceforth there will no more enter into thee one uncircumcised and unclean! Shake thyself from the dust; arise, sit down, 0 Jerusalem: loose thyself from the chains of thy neck, 0 captive daughter of ZionV Jerusalem is lying upon the ground stupefied with the wrath of God, and exhausted with- grief; but this shameful prostration and degradation will now come to an end. She is to rise up and put on her might, which has long been broken down, and apparently has altogether disappeared, but which can and must be constantly renewed, because it rests upon the foundation of an inviolable promise. She is to wake up and recover her ancient power, and put on her state robes, i.e. her priestly and royal ornaments, which belong to her as a u royal city," i.e. as the city of Jehovah and His anointed one. For henceforth she will be what she was always intended to be, and that without any further desecration. Heathen, uncircumcised, and those who were unclean in heart and flesh (Ezek. xliv. 9), had entered her by force, and desecrated her: heathen, who had no right to enter the congregation of Jehovah as they were (Lam. i. 10). But she should no longer be defiled, not to say conquered, by such invaders as these (Joel iv. 17; Nahum ii. lb; compare ver. 7 with Nahum ii. la). On the construction non perget intrabit *=intrare, see Ges. § 142, 3, c. In ver. 2 the idea of the city falls into the background, and that of the_ nation takes its place. £»BTP *2W does not mean "captive people of Jerusalem," however, as Hitzig supposes, for this would require njai? in accordance with the personification, as in ver. 2b. The rendering supported by the LXX. is the true one, " Sit down, O Jerusalem;" and this is also the way in which it is accentuated.
The exhortation is the counterpart of ch. xlvii. 1. Jerusalem is sitting upon the ground as a prisoner, having no seat to sit upon; but this is only that she may be the more highly exalted; — whereas the daughter of Babylon is seated as a queen upon a throne, but only to be the more deeply degraded. The former, is now to shake herself free from the dust, and to rise up and sit down (viz. upon a throne, Targum). The captive daughter of Zion (shebhiyydh, alyjiaXwros, Ex. xii. 29, an adjective written first for the sake of emphasis, as in ch. x. 30, liii. 11) is to undo for herself {sibi laxare according to vol. i. p. 94 note, like hithnachel, ch. xiv. 2, sibi possidendo capere) the chains of her neck (the chethib innsnn, they loosen themselves, is opposed to the beautiful parallelism); for she who was mourning in her humiliation is to be restored to honour once more, and she who was so shamefully laden with fetters to liberty.
The reason for the address is now given in a well-sustained promise. Vers. 3-6. " For thus saith Jehovah, Ye have been sold for nothing, and ye shall not be redeemed with silver. For thus saith the Lord Jehovah, My people went down to Egypt in the beginning to dwell there as guests; and Asshur has oppressed it for nothing. And now, what have I to do here? saith Jehovah: for my people are taken away for nothing; their oppressors shriek, saith Jehovah, and my name is continually blasphemed all the day. Therefore my people shall learn my name; therefore, in that day, that I am He who saith, Tliere am /." Ye have been sold (this is the meaning of ver. 3); but this selling is merely a giving over to a foreign power, without the slightest advantage accruing to Him who had no other object in view than to cause them to atone for their sins (ch. 1. 1), and without any other people taking their place, and serving Him in their stead as an equivalent for the loss He sustained. And there would be no need of silver to purchase the favour of Him who had given them up, since a manifestation of divine power would be all that would be required (ch. xlv. 13). Por whether Jehovah show Himself to Israel as the Righteous One or as the Gracious One, as a Judge or as a Redeemer, He always acts as the Absolute One, exalted above all earthly affairs, having no need to receive anything, but able to give everything. He receives no recompense, and gives none. Whether punishing or redeeming, He always guards His people's honour, proving Himself in the one case to be all-sufficient, and in the other almighty, but acting in both cases freely from Himself. In the train of thought in vers. 4-6 the reason is given for the general statement in ver. 3. Israel went down to Egypt, the country of the Nile valley, with the innocent intention of sojourning, i.e. living as a guest (gur) there in a foreign land; and yet (as we may supply from the next clause, according to the law of a self-completing parallelism) there it fell into the bondage of the Pharaohs, who, whilst they did not fear Jehovah, but rather despised Him, were merely the blind instruments of His will. Asshur then oppressed it beephesy i.e. not " at last " {ultimo tempore, as Havernick renders it), but (as DBN is the synonym of T.$ in ch. xl. 17, xli. 12) " for nothing," i.e. without having acquired any right to it, but rather serving in its unrighteousness simply as the blind instrument of the righteousness of Jehovah, who through the instrumentality of Asshur put an end first of all to the kingdom of Israel, and then to the kingdom of Judah. The two references to the Egyptian and Assyrian oppressions are expressed in as brief terms as possible. But with the words " now therefore " the prophecy passes on in a much more copious strain to the present oppression in Babylon. Jehovah inquires, Quid mihi hie (What have I to do here)? Hitzig supposes poh (here) to refer to heaven, in the sense of, " What pressing occupation have I here, that all this can take place without my interfering?" But such a question as this would be far more appropriate to the Zeus of the Greek comedy than to the Jehovah of prophecy. Knobel, who takes poh as referring to the captivity, in accordance with the context, gives a ridiculous turn to the question, viz., u What do I get here in Babylonia, from the fact that my people are carried off for nothing? Only loss." He observes himself that there is a certain wit in the question. But it would be silly rather than witty, if, after Jehovah had just stated that He had given up His people for nothing, the prophet represented Him as preparing to redeem it by asking, " What have I gained by it? " The question can have no other meaning, according to ch. xxii. 16, than " What have I to do here?" Jehovah is thought of as present with His people (cf. Gen. xlvi. 4), and means to inquire whether He shall continue this penal condition of exile any longer (Targum, Rashi, Rosenmiiller, Ewald, Stier, etc.). The question implies an intention to redeem Israel, and the reason for this intention is introduced with hi. Israel is taken away (ablalus), viz. from its own native home, c7iinndm9 i.e. without the Chaldeans having any human claim upon them whatever. The words ^[}\ V^O (bwd) are not to he rendered, "its singers lament," as Ruetschi and Rosenmiiller maintain, since the singers of Israel are called meshdrerim; nor " its (Israel's) princes lament," as Vitringa and Hitzig supposed, since the people of the captivity, although they had still their national sdrim, had no other moshHim than the Chaldean oppressors (ch. xlix. 7, xiv. 5). It is the intolerable tyranny of the oppressors of His people, that Jehovah assigns in this sentence as the reason for His interposition, which cannot any longer be deferred. It is true that we do meet with helil (of which we have the future here without any syncope of the first syllable) in other passages in the sense of ululare, as a cry of pain; but just as JTiHj \yif nrj signify a yelling utterance of either joy or pain, so helil may also be applied to the harsh shrieking of the capricious tyrants, like Lucan's loetis ululare triumphis, and the Syriac ailelj which is used to denote a war-cry and other noises as well. In connection with this proud and haughty bluster, there is also the practice of making Jehovah's name the butt of their incessant blasphemy: J^P is a part, hithpoel with an assimilated n and a pausal a for e, although it might 'also be a passive hithpoal (for the o in the middle syllable, compare ^D, Mai. i. 7; Viho, Esth. viii. 14). In ver. 6 there follows the closing sentence of the whole train of thought: therefore His people are to get to learn His name, i.e. the self-manifestation of its God, who is so despised by the heathen; therefore (Idkhen repeated with emphasis, like ^3 in ch. lix. 18, and possibly men in Ps. xlv. 9) in that day, the day of redemption, (supply "it shall get to learn") that "I am he who saith, Here am I," i.e. that He who has promised redemption is now present as the True and Omnipotent One to carry it into effect.
