xxxvii. 11, "It is all over with us"). "ttV (from 'WV, compescere) is a violent constraint; here, as in Ps. cvii. 39, it signifies a persecuting treatment which restrains by outward force, such as that of prison or bonds; and mishpdt refers to the judicial proceedings, in which He was put upon His trial, accused and convicted as worthy of death, — in other words, to His unjust judgment. The min might indeed be understood, as in ver. 5a, not as referring to the persons who swept Him away (= imb), but, as in Ps. cvii. 39, as relating to the ground and cause of the sweeping away. But the local sense, which is the one most naturally suggested by luqqach (e.g. ch. xlix. 24), is to be preferred: hostile oppression and judicial persecution were the circumstances out of which He was carried away by death. With regard to what follows, we must in any case adhere to the ordinary usage, according to which dor (= Arab, daur, dahr, a revolution or period of time) signifies an age, or the men living in a particular age; also, in an ethical sense, the entire body of those who are connected together by similarity of disposition (see, for example, Ps. xiv. 5); or again (= Arab, ddr) a dwelling, as in ch. xxxviii. 12, and possibly also (of the grave) in Ps. xlix. 20. Such meanings as length of life (Luther and Grotius), course of life (Vitringa), or fate (Hitzig), it is impossible to sustain. Hence the Sept. rendering, ttjv yeveav avrov tk BirjyrjaeTai, which Jerome also adopts, can only mean, so far as the usage of the language is concerned, " who can declare the number of His generation" (i.e. of those inspired by His spirit, or filled with His life); but in this connection such a thought would be premature. Moreover, the generation intended would be called W"|T rather than ritt, as springing from Him. Still less can we adopt the meaning " dwelling," as Knobel does, who explains the passage thus: " who considers how little the grave becomes Him, which He has received as His dwelling-place." The words do not admit of this explanation. Hofmann formerly explained the passage as meaning, " No one takes His dwelling-place into his mind or mouth, so as even to think of it, or inquire what had become of Him; " but in His Schriftbeweis he has decided in favour of the meaning, His contemporaries, or the men of His generation. It is only with this rendering that we obtain a thought at all suitable to the picture of suffering given here, or to the words which follow (compare Jer. ii. 31, O ye men of this generation). iiiTDKi in that case is not the object to nnifc^ the real object to which is rather the clause introduced by s3, but an adverbial accusative, which may serve to give emphatic prominence to the subject, as we may see from ch. lvii. 12, Ezek. xvii. 21, Neh. ix. 34 (Ges. § 117, Anm.); for ns cannot be a preposition, since inter cequales ejus would not be expressed in Hebrew by nnTiK, but by HTD. The pilel sochedch with be signifies in Ps. cxliii. 5 a thoughtful consideration or deliberation, in a word, meditationem alicujus rei (compare the kal with the accusative, Ps. cxlv. 5). The following kl is an explanatory quod: with regard to His contemporaries, who considered that, etc. The words introduced with kl are spoken, as it were, out of the heart of His contemporaries, who ought to have considered, but did not. We may see from ^V that it is intended to introduce a direct address; and again, if we leave kl untranslated, like on recitativum (see, for example, Josh. ii. 24; compare di, Dan. ii. 25), we can understand why the address, which has been carried on thus far in such general terms, assumes all at once an individual form. It cannot be denied, indeed, that we obtain a suitable object for the missing consideration, if we adopt this rendering: w He was torn away (3d prcet.) out of the land of the living, through (min denoting the mediating cause) the wicked conduct of my people (in bringing Him to death), to their own punishment; i.e. none of the men of His age (like ml in ver. 1, no one = only a very few) discerned what had befallen them on account of their sin, in ridding themselves of Him by a violent death.,, Hofmann and V. F. Oehler both adopt this explanation, saying, u Can the prophet have had the person of the Ecce Homo before his eye, without intimating that his people called down judgment upon themselves, by laying violent hands upon the Servant of God?" We cannot, however, decide in favour of this explanation; since the impression produced by this toj JHJ *®y y^'Qp is, that it is intended to be taken as a rectification of jnaa iruaipn UJTJNl in ver. 46, to which it stands in a reciprocal relation. This reciprocal relation is brought out more fully, if we regard the force of the min as still continued (ob plagam quae Mis debebatur, Seb. Schmid, Kleinert, etc.); though not in the sense of " through the stroke proceeding from them, my people " (Hahn), which would be opposed to the general usage of JH3; or taking)tb j/m as a relative clause, populi mei quibus plaga debebatur (Hengstenberg, Havernick). But the most natural course is to take lamo as referring to the Servant of God, more especially as our prophet uses lamo pathetically for Id, as ch. xliv. 15 unquestionably shows (notwithstanding the remonstrance of Stier, who renders the passage, " He was all plague, or smiting, for them"). W?. always signifies suffering as a calamity proceeding from God (e.g. Ex. xi. 1, Ps. xxxix. 11, and in every other passage in which it does not occur in the special sense of leprosy, which also points back, however, to the generic idea of a plague divinely sent); hence Jerome renders it, u for the sin of my people have I smitten Him." The text does not read so; but the smiter is really Jehovah. Men looked upon His Servant as a JJU3; and so He really was, but not in the sense in which men regarded Him as such. Yet, even if they had been mistaken concerning Him during His lifetime; now that He no longer dwelt among the living, they ought to see, as they looked back upon His actions and His sufferings, that it was not for His own wickedness, but for that of Israel, viz. to make atonement for it, that such a visitation from God had fallen upon Him Q as in ch. xxiv. 16 and ch. xxvi. 16, where the sentence is in the same logical subordination to the previous one as it is here, where Dachselt gives this interpretation, which is logically quite correct: propter prcevaricationem populi mei plaga ei contingente).
After this description in ver. 7 of the patience with which He suffered, and in ver. 8 of the manner in which He died, there follows a retrospective glance at His burial. Ver. 9. " And they assigned Him His grave with sinners, and with a rich man in His martyrdom, because He had done no wrong, and there was no deceit in His mouth." The subject to \f$_ (assigned) is not Jehovah, although this would not be impossible, since V\l has Jehovah as the latent subject; but it would be irreconcilable with ver. 10, where Jehovah is introduced as the subject with antithetical prominence. It would be better to assume that " my people" is the subject; but as this would make it appear as if the statement introduced in ver. 86 with kl (for) were continued here, we seem compelled to refer it to doro (His generation), which occurs in the principal clause. No objection could be offered to our regarding " Ills own generation" as the subject; but (lord is somewhat too far removed for this; and if the prophet had had the contemporaries of the sufferer in his mind, he would most likely have used a plural verb (yayyitt'nu). Some, therefore, supply a personal subject of the most general kind to yitten (which occurs even with a neuter subject, like the German es gibt, Fr. il y a, Eng. "there is;" cf. Prov. xiii. 10): " they (on) gave;" and looking at the history of the fulfilment, we confess that this is the rendering we prefer. In fact, without the commentary supplied by the fulfilment, it would be impossible to understand ver. 9a at all. The earlier translators did great violence to the text, and yet failed to bring out any admissible thought. And the explanation which is most generally adopted now, viz. that TW is the synonymous parallel to D^ycn (as even Luther rendered it, " and died like a rich -^ man," with the marginal gloss, u a rich man who sets all his - heart upon riches, i.e. a, wicked man"), is also untenable; for even granting that 'dshlr could be proved by examples to be sometimes used as synonymous with y&jh, as ^V and PS2K are as synonyms of P^¥, this would be just the passage in which it would be least possible to sustain any such use of the word; since he who finds his grave with rich men, whether with the godly or the ungodly, would thereby have received a decent, and even honourable burial. This is so thoroughly sustained by experience, as to need no confirmation from such passages as Job xxi. 32. Hitzig has very good ground, therefore, for opposing this u synonymous" explanation; but when he adopts the rendering lapsator, after the Arabic jys-, this is quite as much in opposition to Arabic usage (according to which this word merely signifies a person who falls into error, and makes a mistake in speaking), as it is to the Hebrew. Ewald changes W'y into PW (a word which has no existence); and Bottcher alters it into in "•fcty, which is comparatively the best suggestion of all. Hofmann connects the two words vriioa TTO, u men who have become rich through the murders that they have treacherously caused" (though without being able to adduce any proof that moth is ever applied to the death which one person inflicts upon another). At any rate, all these attempts spring from the indisputable assumption, that to be rich is not in itself a sin which deserves a dishonourable burial, to say nothing of its receiving one. If, therefore, DWi and "Wy are not kindred ideas, they must be antithetical; but it is no easier to establish a purely ethical antithesis than an ethical coincidence. If, however, we take the word D^Bh as suggesting the idea of persons found guilty, or criminals (an explanation which the juridical context of the passage well sustains; see at ch. 1. 9), we get a contrast which our own usage of speech also draws between a rich man who is living in the enjoyment of his own possessions, and a delinquent who has become impoverished to the utmost, through hatred, condemnation, ruin. And if we reflect that the Jewish rulers would have given to Jesus the same dishonourable burial as to the two thieves, but that the Roman authorities handed over the body to Joseph the Arimathaean, a " rich man" (Matt, xxvii. 57), who placed it in the sepulchre in his own garden, we see an agreement at once between the gospel history and the prophetic words, which could only be the work of the God of both the prophecy and its fulfilment, inasmuch as no suspicion could possibly arise of there having been any human design of bringing the former into conformity with the latter. But if it be objected, that according to the parallel the 'dshir must be regarded as dead, quite as much as the reshalm, we admit the force of this objection, and should explain it in this way: " They assigned Him His grave with criminals, and after He had actually died a martyr's death, with a rich man;" i.e. He was to have lain where the bodies of criminals lie, but He was really laid in a grave that was intended for the corpse of a rich man.1 The rendering adopted by Vitringa and others, " and He was with a rich man in his death," is open to this objection, that such a clause, to be quite free from ambiguity, would require Wjrn&O VJYiDa fcttn. Hengstenberg and Stier very properly refer both jm and rap, which must be repeated in thought, to the second clause as well as the first. The rendering tumulum ejus must be rejected, since bdmdh never has this meaning; and Wlb3| which is the pointing sustained by three Codd., would not be mausolea, but a lofty burial-hill, after the fashion of the Hunengrdber (certain " giants' graves," or barrows, in Holstein and Saxony).1 V}iD is a plur. exaggerative here, as in Ezek. xxviii. 10 (compare m'mothe' in Ezek. xxviii. 8 and Jer. xvi. 4); it is applied to a violent death, the very pain of which makes it like dying again and again. The first clause states with whom they at first assigned Him His grave; the second with whom it was assigned Him, after He had really died a painful death. " Of course," as F. Philippi observes, " this was not a thorough compensation for the ignominy of having died the death of a criminal; but the honourable burial, granted to one who had been ignominiously put to death, showed that there must be something very remarkable about Him. It was the beginning of the glorification which commenced with His death." If we have correctly interpreted the second clause, there can be no doubt in our minds, since we cannot shake the word of God like a kaleidoscope, and multiply the sensus Complex, as Stier does, that &6?V (= *6 ^brpy) does not mean " notwithstanding that not," as in Job xvi. 17, but " because not," like y3vy in Gen. xxxi. 20. The reason why the Servant of God received such honourable treatment immediately after His ignominious martyrdom, was to be found in His freedom from sin, in the fact that He had done no wrong, and there was no deceit in His mouth (LXX. and 1 Pet. ii. 22, where the clause is correctly rendered ovSe evpiOrj S6\o$ iv tqj gto^wti avrov). His actions were invariably prompted by pure love, and His speech consisted of unclouded sincerity and truth.