The first two turns in the prophecy (vers. 1-2, 3-6) close here. The third turn (vers. 7-10) exults at the salvation which is being carried into effect. The prophet sees in spirit, how the tidings of the redemption, to which the fall of Babylon, which is equivalent to the dismission of the prisoners, gives the finish in 2 stroke, are carried over the mountains of Judah to Jerusalem. Ver. 7. " How lovely upon the mountains are the feet of them that bring good tidings, that publish peace, that bring tidings of good, that publish salvation, that say unto Zion, Tlty God reigneth royally I " The words are addressed to Jerusalem, consequently the mountains are those of the Holy Land, and especially those to the north of Jerusalem: mebhasser is collective (as in the primary passage, Nahum ii. 1; cf. xli. 27, Ps. lxviii. 12), u whoever brings the glad tidings to Jerusalem." The exclamation " how lovely " does not refer to the lovely sound of their footsteps, but to the lovely appearance presented by their feet, which spring over the mountains with all the swiftness of gazelles (Song of Sol. ii. 17, viii. 14). Their feet look as if they had wings, because they are the messengers of good tidings of joy. The joyful tidings that are left indefinite in mebhasser, are afterwards more particularly described as a proclamation of peace, good, salvation, and also as containing the announcement " thy God reigneth," i.e. has risen to a right royal sway, or seized upon the government ("HpE in an inchoative historical sense, as in the theocratic psalms which commence with the same watchword, or like iftaalXevcre in Rev. xix. 6, cf. xi. 17). Up to this time, when His people were in bondage, He appeared to have lost His dominion (ch. lxiii. 19); but now He has ascended the throne as a Redeemer with greater glory than ever before (ch. xxiv. 23). The gospel of the swift-footed messengers, therefore, is the gospel of the kingdom of God that is at hand; and the application which the apostle makes of this passage of Isaiah in Rom. x. 15, is justified by the fact that the prophet saw the final and universal redemption as though in combination with the close of the captivity.
How will the prophets rejoice, when they see bodily before them what they have already seen from afar! Yer. 8. " Hark, thy watchers! They lift up the voice together; they rejoice: for they see eye to eye, how Jehovah bringeth Zion home" h)p followed by a genitive formed an interjectional clause, and had almost become an interjection itself (see Gen. iv. 10). The prophets are here called tsophlm, spies, as persons who looked into the distance as if from a watch-tower (specula, ch. xxi. 6, Hab. ii. 1), just as in ch. lvi. 10. It is assumed that the people of tbe captivity would still have prophets among them: in fact, the very first word in these prophecies (ch. xl. 1) is addressed to them. They who saw the redemption from afar, and comforted the church therewith (different from m'bhasser, the evangelist of the fulfilment), lift up their voice together with rejoicing; for they see Jehovah bringing back Zion, as closely as one man is to another when he looks directly into his eyes (Num. xiv. 14). 3 is the same as in the construction ^ nsn; and 2\V has the transitive meaning reducere, restituere (as in Ps. xiv. 7, cxxvi. 1, etc.), which is placed beyond all doubt by H3M3* in Ps. lxxxv. 5.
Zion is restored, inasmuch as Jehovah turns away her misery, brings back her exiles, and causes the holy city to rise again from her ruins. Ver. 9. "Break out into exultation, sing together ', ye ruins of Jerusalem: for Jehovah hath comforted His people, lie hath redeemed Jerusalem.99 Because the word of consolation has become an act of consolation, i.e. of redemption, the ruins of Jerusalem are to break out into jubilant shouting as they rise again from the ground.
Jehovah has wrought out salvation through judgment in the sight of all the world. Ver. 10. "Jehovah hath made bare His holy arm before the eyes of all nations, and all the ends of the earth see the salvation of our God.19 As a warrior is accustomed to make bare his right arm up to the shoulder, that he may fight without encumbrance (exsertare humeros nudamque lacessere pugnan, as Statius says in Theb. i. 413), so has Jehovah made bare His holy arm, that arm in which holiness dwells, which shines with holiness, and which acts in holiness, that arm which has been hitherto concealed and therefore has appeared to be powerless, and that in the sight of the whole world of nations; so that all the ends of the earth come to see the reality of the work, which this arm has already accomplished by showing itself in its unveiled glory — in other words, " the salvation of our God."
This salvation in its immediate manifestation is the liberation of the exiles; and on the ground of what the prophet sees in spirit, he exclaims to them (as in ch. xlviii. 20), in vers. 11, 12: " Go ye forth, go ye forth, go out from thence, lay hoJd of no unclean thing; go ye out of the midst of her, cleanse yourselves, ye that bear the vessels of Jehovah. For ye shall not go out in confusion, and ye shall not go forth inflight: for Jehovah goeth before you, and the God of Israel is your rear-guard" When they go out from thence, i.e. from Babylon, they are not to touch anything unclean, i.e. they are not to enrich themselves with the property of their now subjugated oppressors, as was the case at the exodus from Egypt (Ex. xii. 36). It is to be a holy procession, at which they are to appear morally as well as corporeally unstained. But those who bear the vessels of Jehovah, i.e. the vessels of the temple, are not only not to defile themselves, but are to purify themselves (hibbdru with the tone upon the last syllable, a regular imperative niphal of bdrar). This is an indirect prophecy, and was fulfilled in the fact that Cyrus directed the golden and silver vessels, which Nebuchadnezzar had brought to Babylon, to be restored to the returning exiles as their rightful property (Ezra i. 7-11). It would thus be possible for them to put themselves into the right attitude for their departure, since it would not take place in precipitous haste (bechippdzon\ as the departure from Egypt did (Deut. xvi. 3, cf. Ex. xii. 39), nor like a flight, but they would go forth under the guidance of Jehovah. D3DDKD (with the e changed into the original t) does not mean, " He bringeth you, the scattered ones, together," but according to Num.x. 25, Josh. vi. 9, 13, "He closes your procession," — He not only goes before you to lead you, but also behind you, to protect you (as in Ex. xiv. 19). For the mf'asseph, or the rear-guard of an army, is its keystone, and has to preserve the compactness of the whole. The division of the chapters generally coincides with the several prophetic addresses. But here it needs emendation. Most of the commentators are agreed that the words u Behold my servant," etc. (Jiinneh yaskil 'abhdi) commence a new section, like hen 'abhdl (behold my servant) in ch. xlii. 1.
GOLGOTHA AND SHEBLIMINI,1 OR THE EXALTATION OF THE SERVANT OF JEHOVAH OUT OF DEEP DEGRADATION.
the transition from the collective idea of the servant of God to the " Servant of God" as an individual takes place in ver. 14, where Israel is addressed in the first clause, and the Messiah referred to in the second. But our view is a totally different one. In every case, thus far, in which another than Jehovah has spoken, it has been the one " Servant of Jehovah " who was the centre of the circle, the heart and head of the body of Israel. And after having heard him speaking himself in ch. 1. 4-9, xlix. 1-6, xlviii. 166, and Jehovah speaking concerning him in ch. 1. 10, 11, xlix. 7-9, xlii. 1-7, it does not come upon us at all unexpectedly, that Jehovah begins to speak of him again here. Nor does it surprise us, that the prophet should pass in so abrupt a manner, from the exaltation of the church to the exaltation of the servant of Jehovah. If we look back, we find that he has not omitted anything, that could preclude the possibility of our confounding this servant of Jehovah with Israel itself. For although Israel itself, in its relation to Jehovah, is spoken of frequently enough as " my servant " and "his servant;" yet the passage before us is preceded by the same representation of Israel the community as a female, which has been sustained from ch. li. 17 onwards; and although in ch. li. 1-16 the national idea of the "servant of Jehovah" is expressed in the most definite manner possible (more especially in ch. li. 7), the name employed is not that which the personal " Servant," whom no one can possibly mistake in ch. 1. 4-9, already bears in ch. 1. 10. It is this personal Servant who is spoken of here. It is his portrait that is here filled out and completed, and that as a side-piece to the liberation and restoration of Zion- Jerusalem as depicted just before. It is the servant of Jehovah who conducts His people through suffering to glory. It is in his heart, as we now most clearly discern, that the changing of Jehovah's wrath into love takes place. He suffers with his people, suffers for them, suffers in their stead; because he has not brought the suffering upon himself, like the great mass of the people, through sin, but has voluntarily submitted to it as the guiltless and righteous one, in order that he might entirely remove it, even to its roots, i.e. the guilt and the sin which occasioned it, by his own sacrifice of himself. Thus is Israel's glory concentrated in him like a sun. The glory of Israel has his glory for a focus. He is the
§eed-corn, which is buried in the earth, to bring forth much fruit; and this " much fruit" is the glory of Israel and the salvation of the nations.
" Christian scholars," says Abravanel, " interpret this prophecy as referring to that man who was crucified in Jerusalem about the end of the second temple, and who, according to their view, was the Son of God, who became man in the womb of the Virgin. But Jonathan ben Uziel explains it as relating to the Messiah who has yet to come; and this is the opinion of the ancients in many of their Midrashim." So that even the synagogue could not help acknowledging that the passage of the Messiah through death to glory is predicted here.1 And what interest could we have in understanding by the " servant of Jehovah," in this section, the nation of Israel generally, as many Rabbis, both circumcised and uncircumcised, have done; whereas he is that One Israelite in whom Jehovah has effected the redemption of both Israel and the heathen, even through the medium of Israel itself? Or what interest could we have in persuading ourselves that Jeremiah, or some unknown martyr-prophet, is intended, as Grotius, Bunsen, and Ewald suppose; wThereas it is rather the great unknown and misinterpreted One, whom Jewish and Judaizing exegesis still continues to misinterpret in its exposition of the figure before us, just as His contemporaries misinterpreted Him when He actually appeared among them. How many are there whose eyes have been opened when reading this "golden passional of the Old Testament evangelist," as Polycarp the Lysian calls it! In how many an Israelite has it melted the crust of his heart! It looks as if it had been written beneath the cross upon Golgotha, and was illuminated by the heavenly brightness of the full *?By 3B\ It is the unravelling of Ps. xxii. and Ps. ex. It forms the outer centre of this wonderful book of consolation (ch. xl.-lxvi.), and is the most central, the deepest, and the loftiest thing that the Old Testament prophecy, outstripping itself, has ever achieved.
And yet it does not belie its Old Testament origin. For the prophet sees the advent of " the servant of Jehovah," and
1 See A. M. M 'Caul's tract on Isa. liii., and the " Old Jewish Midrash of the Suffering Redeemer " in our Mag. Saat auf Hoffnung, i. 3, pp. 87-39.
His rejection by His own people, bound up as it were with the duration of the captivity. It is at the close of the captivity that he beholds the exaltation of the Servant of Jehovah, who has died and been buried, and yet lives for ever; and with His exaltation the inward and outward return of Israel, and the restoration of Jerusalem in its renewed and final glory; and with this restoration of the people of God, the conversion of the nations and the salvation of mankind.1
In this sense there follows here, immediately after the cry, " Go ye out from Babylon," an index pointing from the suffering of the Servant to His reward in glory. Ch. lii. 13. "Behold, my servant will act wisely; he will come forth, and arise, and be very high" Even apart from ch. xlii. 1, hinneh {hen) is a favourite commencement with Isaiah; and this very first verse contains, according to Isaiah's custom, a brief, condensed explanation of the theme. The exaltation of the Servant of Jehovah is the theme of the prophecy which follows. In ver. 13a the way is shown, by which He reaches His greatness; in ver. 136 the increasing greatness itself. ^?K>n by itself means simply to gain, prove, or act with intelligence (LXX. <rvvrjaet);
1 I cannot refrain from repeating here a passage taken from my closing remarks on Drechsler (iii. 376), simply because I cannot find any better way of expressing what I have to say upon this point: "When Isaiah sang his dying song on the border line of the reigns of Hezekiah and Manasseh, all the coming sufferings of his people appeared to be concentrated in the one view of the captivity in Babylon. And it was in the midst of this period of suffering, which formed the extreme limit of his range of vision, that he saw the redemption of Israel beginning to appear. He saw the servant of Jehovah working among the captives, just as at His coming He actually did appear in the midst of His people, when they were in bondage to the imperial power of the world; he also saw the Servant of Jehovah passing through death to glory, and Israel ascending with Him, as in fact the ascension of Jesus was the completion of the redemption of Israel; and it was only the unbelief of the great mass of Israel which occasioned the fact, that this redemption was at first merely the spiritual redemption of believers out of the nation, and not the spiritual and physical redemption of the nation as a whole. So far, therefore, a broad gap was made in point of time between the exaltation of the servant of Jehovah and the glorious restoration of Israel which is still in the future; and this gap was hidden from the prophet's view. It is only the coming of Christ in glory which will fully realize what was not yet realized when He entered into glory after the sufferings of death, on account of Israel's unbelief."
and then, since intelligent action, as a rule, is also effective, it is used as synonymous with ny>'?, "Pftaf^ to act with result, i.e. so as to be successful. Hence it is only by way of sequence that the idea of " prosperously" is connected with that of " prudently" (e.g. Josh. L 8; Jer. x. 21). The word is never applied to such prosperity as a man enjoys without any effort of his own, but only to such as he attains by successful action, i.e. by such action as is appropriate to the desired and desirable result. In Jer. xxiii. 2, where hiskll is one feature in the picture of the dominion exercised by the Messiah, the idea of intelligent action is quite sufficient, without any further subordinate meaning. But here, where the exaltation is derived from bob" as the immediate consequence, without any intervening p'ity, there is naturally associated with the idea of wise action, i.e. of action suited to the great object of his call, that of effective execution or abundant success, which has as its natural sequel an ever-increasing exaltation. Rosenmiiller observes, in ver. 136, " There is no need to discuss, or even to inquire, what precise difference there is in the meaning of the separate words;" but this is a very superficial remark. If we consider that rum signifies not only to be high, but to rise up (Prov. xi. 11) and become exalted, and also to become manifest as exalted (Ps. xxi. 14), and that Kfett, according to the immediate and original reflective meaning of the niphal, signifies to raise one's self, whereas gdbhah expresses merely the condition, without the subordinate idea of activity, we obtain this chain of thought: he will rise up, he will raise himself still higher, he will stand on high. The three verbs (of which the two perfects are defined by the previous future) consequently denote the commencement, the continuation, and the result or climax of the exaltation; and Stier is not wrong in recalling to mind the three principal steps of the exaltatio in the historical fulfilment, viz. the resurrection, the ascension, and the sitting down at the right hand of God. The addition of the word 1KB shows very clearly that najl is intended to be taken as the final result: the servant of Jehovah, rising from stage to stage, reaches at last an immeasurable height, that towers above everything besides (comp. vTrepin^axre in Phil. ii. 9, with vyjrcoOek in Acts ii. 33, and for the nature of the vTrepirtyaxre, Eph. i. 20-23).