The last turn in the prophecy, which commences here, carries out ver. 6b still further, and opens up the background of His fate. The gracious counsel of God for our salvation was accomplished thus. Ver. 10. u And it pleased Jehovah to bruise Him, to afflict Him with disease; if His soul would pay a trespass-offering. He should see posterity, should live long days, and
1 The usage of the language shows clearly that hamah had originally the meaning of "height" (e.g. 2 Sam. i. 19). The primary meaning suggested by Bbttcher, of locus clausus, septus (from D"Q = D!"Q, (*#), cannot be sustained. We still hold that Q3 is the expanded N2, and riftl an ascent, steep place, or stair. In the Talmud, hamah is equivalent to Paftos, an altar, and nDh3 (Syr. him) equivalent to the fiqpx of the orator and judge; /3<y^oV, root /3a, like the Hebrew hamah, signifies literally an elevation, and actually occurs in the sense of a sepulchral hill, which this never has, not even in Ezek. xliii. 7.
the purpose of Jehovah should prosper through His hand. *?nn cannot possibly be equivalent to vnn, as Hitzig supposes. An article appended to a noun never obliterates the fundamental character of its form (not even in H??)* Nor does Bottcher's su£o-estion, that we should read vnn as an accusative of more precise definition, commend itself; for what would the article do in that case? It is the hiphil of npn, like the Syriac agli from <flo; or rather, as even in Syriac this vJK is equivalent to »^«, of Kf>n, 2 Chron. xvi. 12 (cf. Dwbnn), like Wn in 2 Kings xiii. 6 and Jer. xxxii. 35, from Nttn. ton is placed under N^. (=ton with Dag. dirimens) in Gesenius' Lexicon; but this substantive is a needless fiction. 1&on is an inf. piel: conterere eum (Jerome), not fcaOapicrac avrov (LXX. from NDn = n3T). According to Mic. vi. 13 (^3? *flyJJjT, I hurt to smite thee, i.e. I smite thee with a painful blow), vnn ton are apparently connected, in the sense of " And it pleased Jehovah to bruise Him pain fully." But both logically and syntactically this would require the opposite construction, viz. Ifcon vnn. ton must therefore be an infinitive, depending upon Y%n, according to Job xxxiii. 32 (=ev86K7]<re; the LXX. thoughtlessly renders it fiovXerat,). The infinitive construction is then changed into the finite; for even vnn is subordinate to pan, as in Hos. v. 11 (cf. ch. xlii. 21; Ges. § 142, 3); "he would, made ill," being equivalent to " he would make ill," i.e. he would plunge into distress- There is no necessity to repeat l&on after vnn, in the sense of " he caused sore evil therewith," viz. with the IfcOn. lit was men who inflicted upon the Servant of God such crushing suffering, such deep sorrow; but the supreme causa efficiens in the whole was God, who made the sin of men subservient to His pleasure, His will, and predetermined counsel. The suffering of His Servant was to be to Him the way to glory, and this way of His through suffering to glory was to lead to the establishment of a church of the redeemed, which would spring from Him; in other words, it would become the commencement of that fulfilment of the divine plan of salvation which He, the ever-living, ever-working One, would carry out to completionry We give up the idea that DW is to be taken as addressed by- Jehovah to " His Servant." The person acting is the Servant, and it is to Jehovah that the action refers. But Hofmann's present view, viz. that tdslm is addressed to the people, is still less admissible. It is the people who are speaking here; and although the confession of the penitent Israel runs on from ver. 11 (where the confessing retrospective view of the past becomes a prospective and prophetic glance at the future) in a direct prophetic tone, and ver. 10 might form the transition to this; yet, if the people were addressed in this word tdsim, it would be absolutely necessary that it should be distinctly mentioned in this connection. And is it really Israel which makes the soul of the Servant an 'dshdm, and not rather the Servant Himself? No doubt it is true, that if nothing further were stated here than that " the people made the life of the Servant of God an 'dshdm, inasmuch as it treated Him just as if it had a pricking in its conscience so long as it suffered Him to live," — which is a natural sequel in Hofmann's case to his false assumption, that the passion described in ch. liii. was merely the culminating point in the sufferings which the Servant was called to endure as a prophet, whereas the prophet fails into the background here behind the sacrifice and the priest, — we should no doubt have one scriptural testimony less to support the satisfactio vicaria} But if we adopt the following rendering, which is the simplest, and the one least open to exception: if His soul offered (placed, i.e. should have placed; cf. Job xiv. 14, si mortuus fuerit) an 'dshdm, — it is evident that 'dshdm has here a sacrificial meaning, and indeed a very definite one, inasmuch as the 'dshdm (the trespass-offering) was a sacrifice, the character of which was very sharply defined. It is self-evident, however, that the 'dshdm paid by the soul of the Servant must consist in the sacrifice of itself, since He pays it by submitting to a violent death; and a sacrifice presented by the nephesh (the soul, the life, the very self) must be not only one which pro-
1 In the first edition of Hofmann's Schriftbeweis (i. 2, 137), in which he regarded tdslm as addressed to God, he set aside the orthodox view with the remark, that God Himself makes good the injury that men have done to Him by giving up the life of His Servant. In the second edition (i. 2, 208) he supposes the people to be addressed, and it is therefore the people who make the Servant's life an 'dshdm. The.first edition contained the following correct definition of ''dshdm: "In general, it denotes what one person pays to make good an injury done by him to another." The exposition which follows above will show how we are forced to adopt the orthodox view, if we adhere to this definition and regard the Servant Him- Belf as presenting the ''dshdm.