The prophecy concerning him passes now into an address to him, as in ch. xlix. 8 (cf. ver. 7), which sinks again immediately into an objective tone. Vers. 14, 15. " Just as many were astonished at thee: so disfigured, his appearance was not human, and his form not like that of the children of men: so will he make many nations to tremble; kings will shut their mouth at him: for they see what has not been told them, and discover what they have not heard." Both Oehler and Hahn suppose that the first clause is addressed to Israel, and that it is here pointed away from its own degradation, which excited such astonishment, to the depth of suffering endured by the One man. Hahn's principal reason, which Oehler adopts, is the sudden leap that we should otherwise have to assume from the second person to the third, — an example of u negligence " which we can hardly impute to the prophet. But a single glance at ch. xlii. 20 and i. 29 is sufficient to show how little force there is in this principal argument. We should no doubt expect B?\S?y or?JvV after what has gone before, if the nation were addressed; but it is difficult to see what end a comparison between the sufferings of the nation and those of the One man, which merely places the sufferings of the two in an external relation to one another, could be intended to answer; whilst the second ken (so), which evidently introduces an antithesis, is altogether unexplained. The words are certainly addressed to the servant of Jehovah; and the meaning of the sicut (just as) in ver. 14, and of the sic (so) which introduces the principal sentence in ver. 15, is, that just as His degradation was the deepest degradation possible, so His glorification would be of the loftiest kind. The height of the exaltation is held up as presenting a perfect contrast to the depth of the degradation. The words, " so distorted was his face, more than that of a man," form, as has been almost unanimously admitted since the time of Vitringa, a parenthesis, containing the reason for the astonishment excited by the servant of Jehovah. Stier is wrong in supposing that this first " so" (ken) refers to kd&sher (just as), in the sense of " If men were astonished at thee, there was ground for the astonishment." Ver. 15 would not stand out as an antithesis, if we adopted this explanation; moreover, the thought that the fact corresponded to the impression which men received, is a very tame and unnecessary one; and the change of persons in sentences related to one another in this manner is intolerably harsh; whereas, with our view of the relation in which the sentences stand to one another, the parenthesis prepares the way for the sudden change from a direct address to a declaration. Hitherto many had been astonished at the servant of Jehovah: shdmem, to be desolate or waste, to be thrown by anything into a desolate or benumbed condition, to be startled, confused, as it were petrified, by paralyzing astonishment (Lev. xxvi. 32; Ezek. xxvi. 16). To such a degree {ken, adeo) was his appearance mishchath me'ish, and his form mi6bene 'dddm (sc. mishchath). We might take mishchath as the construct of mishchath, as Hitzig does, since this connecting form is sometimes used {e.g. xxxiii. 6) even without any genitive relation; but it may also be the absolute, syncopated from rirw'D = rinn^'p (Havernick and Stier), like moshchath in Mai. i. 14? or, what we prefer, after the form mirmas (ch. x. 6), with the original a, without the usual lengthening (Ewald, § 160, c, Anm. 4). His appearance and his form were altogether distortion (stronger than moshchath, distorted), away from men, out beyond men, i.e. a distortion that destroys all likeness to a man;* 'ish does not signify man as distinguished from woman here, but a human being generally. The antithesis follows in ver. 15: viz. the state of glory in which this form of wretchedness has passed away. As a parallel to the u many" in ver. 14, we have here " many nations," indicating the excess of the glory by the greater fulness of the expression; and as a parallel to u were astonished at thee," u he shall make to tremble " (yazzeh), in other words, the effect which He produces by what He does to the effect produced by what He suffers. The hiphil hizzdh generally means to spirt or sprinkle (adspergere), and is applied to the sprinkling of the
1 The church before the time of Constantine pictured to itself tie Lord, as He walked on earth, as repulsive in His appearance; whereas the church after Constantine pictured Him as having quite an ideal beauty (see my tract, Jesus and Hille.l, 1865, p. 4). They were both right: unattractive in appearance, though not deformed, He. no doubt was in the days of His flesh; but He is ideally beautiful in His glorification. The body in which He was born of Mary was no royal form, though faith could see the doxa shining through. It was no royal form, for the suffering of death was the portion of the Lamb of God, even from His mother's womb; but the glorified One is infinitely exalted above all the ideal of art.
blood with the finger, more especially upon the capporeth and altar of incense on the day of atonement (differing in this respect from zdraq, the swinging of the blood out of a bowl), also to the sprinkling of the water of purification upon a leper with the bunch of hyssop (Lev. xiv. 7), and of the ashes of the red heifer upon those defiled through touching a corpse (Num. xix. 18); in fact, generally, to sprinkling for the purpose of expiation and sanctification. And Vitringa, Hengstenberg, and others, accordingly follow the Syriac and Vulgate in adopting the rendering adsperget (he will sprinkle). They have the usage of the language in their favour; and this explanation also commends itself from a reference to JWJ in ch. liii. 4, and Vtt in ch. liii. 8 (words which are generally used of leprosy, and on account of which the suffering Messiah is called in b. Sanhedrin 986 by an emblematical name adopted from the old synagogue, "the leper of Kabbi's school"), since it yields the significant antithesis, that he who was himself regarded as unclean, even a6 a second Job, would sprinkle and sanctify whole nations, and thus abolish the wall of partition between Israel and the heathen, and gather together into one holy church with Israel those who had hitherto been pronounced " unclean" (ch. lii. 1). But, on the other hand, this explanation has so far the usage of the language against it, that hizzdh is never construed with the accusative of the person or thing sprinkled (like adspergere aliqua re aliquem; since 'eth in Lev. iv. 6, 17 is a preposition like W, 'el elsewhere); moreover, there would be something very abrupt in this sudden representation of the servant as a priest. Such explanations as u he w7ill scatter asunder" (disperget, Targum, etc.), or "he will spill" (sc. their blood), are altogether out of the question; such thoughts as these would be quite out of place in a spiritual picture of salvation and glory, painted upon the dark ground we have here. The verb ndzdh signified primarily to leap or spring; hence hizzdh, with the causative meaning to sprinkle. The kal combines the intransitive and transitive meanings of the word "spirt," and is used in the former sense in ch. lxiii. 3, to signify the springing up or sprouting up of any liquid scattered about in drops. The Arabic nazd (see Ges. Thes.) shows that this verb may also be applied to the springing or leaping of living beings, caused by excess of emotion. And accordingly we follow the majority of the commentators in adopting the rendering e.vsilire faciet. The fact that whole nations are the object, and not merely individuals, proves nothing to the contrary, as Hab. iii. 6 clearly shows. The reference is to their leaping up in amazement (LXX. davfidaovrac); and the verb denotes less an external than an internal movement. They will tremble with astonishment within themselves (cf. pdchddu verdgezu in Jer. xxxiii. 9), being electrified, as it were, by the surprising change that has taken place in the servant of Jehovah. The reason why kings u shut their mouths at him" is expressly stated, viz. what was never related they see, and what was never heard of they perceive; i,e. it was something going far beyond all that had ever been reported to them outside the world of nations, or come to their knowledge within it. Hitzig's explanation, that they do not trust themselves to begin to speak before him or along with him, gives too feeble a sense, and would lead us rather to expect VjDp than ivy. The shutting of the mouth is the involuntary effect of the overpowering impression, or the manifestation of their extreme amazement at one so suddenly brought out of the depths, and lifted up to so great a height. The strongest emotion is that which remains shut up within ourselves, because, from its very intensity, it throws the whole nature into a suffering state, and drowns all reflection in emotion (cf. yachdrish in Zeph. iii. 17). The parallel in ch. xlix. 7 is not opposed to this; the speechless astonishment, at what is unheard and inconceivable, changes into adoring homage, as soon as they have become to some extent familiar with it. The first turn in the prophecy closes here: The servant of Jehovah, whose inhuman sufferings excite such astonishment, is exalted on high; so that from utter amazement the nations tremble, and their kings are struck dumb. - — ^ But, says the second turn in ch. liii. 1-3, the man of sorrows was despised among us, and the prophecy as to his future was not believed. We hear the first lamentation (the question is, From whose mouth does it come?) in ver. 1: u Who hath believed our preaching; and the arm of Jehovah, over whom has it been revealed?" "I was formerly mistaken," says Hofmann (Sehriftbeweisy ii. 1, 159, 160), " as to the connection between ch. liii. 1 and ch. Hi. 13-15, and thought that the Gentiles were the speakers in the former, simply because it was to them that the latter referred. But I see now that I was in error. It is affirmed of the heathen, that they have never heard before the things which they now see with their eyes. Consequently it cannot be they who exclaim, or in whose name the inquiry is made, Who hath believed our preaching?" Moreover, it cannot be they, both because the redemption itself and the exaltation of the Mediator of the redemption are made known to them from the midst of Israel as already accomplished facts, and also because according to ch. lii. 15 (cf. ch. xlix. 7, xlii. 4, li. 5) they hear the things unheard of before, with amazement which passes into reverent awe, as the satisfaction of their own desires, in other words, with the glad obedience of faith. And we may also add, that the expression in ch. liii. 8, " for the transgression of my people,'' would be quite out of place in the mouths of Gentiles, and that, as a general rule, words attributed to Gentiles ought to be expressly introduced as theirs. Whenever we find a " we " introduced abruptly in the midst of a prophecy, it is always Israel that speaks, including the prophet himself (ch. xlii. 24, lxiv. 5, xvi. 6, xxiv. 16, etc.). Hofmann therefore very properly rejects the view advocated by many, from Calvin down to Stier and Oehler, who suppose that it is the prophet himself who is speaking here in connection with the other heralds of salvation; u for," as he says, " how does all the rest which is expressed in the 1st pers. plural tally with such a supposition? " If it is really Israel, which confesses in vers. 2 sqq. how blind it has been to the calling of the servant of Jehovah, which was formerly hidden in humiliation but is now manifested in glory; the mournful inquiry in ver. 1 must also proceed from the mouth of Israel. The references to this passage in John xii. 37, 38, and Rom. x. 16, do not compel us to assign ver. 1 to the prophet and his comrades in office. It is Israel that speaks even in ver. 1. The nation, which acknowledges with penitence how shamefully it has mistaken its own Saviour, laments that it has put no faith in the tidings of the lofty and glorious calling of the servant of God. We need not assume, therefore, that there is any change of subject in ver. 2; and (what is still more decisive) it is necessary that we should not, if we would keep up any close connection between ch. liii. 1 and ch. lii. 15. The heathen receive with faith tidings of things which had never been heard of before; whereas Israel lias to lament that it put no faith iii the tidings which it had heard long, long before, not only with reference to the person and work of the servant of God, but with regard to his lowly origin and glorious end. njflOB* (a noun after the form W$^, nyUG^ a different form from that of P;H3, which is derived from the adjective ^5) signifies the hearsay (a/eorj), i.e. the tidings, more especially the prophetic announcement in ch. xxviii. 9; and^rttJDK*, according to the primary subjective force of the suffix, is equivalent to WVOt? ")$K njnD^ (cf. Jer. xlix. 14), i.e. the hearsay which we have heard. There were some, indeed, who did not refuse to believe the tidings which Israel heard: aX\? ov itovt^ virrf/covaav t&> evarf/eXia) (Rom. x. 16); the number of the believers was vanishingly small, when compared with the unbelieving mass of the nation. And it is the latter, or rather its remnant which had eventually come to its senses, that here inquires, Who hath believed our preaching, i.e. the preaching that was common among us? The substance of the preaching, which had not been believed, was the exaltation of the servant of God from a state of deep degradation. This is a work performed by the " arm of Jehovah," namely, His holy arm that has been made bare, and that now effects the salvation of His people, and of the nations generally, according to His own counsel (ch. Iii. 10, li. 5). This arm works down from on high, exalted far above all created things; men have it above them, and it is made manifest to those who recognise it in what is passing around them. Who, asks Israel, has had any faith in the coming exaltation of the servant of God*? who has recognised the omnipotence of Jehovah, which has set itself to effect his exaltation? All that follows is the confession of the Israel of the last times, to which this question is the introduction. We must not overlook the fact that this golden " passional " is also one of the greatest prophecies of the future conversion of the nation, which has rejected the servant of God, and allowed the Gentiles to be the first to recognise him. At last, though very late, it will feel remorse. And when this shall once take place, then and not till then will this chapter — which, to use an old epithet, will ever be carnijicina Rabbinorum — receive its complete historical fulfilment.
lamentation depicted by Zechariah in Zech. xii. 1 1 sqq. Ver. 2. " And he sprang up like a layer-shoot before Him, and like a root-sprout out of dry ground: he had no form, and no beauty; and we looked, and there was no look, such that we could have found pleasure in him." Ver. 2, as a sequel to ver. lb, looks back to the past, and describes how the arm of Jehovah manifested itself in the servant's course of life from the very beginning, though imperceptibly at first, and unobserved by those who merely noticed the outside. The suffix of VJB? cannot refer to the subject of the interrogative sentence, as Hahn and Hofmann suppose, for the answer to the quis there is nemo; it relates to Jehovah, by which it is immediately preceded. Before Jehovah, namely, so that He, whose counsel thus began to be fulfilled, fixed His eye upon him with watchfulness and protecting care, he grew up Pj|i*3j like the suckling, i.e. (in a horticultural sense) the tender twig which sucks up its nourishment from the root and stein (not as Hitzig supposes, according to Ezek. xxxi. 16, from the moisture in the soil); for the tender twig upon a tree, or trunk, or stalk, is called npJ* (for which we have p?.^ here): vid. Ezek. xvii. 22, the twig of a cedar; Ps. lxxx. 12 (11), of a vine; Job viii. 16, of a liana. It is thought of here as a layer, as in Ezek. xvii. 22; and, indeed, as the second figure shows when taken in connection with ch. xi. 1, as having been laid down after the proud cedar of the Davidic monarchy from which it sprang had been felled; for elsewhere it is compared to a shoot which springs from the root left in the ground after the tree has been felled. Both figures depict the lowly and unattractive character of the small though vigorous beginning. The expression " out of dry ground," which belongs to both figures, brings out, in addition, the miserable character of the external circumstances in the midst of which the birth and growth of the servant had taken place. The " dry ground " is the existing state of the enslaved and degraded nation; i.e. he was subject to all the conditions inseparable from a nation that had been given up to the power of the world, and was not only enduring all the consequent misery, but was in utter ignorance as to its cause; in a word, the dry ground is the corrupt character of the age. In what follows, the majority of the commentators have departed from the accents, and adopted the rendering, " he had no form and no beauty, that we should look at Him" (should have looked at Him), viz. with fixed looks that loved to dwell upon Him. This rendering -was adopted by Symmachus and Vitringa (Xva elhcofiev avrov; ut ipsum respiceremus). But Luther, Stier, and others, very properly adhere to the existing punctuation; since the other would lead us to expect ta hntoi instead of VK"Wj and the close reciprocal relation of niHD"lfol ^"i*?"!^, which resembles a play upon the words, is entirely expunged. The meaning therefore is, " We saw Him, and there was nothing in His appearance to make us desire Him, or feel attracted by Him." The literal rendering of the Hebrew, with its lively method of transferring you into the precise situation, is ut concupisceremus eum (delectaremur eo); whereas, in our oriental style, we should rather have written ut concupivissemus, using the pluperfect instead of the imperfect, or the tense of the associated past. Even in this sense *«"W"U1 is very far from being unmeaning: He dwelt in Israel, so that they had Him bodily before their eyes, but in His outward appearance there was nothing to attract or delight the senses.