ceeds from itself, but one which consists in itself. If, then, we would understand the point of view in which the self-sacrifice of the Servant of God is placed when it is called an 'dshdm, we must notice very clearly the characteristic distinction between this kind of sacrifice and every other. Many of the ritual distinctions, however, may be indicated superficially, inasmuch as they have no bearing upon the present subject, where we have to do with an antitypical and personal sacrifice, and not with a typical and animal one. The 'dshdm was a Sanctis simum, like that of the sin-offering (Lev. vi. 10, 17, and xiv. 13), and according to Lev. vii. 7 there was " one law" for them both. This similarity in the treatment was restricted simply to the fact, that the fat portions of the trespass-offering, as well as of the sin-offering, were placed upon the altar, and that the remainder, as in the case of those sin-offerings the blood of which was not taken into the interior of the holy place, was assigned to the priests and to the male members of the priestly families (see Lev. vi. 22, vii. 6). There were the following points of contrast, however, between these two kinds of sacrifice: (1.) The material of the sin-offerings varied considerably, consisting sometimes of a bullock, sometimes of a pair of doves, and even of meal without oil or incense; whereas the trespass-offering always consisted of a ram, or at any rate of a male sheep. (2.) The choice of the victim, and the course adopted with its blood, was regulated in the case of the sin-offering according to the condition of the offerer; but in the case of the trespass-offering they were neither of them affected by this in the slightest degree. (3.) Sin-offerings were presented by the congregation, and upon holy days, whereas trespass-offerings were only presented by individuals, and never upon holy days. (4.) In connection with the trespass-offering there was none of the smearing pf the blood (n'thindh) or of the sprinkling of the blood (hazzd'dh) connected with the sin-offering, and the pouring out of the blood at the foot of the altar (sh'phlkhdJi) is never mentioned. The ritual for the blood consisted purely in the swinging out of the blood (ze?*iqdh), as in the case of the whole offering and of the peace-offerings. There is only one instance in which the blood of the trespass-offering is ordered to be smeared, viz. upon certain portions of the body of the leper (Lev. xiv. 14), for which the blood of the sin-offering that was to be applied exclusively to the altar could not be used. And in general we find that, in the case of the trespass-offering, instead of the altar-ritual, concerning which the law is very brief (Lev. vii. 1-7), other acts that are altogether peculiar to it are brought prominently into the foreground (Lev. v. 14 sqq.; Num. v. 5-8). These are all to be accounted for from the fact that a trespass-offering was to be presented by the man who had unintentionally laid hands upon anything holy, e.g. the tithes or first-fruits, or who had broken any commandment of God " in ignorance" (if indeed this is to be taken as the meaning of the expression M and wist it not" in Lev. v. 17-19); also by the man who had in any way defrauded his neighbour (which was regarded as unfaithfulness towards Jehovah), provided he anticipated it by a voluntary confession, — this included the violation of another's conjugal rights in the case of a bondmaid (Lev. xix. 20-22); also by a leper or a Nazarite defiled by contact with a corpse, at the time of their purification, because their uncleanness involved the neglect and interruption of the duties of worship which they were bound to observe. Wherever a material restitution was possible, it was to be made with the addition of a fifth; and in the one case mentioned in Lev. xix. 20-22, the trespass-offering was admissible even after a judicial punishment had been inflicted. But in every case the guilty person had to present the animal of the trespass-offering " according to thy valuation, O priest, in silver shekels," i.e. according to the priest's taxation, and in holy coin. Such was the prominence given to the person of the priest in the ritual of the trespass-offering. In the sin-offering the priest is always the representative of the offerer; but in the trespass-offering he is generally the representative of God. The trespass-offering was a restitution or compensation made to God in the person of the priest, a payment or penance which made amends for the wrong done, a satisfactio in a disciplinary sense. And this is implied in the name; for just as fiNttn denotes first the sin, then the punishment of the sin and the expiation of the sin, and hence the sacrifice which cancels the sin; so 'dshdm signifies first the guilt or debt, then the compensation or penance, and hence (cf. Lev. v. 15) the sacrifice which discharges the debt or guilt, and sets the man free. Every species of sacrifice had its own primary idea. The fundamental idea of the 'oldh (burnt-offering) was oblatio, or the offering of worship; that of the shHdmlm (peace-offerings), conciliation or the knitting of fellowship; that of the minchdh (meat-offering), donatio, or sanctifying consecration; that of the chattd'th (sinoffering), expiatio, or atonement; that of the 'dshdm (trespassoffering), mulcta (satis f actio), or a compensatory payment. The self-sacrifice of the Servant of Jehovah may be presented under all these points of view. It is the complete antitype, the truth, the object, and the end of all the sacrifices. So far as it is the antitype of the " whole offering," the central point in its antitypical character is to be found in the offering of His entire personality (irpoafyopa rov (roo/JuaTOS, Heb. x. 10) to God for a sweet smelling savour (Eph. v. 2); so far as it is the antitype of the sin-offering, in the shedding of His blood (Heb. ix. 13, 14), the " blood of sprinkling" (Heb. xii. 24; 1 Pet. i. 2); so far as it is the antitype of the sbfldmlm, and especially of the passover, in the sacramental participation in His one self-sacrifice, which He grants to us in His courts, thus applying to us His own redeeming work, and confirming our fellowship of peace with God (Heb. xiii. 10; 1 Cor. v. 7), since the sheldmim derive their name from shdlom, pax, communio; so far as it is the antitype of the trespass-offering, in the equivalent rendered to the justice of God for the sacrileges of our sins. The idea of compensatory payment, which Hofmann extends to the whole sacrifice, understanding by kipper the covering of the guilt in the sense of a debt (debiturri), is peculiar to the 'dshdm; and at the same time an idea, which Hofmann cannot find in the sacrifices, is expressed here in the most specific manner, viz. that of satisfaction demanded by the justice of God, and of poena outweighing the guilt contracted (cf. nirtsdh, ch. xl. 2); in other words, the idea of satisfactio vicaria in the sense of Anselm is brought out most distinctly here, where the soul of the Servant of God is said to present such an atoning sacrifice for the whole, that is to say, where He offers Himself as such a sacrifice by laying down the life so highly valued by God (ch. xlii. 1, xlix. 5). As the verb most suitable to the idea of the 'dshdm the writer selects the verb sim, which is generally used to denote the giving of a pledge (Job xvii. 3), and is therefore the most suitable word for every kind of satisfactio that represents a direct solutio. The apodoses to " if His soul shall have paid the penalty (poenam or mulctam)" are expressed in the future, and therefore state what would take place when the former should have been done. He should see posterity (yid. Gen. 1. 23; Job xlii. 16), i.e. should become possessed of a large family of descendants stretching far and wide. The reference here is to the new " seed of Israel," the people redeemed by Him, the church of the redeemed out of Israel and all nations, of which He would lay the foundation. Again, He should live long days, as He says in Rev. i. 18, "I was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore."1 Thirdly, the pleasure of Jehovah should prosper " in His hand," i.e. through the service of His mediation, or (according to the primary meaning of tsdlach) should go on advancing incessantly, and pressing on to the final goal. His self-sacrifice, therefore, merely lays the foundation for a progressively selfrealizing " pleasure of the Lord," i.e. (cf. ch. xliv. 28) for the realization of the purpose of God according to His determinate counsel, the fuller description of which we had in ch. xlii. and xlix., where it was stated that He should be the mediator of a new covenant, and the restorer of Israel, the light of the Gentiles and salvation of Jehovah even to the ends of the earth.
This great work of salvation lies as the great object of His calling in the hand of the deceased and yet eternally living One, and goes on victoriously through His mediation. He now reaps the fruit of His self-sacrifice in a continuous priestly course. Ver. 11. u Because of the travail of His soul, He will see, and be refreshed; through His knowledge will He procure justice, my righteous servant, for the many, and will take their iniquities upo?i Himself" The prophecy now leaves the standpoint of Israel's retrospective acknowledgment of the long rejected Servant of God, and becomes once more the prophetic organ of God Himself, who acknowledges the servant as His own. The min of taijE might be used here in its primary local signification, " far away from the trouble " (as in Job xxi. 9, for example); or the temporal meaning which is derived from the
1 Knobel observes here: " The statement that a person first offers himself as a trespass-offering, and then still lives for a long time, and still continues working, is a very striking one; but it may be explained on the ground that the offerer is a plurality." But how are we to explain the striking expression in our creed, " rose again from the dead?"
local would be also admissible, viz. " from the time of the trouble," i.e. immediately after it (as in Ps. lxxiii. 20); but the causal sense is the most natural, viz. on account of, in consequence of (as in Ex. ii. 23), which not only separates locally and links together temporarily, but brings into intimate connection. The meaning therefore is, "In consequence of the trouble of His soul (i.e. trouble experienced not only in His body, but into the inmost recesses of His soul), He will see, satisfy Himself." Hitzig supplies 2it33 (Jer. xxix. 32); Knobel connects iW!?, in opposition to the accents (like A. S. Th. ifnrXrjadrjaeTcu iv tt) yvoocrei clvtov), thus: " He looks at His prudent work, and has full satisfaction therewith." But there is nothing to supply, and no necessity to alter the existing punctuation. The second verb receives its colouring from the first; the expression " He will see, will satisfy Himself," being equivalent to " He will enjoy a satisfying or pleasing sight " (cf. Ps. xvii. 15), which will consist, as ver. 106 clearly shows, in the successful progress of the divine work of salvation, of which He is the Mediator, injni belongs to P^W as the medium of setting right (cf. Prov. xi. 9). This is connected with? in the sense of "procure justice," like? NST (ch. vi. 10);? n\sn in ch. xiv. 3, xxviii. 12 (cf. Dan. xi. 33,? P^n, to procure intelligence; Gen. xlv. 7, / n^nn, to prolong life, — a usage which leads on to the Aramaean combination of the dative with the accusative, e.g. Job xxxvii. 18, compare v. 2). Tsaddlq 'abhdl do not stand to one another in the relation of a proper name and a noun in apposition, as Hofmann thinks, nor is this expression to be interpreted according to *vn ty?Bn (Ges. § 113); but "a righteous man, my servant," with the emphatic prominence given to the attribute (cf. ch. x. 30, xxiii. 12, Ps. lxxxix. 51), is equivalent to " my righteous servant." But does wn mean per cognilionem sui, or per cognitionem suam? The former gives a sense which is both doctrinally satisfying and practically correct: the Righteous One makes others partakers of righteousness, through their knowledge of Him, His person, and His work, and (as the biblical JHJ, which has reference not only to the understanding, but to personal experience also, clearly signifies) through their entrance into living fellowship with Him. Nearly all the commentators, who understand by the servant of God the Divine Redeemer, give the preference to this explanation (e.g. Vitringa, Hengstenberg, and Stier). But the meaning preferred is not always the correct one. The subjective rendering of the suffix (cf. Prov. xxii. 17) is favoured by Mai. ii. 7, where it is said that u the priest's lips should keep ddath (knowledge);" by Dan. xii. 3, where faithful teachers are called matsdiqe hdrabbim (they that turn many to righteousness); and by ch. xi. 2, according to which " the spirit of knowledge " (rudch daath) is one of the seven spirits that descend upon the sprout of Jesse; so that " knowledge " (daath) is represented as equally the qualification for the priestly, the prophetic, and the regal calling. It is a very unseemly remark, therefore, on the part of a modern commentator, when he speaks of the subjective knowledge of the Servant as u halting weakly behind in the picture, after His sacrificial death has already been described." We need only recal to mind the words of the Lord in Matt. xi. 27, which are not only recorded both by the synoptists and by John, but supported by testimony outside the Gospels also: " No man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him." Let us remember also, that the Servant of Jehovah, whose priestly mediatorial work is unfolded before us here in ch. liii., upon the ground of which He rises to more than regal glory (ch. lii. 15, compare liii. 12), is no other than He to whom His God has given the tongue of the learned, "to know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary, i.e. to raise up the weary and heavy laden" (ch. 1. 4). He knows God, with whom He stands in loving fellowship; He knows the counsels of His love and the will of His grace, in the fulfilment of which His own life ascends, after having gone down into death and come forth from death; and by virtue of this knowledge, which rests upon His own truest and most direct experience, He, the righteous One, will help "the many," i.e. the great mass (hdrabbim as in Dan. ix. 27, xi. 33, 39, xii. 3; cf. Ex. xxiii. 2, where rabblm is used in the same sense without the article), hence all His own nation, and beyond that, all mankind (so far as they were susceptible of salvation; =*= toi$ 7ro\\ot?, Rom. v. 19, cf. 7ro\\coPy Matt. xxvi. 28), to a right state of life and conduct, and one that should be well-pleasing to God. The primary reference is to the righteousness of faith, which is the vol. ii. y consequence of justification on the ground of His atoning work, when this is believingly appropriated; but the expression also includes that righteousness of life, which springs by an inward necessity out of those sanctifying powers, that are bound up with the atoning work which we have made our own (see Dan. ix. 24). The ancients recognised this connection between the juslitia Jidei et vital better than many of the moderns, who look askance at the Romish justitia infusa, and therewith boast of advancing knowledge. Because our righteousness has its roots in the forgiveness of sins, as an absolutely unmerited gift of grace without works, the prophecy returns once more from the justifying work of the Servant of God to His sin-expunging work as the basis of all righteousness: " He shall bear their iniquities." This yisbol (He shall bear), which stands along with futures, and therefore, being also future itself, refers to something to be done after the completion of the work to which He is called in this life (with which Hofmann connects it), denotes the continued operation of His sebhdldm (ver. 4), through His own active mediation. His continued lading of our trespasses upon Himself is merely the constant presence and presentation of His atonement, which has been offered once for all. The dead yet living One, because of His one selfsacrifice, is an eternal Priest, who now lives to distribute the blessings that He has acquired.
The last reward of His thus working after this life for the salvation of sinners, and also of His work in this life upon which the former is founded, is victorious dominion. Ver: 12. " Therefore I give Him a portion among the great, and with strong ones will He divide spoil; because He has poured out His soul into death: and He let Himself be reckoned among transgressors; whilst He bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors" The promise takes its stand between humiliation and exaltation, and rests partly upon the working of the exalted One, and partly upon the doing and suffering of One who was so ready to sacrifice Himself. Luther follows the LXX. and Vulgate, and adopts the rendering, "Therefore will I give Him a great multitude for booty;" and Havernick, Stier, and others adopt essentially the same rendering, " Therefore will I apportion to Him the many." But, as Job xxxix. 17 clearly shows, this clause can only mean, " Therefore will I give Him a portion in the many." If, however, cldlUq V means to have a portion in anything, and not to give the thing itself as a portion, it is evident that hdrabbim here are not the many, but the great; and this is favoured by the parallel clause. The ideas of greatness and force, both in multitude and might, are bound up together in rabh and rdtsum (see ch. viii. 7), and the context only can decide which rendering is to be adopted when these ideas are separated from one another. What is meant by " giving a portion bdrabbim" is clearly seen from such passages as ch. lii. 15, xlix. 7, according to which the great ones of the earth will be brought to do homage to Him, or at all events to submit to Him. The second clause is rendered by Luther, u and He shall have the strong for a prey." This is at any rate better than the rendering of the LXX. and Vulgate, " et fortium dividet spolia" But Prov. xvi. 19 shows that Tifcjl is a preposition. Strong ones surround Him, and fight along with Him. The reference here is to the people of which it is said in Ps. ex. 3, " Thy people are thorough devotion in the day of Thy power;" and this people, which goes with Him to battle, and joins with Him in the conquest of the hostile powers of the world (Rev. xix. 14), also participates in the enjoyment of the spoils of His victory. With this victorious sway is He rewarded, because He has poured out His soul unto death, having not only exposed His life to death, but "poured out" (he&rdh, to strip or empty, or pour clean out, even to the very last remnant) His life-blood into death (lammdvetli like the Lamed in Ps. xxii. 16), and also because He has suffered Himself to be reckoned with transgressors, i.e. numbered among them (niph. tolerativum), namely, in the judgment of His countrymen, and in the unjust judgment (mishpdt) by which He was delivered up to death as a wicked apostate and transgressor of the law. With wrn there is attached to DWSVi&o HJD3 (He was numbered with the transgressors), if not in a subordinate connection (like wro in ver. 5; compare ch. x. 7), the following antithesis: He submitted cheerfully to the death of a sinner, and yet He was no sinner, but " bare the sin of many (cf. Heb. ix. 28), and made intercession for the transgressors." Many adopt the rendering, " and He takes away the sin of many, and intervenes on behalf of the transgressors." But in this connection the preterite NfO can only relate to some- thing antecedent to the foregoing future, so that ¥$& denotes a connected past; and thus have the. LXX. and Vulg. correctly rendered it. Just as 3 y^asn in ver. 66 signifies to cause to fall upon a person, so in Jer. xv. 11 it signifies to make one approach another (in supplication). Here, however, as in ch. lix. 16, the liiphil is not a causative, but has the intensive force of the leal, viz. to press forward with entreaty, hence to intercede (with a Lamed of the person on whose behalf it occurs). According to the cons, temporum, the reference is not to the intercession (e^Teuft?) of the glorified One, but to that of the suffering One, on behalf of His foes. Every word stands here as if written beneath the cross on Golgotha. And this is the case with the clause before us, which was fulfilled (though not exclusively) in the prayer of the crucified Saviour: " Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do " (Luke xxiii. 34).
" The prophetic view," says Oehler, who agrees with us in the general opinion that the idea of the Servant of Jehovah has three distinct stages, " ascends in these discourses step by step, as it were, from the one broad space covered by the foundationwalls of a cathedral up to the very summit with its giddy height, on which the cross is planted; and the nearer it reaches the summit, the more conspicuous do the outlines of the cross itself become, until at last, when the summit is reached, it rests in peace, having attained what it desired when it set its foot upon the first steps of the temple tower." There is something very striking in this figure. Here, in the very centre of this book of consolation, we find the idea of the Servant of Jehovah at the very summit of its ascent. It has reached the goal. The Messianic idea, which was hidden in the general idea of the nation regarded as "the servant of Jehovah," has gradually risen up in the most magnificent metamorphosis from the depths in which it was thus concealed. And this fusion has generated what was hitherto altogether strange to the figure of the Messiah, viz. the unio mystica capitis et corporis. Hitherto Israel has appeared simply as the nation governed by the Messiah, the army which He conducted into battle, the commonwealth ordered by Him. But now, in the person of the Servant of Jehovah, we see Israel itself in personal self-manifestation: the idea of Israel is fully realized, and the true nature of Israel shines forth in all its brilliancy. Israel is the body, and He the head, towering above it. Another element, with which we found the Messianic idea enriched even before ch. liii., was the munus triplex. As early as ch. vii.-xii. the figure of the Messiah stood forth as the figure of a King; but the Prophet like unto Moses, promised in Deut. xviii. 15, was still wanting. But, according to ch. xlii., xlix., 1., the servant of Jehovah is first a prophet, and as the proclaimer of a new law, and the mediator of a new covenant, really a second Moses; at the close of the work appointed Him, however, He receives the homage of kings, whilst, as ch. liii. clearly shows, that self-sacrifice lies between, on the ground of which He rules above as a Priest after the order of Melchizedek,— in other words, a Priest and also a King. From this point onward there are added to the Messianic idea the further elements of the status duplex and the satisfactio vicaria, David was indeed the type of the twofold state of his antitype, inasmuch as it was through suffering that he reached the throne; but where have we found, in all the direct Messianic prophecies anterior to this, the suffering path of the Ecce Homo even to the grave? But the Servant of Jehovah goes through shame to glory, and through death to life. He conquers when He falls; He rules after being enslaved; He lives after He has died; He completes His work after He Himself has been apparently cut off. His glory streams upon the dark ground of the deepest humiliation, to set forth which the dark colours were supplied by the pictures of suffering contained in the Psalms and in the book of Job. And these sufferings of His are not merely the sufferings of a confessor or a martyr, like those of the ecclesia pressa, but a vicarious atoning suffering, a sacrifice for sin. To this the chapter before us returns again and again, being never tired of repeating it. " Spiritus Sanctus" says Brentius, " non delectatur inani fiarroXoyia, et tamen quum in hoc cap. videatur /5aTToXo7o? ko\ ravroXoyo? esse, dubium non est, quin tractet rem cognitu maxime necessariam" The banner of the cross is here set up. The curtain of the most holy is lifted higher and higher. The blood of the typical sacrifice, which has been hitherto dumb, begins to speak. Faith, which penetrates to the true meaning of the prophecy, hopes on not only for the Lion of the tribe of Judah, but also for the Lamb of God, which beareth the sin of the world. And in pro- phecy itself we see the after-effect of this gigantic advance. Zechariah no longer prophesies of the Messiah merely as a kino- (ch. vi. 13); He not only rules upon His throne, but is also a priest upon His throne: sovereignty and priesthood go hand in hand, being peacefully united in Him. And in Zech. xii. 13 the same prophet predicts in Him the good Divine Shepherd, whom His people pierce, though not without thereby fulfilling the counsel of God, and whom they afterwards long for with bitter lamentation and weeping. The penitential and believing confession which would then be made by Israel is prophetically depicted by Isaiah's pen — "mourning in bitter sorrow the lateness of its love."