On the contrary, the impression produced by His appearance was rather repulsive, and, to those who measured the great and noble by a merely worldly standard, contemptible. Ver. 3. " He was despised and forsaken by men; a man of griefs, and well acquainted with disease; and like one from whom men hide their face: despised, and we esteemed Him not." All these different features are predicates of the erat that is latent in non species ei neque decor and non adspectus. Nibhzeh is introduced again palindromically at the close in Isaiah's peculiar style; consequently Martini's conjecture 'W X? ^nnp is to be rejected. This nibhzeh (cf. bdzoh, ch. xlix. 7) is the keynote of the description which looks back in this plaintive tone. The predicate chddal 'isliim is misunderstood by nearly all the commentators, inasmuch as they take D^K as synonymous with OlN-^3, whereas it is rather used in the sense of B**r^3 (lords), as distinguished from be ne 'dddm, or people generally (see ch. ii. 9, 11, 17). The only other passages in which it occurs are Prov. viii. 4 and Ps. cxli. 4; and in both instances it signifies persons of rank. Hence Cocceius explains it thus: " wanting in men, i.e. having no respectable men with Him, to support Him with their authority." It might also be understood as meaning the ending one among men, i.e. the one who takes the last place (S. ikd-^iaro^y Jer. novissimus); but in this case He Himself would be described as B*K, whereas it is absolutely affirmed that He had not the appearance or distinction of such an one. But the rendering deficiens (wanting) is quite correct; compare Job xix. 14, " my kinsfolk have failed " (defecerunt, chad6 lie, cognati mei). The Arabic chadhalahu or chadhala 'anhu (he left him in the lurch, kept back from him, forsook him) also points to the true meaning; and from this we have the derivatives chddhil, refusing assistance, leaving without help; and machdhul, helpless, forsaken (see Lane's Arabic Lexicon). In Hebrew, chddal has not only the transitive meaning to discontinue or leave off a thing, but the intransitive, to;ease or be in want, so that chddal 'ishim may mean one in want of men of rank, i.e. finding no sympathy from such men. The chief men of His nation who towered above the multitude, the great men of this world, withdrew their hands from Him, drew back from Him: He had none of the men of any distinction at His side. Moreover, He was nnfcpD t^N, a man of sorrow of heart in all its forms, i.e. a man whose chief distinction was, that His life was one of constant painful endurance. And He was also vh JftT, that is to say, not one known through His sickness (according to Deut. i. 13, 15), which is hardly sufficient to express the genitive construction; nor an acquaintance of disease (S. jvcocrrb^ voaa, familiar-is morbo), which would be expressed by ]H*» or JHto; but scitus morbi, i.e. one who was placed in a state to make the acquaintance of disease. The deponent passive JJVP, acquainted (like bdtudch, confisus; zdkhur, mindful; peritus, pervaded, experienced), is supported by gTOO = gTPTO; Gr. t( /laOcov. The meaning is not, that He had by nature a sickly body, falling out of one disease into another; but that the wrath instigated by sin, and the zeal of self-sacrifice (Ps. lxix. 10), burnt like the fire of a fever in His soul and body, so that even if He had not died a violent death, He would have succumbed to the force of the powers of destruction that were innate in humanity in consequence of sin, and of His own self-consuming conflict with them. Moreover, He was kemast8r pdnim mimmennu. This cannot mean, "like one hiding his face from us," as Hengstenberg supposes (with an allusion to Lev. xiii. 45); or, what is comparatively better,
"like one causing the hiding of the face from him:" for although the feminine of the participle is written rnripD, and in the plural D'nnpp for D^Vfipo is quite possible, we never meet with master for masttr, like haster for hastir in the infinitive (ch. xxix. 15, cf. Deut. xxvi. 12). Hence master must be a noun (of the form marbets, marbeq, mashcheth); and the words mean either " like the hiding of the face on our part," or like one who met with this from us, or (what is more natural) like the hiding of the face before his presence (according to ch. viii. 17, 1. 6, liv. 8, lix. 2, and many other passages), i.e. like one whose repulsive face it is impossible to endure, so that men turn away their face or cover it with their dress (compare ch. 1. 6 with Job xxx. 10). And lastly, all the predicates are summed up in the expressive word nibhzeh: He was despised, and we did not think Him dear and worthy, but rather "esteemed Him not," or rather did not estimate Him at all, or as Luther expresses it, "estimated Him at nothing" (chdshabh, to reckon, value, esteem, as in ch. xiii. 17, xxxiii. 8, Mai. iii. 16).
The second turn closes here. The preaching concerning His calling and His future was not believed; but the Man of sorrows wras greatly despised among us.
Those who formerly mistook and. despised the Servant of Jehovah on account of His miserable condition, now confess that His sufferings were altogether of a different character from what they had supposed. Ver. 4. " Verily He hath borne our diseases and our pains: He hath laden them upon Himself; but we regarded Him as one stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted? Tt might appear doubtful whether £K (the fuller form of?]N) is affirmative here, as in ch. xl. 7, xlv. 15, or adversative, as in ch. xlix. 4. The latter meaning grows out of the former, inasmuch as it is the opposite which is strongly affirmed. We have rendered it affirmatively (Jer. vere), not adversatively (verum, ut vero\ because ver. 4 itself consists of two antithetical halves, — a relation which is expressed in the independent pronouns wn and HfHK, that answer to one another. The penitents contrast themselves and their false notion with Him and His real achievement. In Matthew (viii. 17) the words are rendered freely and faithfully thus: auro? ra<; acOeveias rjfjicov eXafie, koX tcl$ voaov? iftdaTacrev. Even the fact that the relief which Jesus afforded to all kinds of bodily diseases is regarded as a fulfilment of what is here affirmed of the Servant of Jehovah, is an exegetical index worth noticing. In 4a it is not really sin that is spoken of, but the evil which is consequent upon human sin, although not always the direct consequence of the sins of individuals (John ix. 3). But in the fact that He was concerned to relieve this evil in all its forms, whenever it came in His way in the exercise of His calling, the relief implied as a consequence in ver. 4a was brought distinctly into view, though not the bearing and lading that are primarily noticed here. Matthew has very aptly rendered KtW by e\a/3e, and?3D by i^daraa-e. For whilst ^?D denotes the toilsome bearing of a burden that has been taken up, NK>J combines in itself the ideas of tollere and ferre. When construed with the accusative of the sin, it signifies to take the debt of sin upon one's self, and carry it as one's own, i.e. to look at it and feel it as one's own (e.g. Lev. v. 1, 17), or more frequently to bear the punishment occasioned by sin, i.e. to make expiation for it (Lev. xvii. 16, xx. 19, 20, xxiv. 15), and in any case in which the person bearing it is not himself the guilty person, to bear sin in a mediatorial capacity, for the purpose of making expiation for it (Lev. x. 17). The LXX. render this NKO both in the Pentateuch and Ezekiel TvajSeiv afiapriav, once avafykpeiv; and it is evident that both of these are to be understood in the sense of an expiatory bearing, and not merely of taking away, as has been recently maintained in opposition to the satisfactio vicaria, as we may see clearly enough from Ezek. iv. 4-8, where the |'W riKK> is represented by the prophet in a symbolical action. But in the case before us, where it is not the sins, but u our diseases " (U vn is a defective plural, as the singular would be written *???) and " our pains " that are the object, this mediatorial sense remains essentially the same. The meaning is not merely that the Servant of God entered into the fellowship of our sufferings, but that He took upon Himself the sufferings which we had to bear and deserved to bear, and therefore not only took them away (as Matt. viii. 17 might make it appear), but bore them in His own person, that He might deliver us from them. But when one person takes upon himself suffering which another would have had to bear, and therefore not only endures it with him, but in his stead, this is called substitution or representation,