After the " Servant of God" has expiated the sin of His people by the sacrifice of Himself, and Israel has acknowledged its fault in connection with the rejected One, and entered into the possession and enjoyment of the salvation procured by Him, the glory of the church, which has thus become a partaker of salvation through repentance and faith, is quite ready to burst forth. Hence the prophet can now exclaim, ver. 1: " Exult, 0 barren one, thou that didst not bear; break forth into exulting, and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child: for there are more children of the solitary one than children of the married wife, saith Jehovah." The words are addressed to Jerusalem, which was a counterpart of Sarah in her barrenness at first, and her fruitfulness afterwards (ch. li. 1-3). She is not i>T) &6 rnjjg (Job xxiv. 21), but rpjjj & nyrV: (Judg. xiii. 2); not indeed that she had never had any children, but during her captivity and exile she had been robbed of her children, and as a holy city had given birth to no more (ch. xlix. 21). She was shomemdh, rendered solitary (2 Sam. xiii. 20; the allusion is to her depopulation as a city), whereas formerly she was '"w?, i.e. enjoyed the fellowship of Jehovah her husband (ba'al). But this condition would not last (for Jehovah had not given her a divorce): she was therefore to exult and shout, since the number of children which she would now have, as one desolate and solitary, would be greater than the number of those which she had as a married wife.
With this prospect before her, even her dwelling-place would need enlarging. Ver. 2. "Enlarge the space of thy tent,, and let them stretch out the curtains of thy habitations; forbid not! lengthen thy cords, and fasten thy plugs." She is to widen out the space inside her tent, and they Q®1 has no definite subject, which is often the case where some subordinate servant is to be thought of) are to spread out far and wide the coverings of the framework of her dwelling, which is called mishkenoth (in the plural) on account of its roominess and magnificence: she is not to forbid it, thinking in her weakness of faith, " It is good enough as it is; it would be too large." The cords which hold up the walls, she is to lengthen; and the plugs, to which the cords are fastened, she is to ram fast into the earth: the former because the tent (i.e. the holy city, Jer. xxxi. 38-40, and the dwelling-place of the church generally, ch. xxvi. 15) has to receive a large number of inhabitants; the latter because it will not be broken up so soon again (ch. xxxiii. 20).
The reason why the tent is to be so large and strong is given in ver. 3: " For thou wilt break forth on the right and on the left; and thy seed will take possession of nations, and they will people desolate cities" " On the right and on the left" is equivalent to "on the south and north" (Ps. lxxxix. 13, the speaker being supposed to have his face turned towards the east: compare the Sanscrit apdn, situated at the back, i.e. towards the west). We must supply both west and east, since the promises contained in such passages as Gen. xv. 18-21 remained unfulfilled even in the age of David and Solomon. Jerusalem will now spread out, and break through all her former bounds (pdrats is used in the same sense in Gen. xxviii. 14); and her seed (i.e. the seed acquired by the Servant of Jehovah, the dead yet eternally living One, the arepiia, whose (Tirepfxa He Himself is) will take possession of nations (ydrash, ydresh, capessere, occupare; more especially Kknpovofielv, syn. ndchal); and they (i.e. the children born to her) will people desolate cities (lioshlbh, the causative of ydshabh, to be inhabited, ch. xiii. 20). Thus will the promise be fulfilled, that u the meek shall inherit the earth," — a promise not confined to the Preacher on the mount, but found also in Ps. xxxvii. 9-11, and uttered by our own prophet in ch. lx. 21, lxv. 9.
The encouraging promise is continued in ver. 4: " Fear not, for thou wilt not be put to shame; and bid defiance to reproach, for thou wilt not blush: no, thou wilt forget the shame of thy youth, and wilt no more remember the reproach of thy widowhood." Now that redemption was before the door, Israel was not to fear any more, or to be overcome (as the niphal nikhlam implies) by a feeling of the shame consequent upon her state of punishment, or so to behave herself as to leave no room for hope. For a state of things was about to commence, in which she would have no need to be ashamed (on bosh and chdpher or hechplr, see vol. i. p. 108, note), but which, on the contrary (^3, imo, as in ch. x. 7, lv. 9), would be so glorious that she would forget the shame of her youth, i.e. of the Egyptian bondage, in which the national community of Israel was still but like a virgin (almdh), who entered into a betrothal when redeemed by Jehovah, and became His youthful wife through a covenant of love (ehe = UrltK) when the law was given at Sinai (Jer. ii. 2; Ezek. xvi. 60); so glorious indeed, that she would never again remember the shame of her widowhood, i.e. of the Babylonian captivity, in which she, the wife whom Jehovah had taken to Himself, was like a widow whose husband had died.
It was no real widowhood, however, but only an apparent one (Jer. Ii. 5), for the husband of Jerusalem was living still. Ver. 5. " For thy husband is thy Creator; Jehovah of hosts is His name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; God of the whole earth is He called? The plurals T.Va an(l T.V^ (see at ch. xxii. 11) are to be explained from the plural 'Flohlm, which is connected with plural attributes in Josh. xxiv. 19, 1 Sam. xvii. 26, Ps. lviii. 12 (compare VWD in ch. x. 15), and with plural predicates in Gen. xx. 13, xxxv. 7, and 2 Sam. vii. 23. By such expressions as these, which represent all the plurality of the divine nature as inherent in the One, the religion of revelation, both Israelitish and Christian, exhibits itself as embodying all that is true in polytheism. He who has entered into the relation of husband to Jerusalem Q\^V2, not "nvitt, ch. i. 3) is the very same through w7hom she first came into existence, the God whose bidding the heavenly hosts obey; and the Redeemer of Jerusalem, the Holy One of Israel, is called the God of the whole earth, and therefore has both the power and the means to help her, as prompted by the relation of love which exists between them.
And this relation He now renews. Ver. 6. a For Jehovah calleth thee as a wife forsaken and burdened with sorrow, and as a wife of youth, when once she is despised, saith thy God" The verb sop, which is the one commonly used in these prophecies to denote the call of grace, on the ground of the election of grace, is used here to signify the call into that relation, which did indeed exist before, but had apparently been dissolved. "n^i? is used here out of pause (cf. ch. lx. 9); it stands, however, quite irregularly for the form in ekh, which is the one commonly employed (Judg. iv. 20; Ezek. xxvii. 26). " And as a wife:" ri&JM is equivalent to n^to*. The hypothetical DMsn s3 belongs to the figure. Jehovah calls His church back to Himself, as a husband takes back the wife he loved in his youth, even though he may once have been angry with her. It is with intention that the word npNlpa is not used. The future (imperfect) indicates what partially happens, but does not become an accomplished or completed fact: He is displeased with her, but He has not cherished aversion or hatred towards her.
Thus does Jehovah's displeasure towards Jerusalem pass quickly away; and all the more intense is the manifestation of love which follows His merely momentary anger. Vers. 7, 8. " For a small moment have I forsaken thee, and with great mercy will I gather thee. In an effusion of anger I hid my face from thee for a moment, and with everlasting grace I have compassion upon thee, saith Jehovah thy Redeemer" " For a small moment" carries us to the time of the captivity, which was a small moment in comparison with the duration of the tender and merciful love, with which Jehovah once more received the church into His fellowship in the person of its members. V^ in ver. 8a is not an adverb, meaning momentarily, as in ch. xlvii. 9, but an accusative of duration, signifying a single moment long. Ketseph signifies wrath regarded as an outburst (fragor), like the violence of a storm or a clap of thunder; shetseph, which rhymes with it, is explained by A. Schultens, after the Arabic, as signifying durum et asperum esse: and hence the rendering adopted by Hitzig, " in hard harshness." But this yields no antithesis to " everlasting kindness," which requires that shetseph should be rendered in some way that expresses the idea of something transitory or of short duration. The earlier translators felt this, when, like the LXX. for example, they adopted the rendering iv 6v/jlu) fiifcpo), and others of a similar kind; and Ibn Labrat, in his writing against Menahem b. Zeruk, who gives chdrl, burning heat, as a gloss to shetseph, explains it by tsyo (as Kimchi and others did afterwards). But, as Jakob Tarn correctly observes, " this makes the sense purely tautological." In all probability, shdtsaph is a form allied to shdtaph, as ndshabh (ch. xl. 7) is to ndshaph (ch. xl. 24), and qdmat (Job xvi. 8) to qdmats, which stand in the same relation to one another, so far as the sense is concerned, as bubbling over to flowing over: so that the proper rendering would not be u in the overflowing of glowing heat," as Umbreit thinks, which would require *pp ^B^S (Prov. xxvii. 4), but in the gushing up of displeasure, the overflowing of indignation (Meier). The ketseph is only a shetseph, a vanishing moment (Jer. in momento indignationis), when compared with the true feeling of Jehovah towards Jerusalem, which is chesed 'oldm, everlasting kindness. The ground of this " everlasting kindness " is given in ver. 9: " For it is now as at the waters of Noah, xohen I swore that the waters of Noah should not overflow the earth any more; so have I sworn not to be wroth with thee, and not to threaten thee." The commencement of this verse has been a fluctuating one from the earliest times. The Sept. reading is *B»; that of the Targ., S., Jerome, Syriac, and Saad., *0*3; and even the Codd. read sometimes ^"'3, sometimes ^3 (compare Matt, xxiv. 37, wcnrep al rjfxepat rod Ncoe, ovtcqs, k.t.X., — a passage which appears to derive its shape from the one before us, with the reading ^O, and which is expounded in Luke xvii. 26). If wre read "»D*3, the word nw must refer to the present, as the turning-point between wrath and mercy; but if we read ''D"^, nxr denotes the pouring out of wrath in connection with the captivity. Both readings are admissible; and as even the Septuagint, with its airo tov vBaro? (from the water), gives an indirect support to the reading ^3 as one word, this may probably merit the preference, as the one best sustained. T£'K is abi, quum, as in Num. xx. 13, Ps. xcv. 9, etc., although it might also be taken as the correlate of the ken which follows, as in Jer. xxxiii. 22 (cf. xlviii. 8); and in accordance with the accents, we prefer the former. The present turning-point resembles, in Jehovah's esteem, the days of Noah, — those days in which He swore that a flood should not any more come upon the earth (min as in ch. v. 6 and many other passages): for so does He now confirm with an oath His fixed purpose that no such judgment of wrath as that which has just been endured shall ever fall upon Jerusalem again (pV\ denotes threatening with a judicial word, which passes at once into effect, as in ch. li. 20). Hendewerk has the following quibbling remark here: " What the comparison with the flood is worth, we may gather from the later history, which shows how soon the new Jerusalem and the renovated state succumbed to the judicial wrath of God again." To this we reply: (1.) That the prophecy refers to the converted Israel of the last days, whose Jerusalem will never be destroyed again. These last days appear to the prophet, according to the general character of all prophecy, as though linked on to the close of the captivity. For throughout all prophecy, along with the far-sightedness imparted by the Spirit, there was also a short-sightedness which the Spirit did not remove; that is to say, the directly divine element of insight into the future was associated with a human element of hope, which was nevertheless also indirectly divine, inasmuch as it subserved the divine plan of salvation; and this hope brought, as it were, the far distant future intofcthe closest proximity with the troubled present. If, then, we keep this in mind, we shall see that it was quite in order for the prophet to behold the final future on the very edge of the present, and not to see the long and undulating way between. (2.) The Israel which has been plunged by the Romans into the present exile of a thousand years is that part of the nation (Rom. xi. 25), which has thrust away the eternal mercy and the unchangeable covenant of peace; but this rejection has simply postponed, and not prevented, the full realization of the salvation promised to Israel as a people. The covenant still exists, primarily indeed as an offer on the part of Jehovah, so that it rests with Israel whether it shall continue one-sided or not; but all that is wanted on the part of Israel is faith, to enable it to exchange the shifting soil of its present exile for the rocky foundation of that covenant of peace which has encircled the ages since the captivity (see Hacr. ii. 9), as the covenant with Noah encircled those after the flood with the covenant sign of the rainbow in the cloud.