— an idea which, however unintelligible to the understanding, belongs to the actual substance of the common consciousness of man, and the realities of the divine government of the world as brought within the range of our experience, and one which has continued even down to the present time to have much greater vigour in the Jewish nation, where it has found its true expression in sacrifice and the kindred institutions, than in any other, at least so far as its nationality has not been entirely annulled.1 Here again it is Israel, which, having been at length better instructed, and now bearing witness against itself, laments its former blindness to the mediatorially vicarious character of the deep agonies, both of soul and body, that were endured by the great Sufferer. They looked upon them as the punishment of His own sins, and indeed — inasmuch as, like the friends of Job, thev measured the sin of the Sufferer by the sufferings that He endured — of peculiarly great sins. They saw in Him JA33, " one stricken" i.e, afflicted with a hateful, shocking disease (Gen. xii. 17; 1 Sam. vi. 9), — such, for example, as leprosy, which was called Jttj) kclt ifj. (2 Kings xv. 5, A. atyrjfievov, S. iv d<f>7j ovtcl = leprosum, Th. /jL€fiao~TuycDfievov, cf. fidcrTLyes, Mark iii. 10, scourges, i.e. bad attacks); also DWK HSEDj " one smitten of God " (from ndkhdh, root ^:, 33; see Job, vol. ii. p. 146), and ^VD, bowed down (by God), i.e. afflicted with sufferings. The name Jehovah would have been out of place here, where the evident intention is to point to the all-determining divine power generally, whose vengeance appeared to have fallen upon this particular sufferer. The construction mukkeh 'Elohlm signifies, like the Arabic muqdtal rabbuli, one who has been defeated in conflict with God his Lord (see Job, vol. i. p. 267); and 'Elohim has the syntactic position between the two adjectives, which it necessarily must have in order to be logically connected with them both.
In ver. 5, Wii as contrasted with I3n3tfl continues the true state of the case as contrasted with their false judgment. Yer. 5. " Whereas He was pierced for our sins, bruised for our iniquities: the punishment was laid upon Him for our peace; and through His stripes we were healed" The question is, whether ver. 5a describes what He was during His life, or what He was 1 See my Jesus und Hillel, pp. 26, 27.
in His death. The words decide in favour of the latter. For although chdldl is applied to a person mortally wounded but not yet dead (Jer. li. 52; Ps. Ixix. 27), and chdlal to a heart wounded to death (Ps. cix. 22); the pure passives used here, which denote a calamity inflicted by violence from without, more especially m'choldl, which is not the participle polal of dill (made to twist one's self with pain), but the participle poal of chdlal (pierced, transfossus, the passive of meclwlel9 ch. li. 9), and the substantive clauses, which express a fact that has become complete in all its circumstances, can hardly be understood in any other way than as denoting, that " the servant of God " floated before the mind of the speaker in all the sufferings of death, just as was the case with Zechariah in Zech. xii. 10. There were no stronger expressions to be found in the language, to denote a violent and painful death. As min, with the passive, does not answer to the Greek biro, but to cltto, the meaning is not that it was our sins and iniquities that had pierced Him through like swords, and crushed Him like heavy burdens, but that He was pierced and crushed on account of our sins and iniquities. It was not His own sins and iniquities, but ours, which He had taken upon Himself, that He might make atonement for them in our stead, that were the cause of His having to suffer so cruel and painful a death. The ultimate cause is not mentioned; but VvV 13DW "ijmo which follows points to it. His suffering was a musdr, which is an indirect affirmation that it was God who had inflicted it upon Him, for who else could the yoser (rrfyasser) be? We have rendered musdr "punishment;" and there was no other word in the language for this idea; for though DjJJ and rnjja (to which Hofmann refers) have indeed the idea of punishment associated with them, the former signifies ifchUrjcns, the latter iiri(TK€^L<;, whereas musdr not only denotes Trcu&eta, as the chastisement of love (Prov. hi. 11), but also as the infliction of punishment ( = Tt/xwp/a, KoXaais, Prov. vii. 22, Jer. xxx. li), just as David, when he prayed that God might not punish him in His anger and hot displeasure (Ps. vi. 2), could not find a more suitable expression for punishment, regarded as the execution of judgment, than *\& (O^fl). The word itself, which follows the form of musdd (ch. xxviii. 16), signified primarily being chastised (from ydsar = vdsar, constringere, coercere), and included from the very outset the idea of practical chastisement, which then passed over into that of admonition in words, of warning by example, and of chastity as a moral quality. In the case before us, in which the reference is to a sufferer, and to a mfisdr resting upon him, this can only mean actual chastisement. If the expression had been Ivy OTOD, it would merely mean that God had caused Him, who had taken upon Himself our sins and iniquities and thus made Himself representatively or vicariously guilty, to endure the chastisement which those sins deserved. But it is ^pw' *1WD. The connection of the words is the same as that of D^n nrain in Prov. xv. 31. As the latter signifies " reproof leading to life," so the former signifies " the chastisement which leads to our peace." It is true that the suffix belongs to the one idea, that that has grown up through this combination of the words, like berith sh'lomi, " my peace-covenant" (ch. liv. 10); but what else could our " peace-chastisement " be, than the chastisement that brings us peace, or puts us into a state of salvation? This is the idea involved in Stier's rendering, " restoring chastisement," and Hofmann's, " the chastisement wholesome for us." The difference in the exposition simply lies in the view entertained of the musar, in which neither of these commentators will allow that there is any idea of a visitation of justice here. But according to our interpretation, the genitive Wtibw, which defines the musdr so far as its object and results are concerned, clearly shows that this manifestation of the justice of God, this satisfaction procured by His holiness, had His love for its foundation and end. It was our peace, or, what is more in accordance with the full idea of the word, our general wellbeing, our blessedness, which these sufferings arrived at and secured (the synonyms of shdlvm are tobh and yes7iudh, ch. lii. 7). In what follows, " and by His stripes (chdbhurdh = chabburdhj ch. i. 6) we have been healed," shdlom is defined as a condition of salvation brought about by healing. u Venustissimum 'o!;vficopov" exclaims Vitringa here. He means the same as Jerome when he says, suo vulnere vulnera nostra curavit. The stripes and weals that were inflicted upon Him have made us sound and well (the LXX. keeps the collective singular, and renders it very aptly tg5 fxd)\(07rc avrov; cf. 1 Pet. ii. 24). We were sick unto death because of our sins; but He, the sinless one, took upon Himself a suffering unto death, which was, as it were, the concentration and essence of the woes that we had deserved; and this voluntary endurance, this submission to the justice of the Holy One, in accordance with the counsels of divine love, became the source of our healing.