Ver. 1 0. " For the mountains may depart, and the hills may shake; my grace will not depart from thee, and my covenant of peace will not shake, saith Jehovah who hath compassion on thee" Jehovah's grace and covenant of peace (cf. Num. xxv. 12) stand as firm as the mountains of God (Ps. xxxvi. 7), without departing from Jerusalem (^ko instead of the usual ^nND) and without shaking; and they will be fulfilled. This fulfilment will not take place either by force or by enchantment; but the church which is to be glorified must pass through sufferings, until it has attained the form which answers to the glory promised to it on oath. And this will also take place; for the old Jerusalem will come forth as a new one out of the furnace of affliction. Vers. 11, 12. " 0 thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, not comforted, behold, I lay thy stones in stibium, and lay thy foundations with sapphires; and make thy minarets of ruby, and thy gates into carbuncles, and all thy boundary into jewels." At the present time the church, of which Jerusalem is the metropolis, is sunk in misery, driven with tempest like chaff of the threshing-floor (Hos. xiii. 3), without comfort; because till now it has waited in vain for any act of consolation on the part of God, and has been scorned rather than comforted by man (p^Vp is a part, kal, not pual; and nonj 3d pers. prcet. like njJSJ, ch. Ixii. 12, and n»nn? Hos. i. 6, ii. 3). But this will be altered; Jerusalem will rise again from the dust, like a glorious building of God. Jerome makes the following apt remark on ver. 116; uin stibio, i.e. in the likeness of an elegant woman, who paints her eyes with stibium; referring to the beauty of the city." Pukh is eye-black (kohl, cf. kdchal, Ezek. xxiii. 40), i.e. a sooty compound, the chief component of which was powdered antimony, or else manganese or lead, and with which oriental women coloured their eyebrows, and more particularly the eyelids both above and below the eyes, that the beauty of the latter might be all the more conspicuous (2 Kings ix. 30). The classic <f>v/co<;, fucus, has a meaning foreign to the Hebrew word, viz. that of rouge for the cheeks. If, then, stibium (antimony), or any blackening collyrium generally, served the purpose of mortar in the rebuilding of Jerusalem, the stones of its walls (not its foundation-stones, 1*?]N, which is the reading adopted by Ewald, but, on the contrary, the visible stones of its towering walls) would look like the eyes of a woman shining forth from the black framework of their painted lids, i.e. they would stand out in splendour from their dark ground. The Beth in bassappirlm indicates the means employed. Sapphires serve as foundation-stones, for the foundation of Jerusalem stands as immoveably firm as the covenant of God. The sapphire blue is the colour of the heaven, of revelation, and of the covenant. The sh'mdshotli, however, i.e. the minarets which stand out like rays of the sun, and also the gates, have a red appearance. Red is the colour of blood, and hence of life and of imperishableness; also the colour of fire and of lightning, and hence of wrath and victory. Jehovah makes the minarets of " ruby." The Sept. and Jerome adopt the rendering iaspidem (a jasper); at any rate, nbl3 (which is the proper way of writing the word: Ewald, § 48, c1) is a red sparkling jewel (from kidked; cf. kidod, scintilla). The arches of the gates He forms of rnj?K VOK, stones of fiery splendour (from qddach, to burn: hence qaddachath, 7ru/3tTo?), that is to say, of carbuncle stones (from carbunculus, a small red-hot coal), like ruby, garnet, etc. Jerome has adopted the false rendering lapides sculptos, after Symm. \{6oi yXvtyrjs (from mp = Tlp, finderef). The accusative of the predicate 1313 is interchanged with rttpK sl2vb, and then with parppniOj to denote the materia ex qua. The whole territory (precinct) of Jerusalem is turned by Jehovah into precious stones, that is to say, it appears to be paved with such stones, just as in Tobit xiii. 17 the streets are said to be " paved with beryl, and carbuncle, and stones of Ophir," i.e. to be covered with a mosaic formed of precious stones. It is upon the passage before us that Tobit xiii. 16, 17, and Rev. xxi. 18-21, are founded. The motley colours of the precious stones, with which the new Jerusalem is adorned, are something more than
1 The first 3 is dagessatum, the second raphatum: see Norzi. The word forms one of the eighteen which have a dagesh after a word ending with a vowel sound (3>D3D fc6l Kf iT "1713 pBTl): see Masora Magna on Dan. v. 11, and Heidenheim's D^Di! ""Ba^D, 41a. The object is to secure greater euphony, as in B*D3"D3 (&6n)> ch. x. 9, which is one of the eighteen words.
a mere childish fancy. Whence, then, do the precious stones derive their charm? The ultimate ground of this charm is the fact, that in universal nature everything presses to the light, and that in the mineral world the jewels represent the highest stage of this ascending process. It is the self-unfolding process of the divine glory itself, which is reflected typologically in the several gradations of the manifold play of colours and the transparency of the precious stones. For this reason, the high priest wore a breastplate with twelve precious stones, upon which were the names of the twelve tribes of Israel; and for this same reason, the author of the Apocalypse carries out into detail in ch. xxi. the picture of the new Jerusalem, which is here sketched by the prophet of the Old Testament (without distinguishing time from eternity), adding crystals and pearls to the precious stones which he there mentions one by one. How can all this be explained, except on the ground that even the mineral world reflects the glory of those eternal lights from which God is called the " Father of lights," or except on the assumption that the saints in light will one day be able to translate these stony types into the words of God, out of which they have their being?
The outward glory of the city is only the manifestation, which strikes the senses, of the spiritual glory of the church dwelling therein. Ver. 13. " And all thy children will be the learned of Jehovah; and great the peace of thy children" We translate both halves of the verse as substantive clauses, although they might be accusatives of both the object and predicate, dependent upon *FMDfe\ '71 HTO are disciples of Jehovah, but, as in ch. 1. 4, with the subordinate idea of both docility and learning. The children of Jerusalem will need no instruction from man, but carry within them the teaching of heaven, as those who are " taught of God" (8i8a/cTol Geov, John vi. 45; OeohthaicToi, 1 Thess. iv. 9). Essentially the same promise is given in Joel iii. 1, 2, and Jer. xxxi. 34; and represented in 1 John ii. 20 (" Ye have the anointing of the Holy One, and know all things") as already fulfilled. In the place of the former inward and outward distress, there has now entered shdlom, perfect inward and outward peace, complete salvation, and blessedness as its result. 31 is an adjective, for this form cannot be shown to have existed as a syncopated
In perfect keeping with this grace through, righteousness, Jerusalem will then stand firm and impregnahle. Vers. 14, 15. u Through righteousness wilt thou be fortified: be far from anxiety ', for thou hast nothing to fear; and from terror, for it will not come near thee. Behold, men crowd together in crowds; my will is not there. Who croivd together against thee? — he shall fall by thee.'1 Both the thought and action of Jerusalem will be righteousness then, and it will thereby acquire strength; ^jtein is a pausal future hithpalel, with the D of the reflective opening syllable assimilated (Ges. § 53, 2, b). With this reciprocal influence of its moral character and imparted glory, it can, and is to keep far away from all thought of oppression and terror; for, through divine grace and a corresponding divine nature, it has nothing to fear, ft (ver. 15a), when pointing to any transaction as possible (as, for example, in Job xii. 14, xxiii. 8), acquires almost the significance of a conditional particle (Ewald, § 103, g). The equally hypothetical parallel clause is clothed in the form of an interrogative. For the verb gur, the meaning " to gather together " (related to "UN), more especially to join together with hostile intention (cf. ovvdyeaOat, Rev. xix. 19, xx. 8), is sustained by Ps. lvi. 7, lix. 4; and with fni, lacessere, it has nothing to do (Hitzig and Ewald). *]J1K has the force of contra ter as in the case of verbs of combat. The first apodosis is this: " but it takes place entirely away from me," i.e. without and against my will; VfiND = VIKB (as in ch. lix. 21), and DfriN = DriX, are no sure signs of a later usage; for this alternation of the two forms of HN is met with as early as Josh. xiv. 12. The second apodosis is, u he will fall upon (or against) thee," or, as we should say, u founder," or u be wrecked." It is far more likely that this is the meaning of the words, than that they mean " he will fall to thy lot " (/V p&, like s, PDJ elsewhere, to fall to a person); for the context here is a totally different one from ch-. xlv. 14, and we look for nothing more than a declaration of the utter failure and ruin of the undertaking.
Jerusalem will be thus invincible, because Jehovah, the Almighty One, is its protector. Vers. 16, 17. "Behold, I have created the smith who bloweth the coal-fire, and brings to the light a weapon according to his trade; and I have created the destroyer to destroy. Every weapon formed against thee has no success, and every tongue that cometh before the judgment with thee thou wilt condemn. Tins the inheritance of the servants of Jehovah; and their righteousness from me, saith Jehovah." If Jehovah has created the armourer, who forges a weapon wwyu? (i.e. according to his trade, or according to the thing he has to finish, whether an arrow, or a sword, or a spear; not " for his own use," as Kimchi supposes), to be used in the hostile army against Jerusalem, He has also created a destroyer (/2np) to destroy. The very same creative might, to which the origin of the weapon is to be traced as its primary cause, has opposed to it beforehand a defender of Jerusalem. And as every hostile weapon fails, Jerusalem, in the consciousness of its divine right, will convict every accusing tongue as guilty and deserving of utter condemnation (JTKnrt as in ch. 1. 9, cf. 1 Sam. xiv. 47, where it denotes the punishment of the guilty). The epiphonem in ver. 17Z>, with the retrospective DKT and the words "saith the Lord," which confirm the certainty of the fulfilment, forms an unmistakeable close to the prophecy. This is the position in which Jehovah has placed His servants as heirs of the future salvation; and this the righteousness which they have received as His gift, and which makes them strong within and victorious without. The individual idea of the church, which we find elsewhere personified as " the servant of Jehovah," equivalent to " the people in whose heart is my law " (ch. li. 7), or " my people that have sought me " (ch. Ixv. 10), is here expanded into "the servants of Jehovah" (as in ch. Ixv. 8, 9; compare ch. lix. 21 with ch. li. 16). But totally different colours are employed in ch. lii. 13-ch. liii. to depict the exaltation of the one " Servant of Jehovah," from those used here to paint the glory of the church of the " servants of Jehovah," — a proof that the ideas do not cover one another. That which is the reward of suffering in the case of the former, is the experience of divine mercy in that of the latter: it becomes a partaker of the salvation purchased by the other. The one " Servant of Jehovah" is the heart of the church, in which the crisis which bursts forth into life is passing; the righteousness of the "servants of Jehovah" is the fruit of the sufferings of this one "Servant of Jehovah," who is Himself pH¥ and pnvn. He is the Mediator of all the salvation of the church. He is not only its u head," but its " fulness " (7r\7Jp<i)/j,a) also.
All things are ready; the guests are invited; and nothing is required of them except to come. Vers. 1, 2. "Alas, all ye thirsty ones, come ye to the water; and ye that have no silver, come ye, buy, and eat! Yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without payment! Wherefore do ye weigh silver for that which is not bread, and the result of your labour for that which satisfeth not f 0 hearken ye to me, and eat the good, and let your soul delight itself in fat" Hitzig and Knobel understand by water, wine, and milk, the rich material blessings which awaited the exiles on their return to their fatherland, whereas they were now paying tribute and performing service in Babylon without receiving anything in return. But the prophet was acquainted with something higher than either natural water (ch. xliv. 3, cf. xli. 17) or natural wine (ch. xxv. 6). He knew of an eating and drinking which reached beyond the mere material enjoyment (ch. lxv. 13); and the expression 'n 21B, whilst it includes material blessings (Jer. xxxi. 12), is not exhausted by them (ch. lxiii. 7, cf. Ps. xxvii. 13), just as J3ynri in ch. lviii. 14 (cf. Ps. xxxvii. 4, 11) does not denote a feeling of worldly, but of spiritual joy. Water, wine, and milk, as the fact that water is placed first clearly shows, are not the produce of the Holy Land, but figurative representations of spiritual revival, recreation, and nourishment (cf. 1 Pet. ii. 2, " the sincere milk of the word "). The whole appeal is framed accordingly. When Jehovah summons the thirsty ones of His people to come to the water, the summons must have reference to something more than the water to which a shepherd leads his flock. And as buying without money or any other medium of exchange is an idea which neutralizes itself in the sphere of natural objects, wine and milk are here blessings and gifts of divine grace, which are obtained by grace {^dptrv, gratis), their reception being dependent upon nothing but a sense of need, and a readiness to accept the blessings offered. Again, VOL. II. Z the use of the verb FOB?, which is confined in other passages to the purchase of cereals, is a sufficient proof that the reference is not to natural objects, but to such objects as could properly be compared to cereals. The bread and other provisions, which Israel obtained in its present state of punishment, are called "not bread," and " not serving to satisfy," because that which truly satisfies the soul comes from above, and being of no earthly nature, is to be obtained by those who are the most destitute of earthly supplies. Can any Christian reader fail to recal, when reading the invitation in ver. 1, the words of the parable in Matt. xxii. 4, " All things are now ready? " And does not ver. 2 equally suggest the words of Paul in Rom. xi. 6, " If by grace, then is it no more of works? " Even the exclamation hoi (alas! see ch. xviii. 1), with which the passage commences, expresses deep sorrow on account of the unsatisfied thirst, and the toilsome labour which affords nothing but seeming satisfaction. The way to true satisfaction is indicated in the words, " Hearken unto me: " it is the way of the obedience of faith. In this way alone can the satisfaction of the soul be obtained.
And in this way it is possible to obtain not only the satisfaction of absolute need, but a superabundant enjoyment, and an overflowing fulfilment of the promise. Vers. 3-5. " Incline your ear, and come to me: hear, and let your soul revive; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, the true mercies of David. Behold, I have set him as a witness for nations, a prince and commander of nations. Behold, thou wilt call a mass of people that thou knowest not; and a mass of people that knoweth thee not will hasten to thee, for the sake of Jehovah thy God, and for the Holy One of Israel, that He hath made thee glorious." The expression " make a covenant " (hdrath berith) is not always applied to a superior in relation to an inferior (compare, on the contrary, Ezra x. 3); but here the double-sided idea implied in pactio is confined to one-side alone, in the sense of a spontaneous sponsio having "all the force of a covenant (ch. lxi. 8; compare 2 Chron. vii. 18, where hdrath by itself signifies "to promise with the force of a covenant"), and also of the offer of a covenant or anticipated conclusion of a covenant, as in Ezek. xxxiv. 25, and in the case before us, where " the true mercies of David " are attached to the idea of offering or granting involved in the expression, "I will make an everlasting covenant with you," as a more precise definition of the object. All that is required on the part of Israel is hearing, and coming, and taking: let it do this, and it will be pervaded by new life; and Jehovah will meet it with an everlasting covenant, viz. the unchangeable mercies of David. Our interpretation of this must be dependent chiefly upon whether ver. 4 is regarded as looking back to the history of David, or looking forward to something future. In the latter case we are either to understand by "David" the second David (according to Hos. iii. 5, Jer. xxx. 9, Ezek. xxxiv. 24), so that the allusion is to the mercies granted in the Messiah, and according to ch. ix. 7, enduring "from henceforth even for ever;" or else David is the son of Jesse, and " the mercies of David " are the mercies bestowed upon him, which are called " the true mercies " as mercies promised and running into the future (Ps. lxxxix. 50; 2 Chron. vi. 42), in which case ver. 4 explains what David will become in the person of his antitype the second David. The directly Messianic application of the name u David " is to be objected to, on the ground that the Messiah is never so called without further remark; whilst the following objections may be adduced to the indirectly Messianic interpretation of ver. 4 (David in the Messiah): (1.) The change of the tense in vers. 4, 5, which requires that we should assume that ver. 4 points backwards into the past, and ver. 5 forwards into the future i1 (2.) That the choice of the expression in vers. 4, 5 is designed to represent what Israel has to look for in the future as going beyond what was historically realized in David; for in ver. 5 the mass of the heathen world, which has hitherto stood
1 F. Philippi observes that |H, "which refers to the future in ver. 5 at any rate, must be taken as referring to the same sphere of time as that which immediately precedes. But hen in Isaiah points sometimes backwards (ch. 1. 1, lxiv. 4), sometimes forwards; and where two follow one another, of which the one points backwards and the other forwards, the former is followed by the perfect, the latter by the future (ch. 1. 1, 2). But if they both point to the future, the future tense is used in both instances (ch. 1. 9). A better argument in favour of the prophetic interpretation of ver. 4 might be drawn from the fact that ifi]")} }PI may mean " I give (set, lay, or make) even now" (e.g. Jer. i. 9). But what we have said above is sufficient proof that this is not the meaning here (if this were the meaning, we should rather expect yJVIJ p)« out of all relation to Israel, answers to the &®*?: (3.) That the juxtaposition of the Messiah and Israel would be altogether without parallel in these prophecies (ch. xl.-lxvi.), and contrary to their peculiar character; for the earlier stereotype idea of the Messiah is here resolved into the idea of the " servant of Jehovah," from which it returns again to its primary use, i.e. from the national basis to the individual, by means of the ascending variations through which this expression passes, and thus reaches a more comprehensive, spiritual, and glorified form. The personal u servant of Jehovah " is undoubtedly no other than the " Son of David " of the earlier prophecy; but the premises, from which we arrive at this conclusion in connection with our prophet, are not that the "servant of Jehovah " is of the seed of David and the final personal realization of the promise of a future king, but that he is of the nation of Israel, and the final personal realization of the idea of Israel, both in its inward nature, and in its calling in relation to the whole world of nations. Consequently vers. 4 and 5 stand to one another in the relation of type and antitype, and the " mercies of David " are called " the true mercies " (probably with an allusion to 2 Sam. vii. 16; cf. Ps. lxxxix. 29, 30), as being inviolable, — mercies which had both been realized in the case of David himself, and would be realized still further, inasmuch as they must endure for an everlasting future, and therefore be further and further fulfilled, until they have reached that lofty height, on the summit of which they will remain unchangeable for ever. It is of David the son of Jesse that Jehovah says in ver. 4, u I have given him for a witness to peoples, a leader and commander to the peoples." So far as the sense is concerned, "i^ is as much a construct as H|fin?. In the application to David of the term *W, which never means anything but testis, witness, in these prophecies, we may clearly see the bent of the prophet's mind towards what is spiritual. David had subdued nations by the force of arms, but his true and loftiest greatness consisted in the fact that he was a witness of the nations, — a witness by the victorious power of his word, the conquering might of his Psalms, the attractive force of his typical life. What he expresses so frequently in the Psalms as a resolution and a vow, viz. that he will proclaim the name of Jehovah among the nations (Ps. xviii. 50, Ivii. 10), lie has really fulfilled: he has not only overcome them by bloody warfare, but by the might of his testimony, more especially as " the sweet psalmist of Israel " (2 Sam. xxiii. 1). What David himself was able to say in Ps. xviii. 43, " People that I did not know served me," will be fulfilled to a still wider extent in the experience of Israel. Having been presented with the promised " inviolable mercies of David," it will effect a spiritual conquest over the heathen world, even over that portion which has hitherto stood in no reciprocal relation to it, and gain possession of it for itself for the sake of Jehovah, whom it has for its God, and to the Holy One of Israel (/ of the object, in relation to which, or at the instigation of which, anything is done), because He hath glorified it (His people: ^KS is not a pausal form for T)$P, cf. ch. liv. 6, but for T]N&, TNB, hence = ^83, cf. ^JV, ch. xxx. 19); so that joining themselves to Israel is the same as joining themselves to God and to the church of the God of revelation (cf. ch. lx. 9, where ver. 5b is repeated almost word for word).