Thus does the whole body of the restored Israel confess with penitence, that it has so long mistaken Him whom Jehovah, as is now distinctly affirmed, had made a curse for their good, when they had gone astray to their own ruin. Ver. 6. " All we like sheep went astray; we had turned every one to his own way; and Jehovah caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him." It is the state of exile, upon which the penitent Israel is here looking back; but exile as being, in the prophet's view, the final state of punishment before the final deliverance. Israel in its exile resembled a scattered flock without a shepherd; it had lost the way of Jehovah (ch. lxiii. 17), and every one had turned to his own way, in utter selfishness and estrangement from God (ch. lvi. 11). But whereas Israel thus heaped up guilt upon guilt, the Servant of Jehovah was He upon whom Jehovah Himself caused the punishment of their guilt to fall, that He might make atonement for it through His own suffering. Many of the more modern expositors endeavour to set aside the poena vicaria here, by giving to V^SH a meaning which it never has. Thus Stier renders it, " Jehovah caused the iniquity of all to strike or break upon Him." Others, again, give a meaning to the statement which is directly at variance with the words themselves. Thus Hahn renders it: Jehovah took the guilt of the whole into His service, causing Him to die a violent death through their crime. Hofmann very properly rejects both explanations, and holds fast to the fact that 2 JJ^Bn, regarded as a causative of 2 JN3, signifies " to cause anything to strike or fall upon a person," which is the rendering adopted by Symmachus: fcvpto<; /caTavrfjaai, eiroinaev eh avrbv ttjv avofiiav irdvTcov Tj/icov. " Just as the blood of a murdered man comes upon the murderer, when the bloody deed committed comes back upon him in the form of blood-guiltiness inflicting vengeance; so does sin come upon, overtake (Ps. xl. 13), or meet with the sinner. It went forth from him as his own act; it returns with destructive effect, as a fact by which he is condemned. But in this case God does not suffer those who have sinned to be overtaken by the sin they have committed; but it falls upon His servant, the righteous One." These are Hofmann's words. But if the sin turns back upon the sinner in the shape of punishment, why should the sin of all men, which the Servant of God has taken upon Himself as His own, overtake Him in the form of an evil, which, even if it be a punishment, is not punishment inflicted upon Him? For this is just the characteristic of Hofmann's doctrine of the atonement, that it altogether eliminates from the atoning work the reconciliation of the purposes of love with the demands of righteousness. Now it is indeed perfectly true, that the Servant of God cannot become the object of punishment, either as a servant of God or as an atoning Saviour; for as servant of God He is the beloved of God, and as atoning Saviour He undertakes a work which is well pleasing to God, and ordained in God's eternal counsel. So that the wrath which pours out upon Him is not meant for Him as the righteous One who voluntarily offers up Himself; but indirectly it relates to Him, so far as He has vicariously identified Himself with sinners, who are deserving of wrath. How could He have made expiation for sin, if He had simply subjected Himself to its cosmical effects, and not directly subjected Himself to that wrath which is the invariable divine correlative of human sin? And what other reason could there be for God's not rescuing Him from this the bitterest cup of death, than the ethical impossibility of acknowledging the atonement as really made, without having left the representative of the guilty, who had presented Himself to Him as though guilty Himself, to taste of the punishment which they had deserved? It is true that vicarious expiation and poena vicaria are not coincident ideas. The punishment is but one element in the expiation, and it derives a peculiar character from the fact that one innocent person voluntarily submits to it in His own person. It does not stand in a thoroughly external relation of identity to that deserved by the many who are guilty; but the latter cannot be set aside without the atoning individual enduring an intensive equivalent to it, and that in such a manner, that this endurance is no less a self-cancelling of wrath on the part of God, than an absorption of wrath on the part of the Mediator; and in this central point of the atoning work, the voluntarily forgiving love of God and the voluntarily self-sacrificing love of the Mediator meet together, like hands stretched out to grasp one another from the midst of a dark cloud. Hermann Schultz also maintains that the suffering, which was the consequence of sin and therefore punishment to the guilty, is borne by the Redeemer as suffering, without being punishment. But in this way the true mystery is wiped out of the heart of the atoning work; and this explanation is also at variance with the expression "the chastisement of our peace" in ver. 5b, and the equally distinct statement in ver. 6b, u He hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all." It was the sin of all Israel, as the palindromically repeated kulldnu emphatically declares, which pressed upon Him with such force when His atoning work was about to be decided. But fiy is used to denote not only the transgression itself, but also the guilt incurred thereby, and the punishment to which it gives rise. All this great multitude of sins, and mass of guilt, and weight of punishment, came upon the Servant of Jehovah according to the appointment of the God of salvation, who is gracious in holiness. The third turn ends here. It was our sins that He bore, and for our salvation that God caused Him to suffer on our account.
The fourth turn describes how He suffered and died and was buried. Yer. 7. " He -was ill treated; whilst He suffered willingly, and opened not His mouth, like the sheep that is led to the slaughter-bench, and like a lamb that is dumb before its shearers, and opened not His mouth." The third pers. niphal stands first in a passive sense: He has been hard pressed (1 Sam. xiii. 6): He is driven, or hunted (1 Sam. xiv. 24), treated tyrannically and unsparingly; in a word, plagued (vexatus; compare the niphal in a reciprocal sense in ch. iii. 5, and according to the reading KOJ in ch. xxix. 13 in a reflective sense, to torment one's self). Hitzig renders the next clause, " and although tormented, He opened not His mouth." But although an explanatory subordinate clause may precede the principal clause which it more fully explains, no example can be found of such a clause with (a retrospective) KW11 explaining what follows; for in Job ii. 8 the circumstantial clause, "sitting down among the ashes," belongs to the principal fact which stands before. And so here, where njjtt (from which comes the participle TO3, usually met with in circum-
6tantial clauses) has not a passive, but a reflective meaning, as in Ex. x. 3: " He was ill treated, whilst He bowed Himself (= suffered voluntarily), and opened not His mouth " (the regular leap from the participle to the finite). The voluntary endurance is then explained by the simile " like a sheep that is led to the slaughter" (an attributive clause, like Jer. xi. 19); and the submissive quiet bearing, by the simile " like a lamb that is dumb before its shearers." The commentators regard HD7S3 as a participle; but this would have the tone upon the last syllable (see ch. i. 21, 26, Nah. iii. 11; cf. Job, vol. i. p. 393, note). The tone shows it to be the pausal form for nppw, and so we have rendered it; and, indeed, as the interchange of the perfect with the future in the attributive clause must be intentional, not quo? obmutescit, but obmutuit. The following words, VB nns) nti, do not form part of the simile, which wTould require tiphtach, for nothing but absolute necessity would warrant us in assuming that it points back beyond btT\ to nfe^ as Rashi and others suppose. The palindromical repetition also favours the unity of the subject with that of the previous nna* and the correctness of the delicate accentuation, with which the rendering in the LXX. and Acts viii. 32 coincides. All the references in the New Testament to the Lamb of God (with which the corresponding allusions to the passover are interwoven) spring from this passage in the book of Isaiah.
The description of the closing portion of the life of the Servant of Jehovah is continued in ver. 8. " He has been taken away from prison and from judgment; and of His generation who considered: c He was snatched away out of the land of the living; for the wickedness of my people punishment fell upon Him'?" The principal emphasis is not laid upon the fact that He was taken away from suffering, but that it was out of the midst of suffering that He was carried off. The idea that is most prominent in luqqdch (with a in half pause) is not that of being translated (as in the accounts of Enoch and Elijah), but of being snatched or hurried away (abreptus est, ch. Iii. 5, Ezek. xxxiii. 4, etc.). The parallel is abscissus (cf. nikhrath, Jer. xi. 19) a terra viventium, for which "WJ by itself is supposed to be used in the sense of carried away {i.e. out of the sphere of the living into that of the dead, Lam. iii. 54; cf. Ezek.