So gracious is the offer which Jehovah now makes to His people, so great are the promises that He makes to it, viz. the regal glory of David, and the government of the world by virtue of the religion of Jehovah. Hence the exhortation is addressed to it in vers. 6 and 7: " Seek ye Jehovah while He may be found, call ye upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return to Jehovah, and He will have compassion upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon" They are to seek to press into the fellowship of Jehovah (ddrash with the radical meaning terere, to acquire experimental knowledge or confidential acquaintance with anything) now that He is to be found (ch. lxv. 1, compare the parallelism of words and things in Jer. xxix. 14), and to call upon Him, viz. for a share in that superabundant grace, now that He is near, i.e. now that He approaches Israel, and offers it. In the admonition to repentance introduced in ver. 7, both sides of the fierdvoca find expression, viz. turning away from sinful self-will, and turning to the God of salvation. The apodosis with its promises commences with ^norn^ — then will He have compassion upon such a man; and consequently D^P? fl-flT1? (with *3 because the fragmentary sentence wrpK"?w did not admit of the continuation with 1) has not a general, but an individual meaning (vid. Ps. cxxx. 4, 7), and is to be translated as a future (for the expression, compare ch. xxvi. 17).
The appeal, to leave their own way and their own thoughts, and yield themselves to God the Redeemer, and to His word, is now urged on the ground of the heaven-wide difference between the ways and thoughts of this God and the despairing thoughts of men (ch. xl. 27, xlix. 24), and their aimless labyrinthine ways. Vers. 8, 9. " For my thouglits are not your thoughts, neither are your ivays my ivays, saith Jehovah: no, heaven is high above the earth; so high are my ways above your ways, and my thoughts above your thoughts? The hi (imo) introduces the undeniable statement of a fact patent to the senses, for the purpose of clearly setting forth, by way of comparison, the relation in which the ways and thoughts of God stand to those of man. There is no necessity to supply 1KW3 after *3, as Hitzig and Knobel do. It is simply omitted, as in ch. lxii. 5 and Jer. iii. 20, or like 15 in Prov. xxvi. 11, etc. On what side the heaven-wide elevation is to be seen, is shown in what follows. They are not so fickle, so unreliable, or so powerless.
This is set forth under a figure drawn from the rain and the snow. Vers. 10, 11. "For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, till it has moistened the earth, and fertilized it, and made it green, and offered seed to the sower and bread to the eater; so will my word be which goeth forth out of my mouth: it will not return to me fruitless, till it has accomplished that which I willed, and prosperously carried out that for ivhich I sent it." The rain and snow come down from the sky, and return not thither till they have... The perfects after Dtf "'3 are all to be understood as such (Ewald, § 356, a). Rain and snow return as vapour to the sky, but not without having first of all accomplished the purpose of their descent. And so with the word of Jehovah, which goeth forth out of His mouth («£, not K£, ch. xlv. 23, because it is thought of as still going on in the preaching of the prophet): it will not return without having effected its object, i.e. without having accomplished what was Jehovah's counsel, or "good pleasure" — without having attained the end for which it was sent by Jehovah (constr. as in 2 Sam. xi. 22, 1 Kings xiv. 6). The word is represented in other places as the messenger of God (ch. ix. 8; Ps. cvii. 20.
cxlvli. 15 sqq.). The personification presupposes that it is not ■ mere sound or letter. As it goeth forth out of the mouth of God it acquires shape, and in this shape is hidden a divine life, because of its divine origin; "and so it runs, with life from God, endowed with divine power, supplied with divine commissions, like a swift messenger through nature and the world of man, there to melt the ice, as it were, and here to heal and to save; and does not return from its course till it has given effect to the will of the sender. This return of the word to God also presupposes its divine nature. The will of God, which becomes concrete and audible in the word, is the utterance of His nature, and is resolved into that nature again as soon as it is fulfilled. The figures chosen are rich in analogies. As snow and rain are the mediating causes of growth, and therefore the enjoyment of what is reaped; so is the soil of the human heart softened, refreshed, and rendered productive or prolific by the word out of the mouth of Jehovah; and this word furnishes the prophet, who resembles the sower, with the seed which he scatters, and brings with it bread which feeds the souls: for every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God is bread (Deut. viii. 3).
The true point of comparison, however, is the energy with which the word is realized. Assuredly and irresistibly will the word of redemption be fulfilled. Vers. 12, 13. " For ye will go out with joy, and be led forth in peace: the mountains and the hills will break out before you into shouting, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands. Instead of the thorn will cypresses shoot up, and instead of the fleabane will myrtles shoot up: and it will be to Jehovah for a name, for an everlasting memorial that will not be swept away." " With joy," i.e. without the hurry of fear (ch. Hi. 12); " in peace," i.e. without having to fight their way through or flee. The idea of the sufferer falls back in??*n behind that of a festal procession (Ps. xlv. 15, 16). In applying the term kaph (band) to the trees, the prophet had in his mind their kippoth, or branches. The psalmist in Ps. xcviii. 8 transfers the figure created by our prophet to the waves of the streams. Nd atsuts (from na ats, to sting) is probably no particular kind of thorn, such, for example, as the fuller's thistle, but, as in ch. vii. 19, briers and thorns generally. On sirpad, see Ges. Thes.; we have followed the rendering, Kovv^a, of the LXX. That this! transformation of the vegetation of the desert is not to bej taken literally, any more than in ch. xli. 17-20, is evident from the shouting of the mountains, and the clapping of hands on the part of the trees. On the other hand, however, the prophet says somethin^ more than that Israel will return home with such feelings of joy as will cause everything to appear transformed. Such promises as those which we find here and in ch. xli. 19 and xxxv. 1, 2, and such exhortations as those which we find in ch. xliv. 23, xlix. 13, and lii. 9, arise from the consciousness, which was common to both prophets and apostles, that the whole creation will one day share in the liberty and glory of the children of God (Rom. viii. 21). This thought is dressed up sometimes in one form, and sometimes in another. The psalmists after the captivity borrowed the colours in which they painted it from our prophet (see at Ps. xcvi. and xcviii.). n\ll is construed as a neuter (cf. ^nana, ch. xlv. 8), referring to this festal transformation of the outer world on the festive return of the redeemed. nix is treated in the attributive clause as a masculine, as if it came from nix, to make an incision, to crimp, as we have already indicated in vol. i. p. 213; but the Arabic £f, dyat, shows that it comes from nix? to point out, and is contracted from tiw&yat, and therefore was originally a feminine.
The note of admonition struck in the foregoing prophecy is continued here, the sabbatical duties being enforced with especial emphasis as part of the general righteousness of life. Vers. 1, 2. " Thus saith Jehovah, Keep ye right, and do righteousness: for my salvation is near to come, and my righteousness to reveal itself. Blessed is the mortal that doeth this, and the son of man that layeth fast hold thereon; who keepeth the Sabbath, that he doth not desecrate it, and keepeth his hand from doing any kind of evil." Jehovah and Israel have both an objective standard in the covenant relation into which they have entered: BBpvp
(right) is practice answering to this; TOE^ (salvation) the performance promised by God; njm (righteousness) on both sides such personal activity as is in accordance with the covenant relation, or what is the same thing, with the purpose and plan of salvation. The nearer the full realization on the part of Jehovah of what He has promised, the more faithful ought Israel to be in everything to which it is bound by its relation to Jehovah. HKT (this) points, as in Ps. vii. 4, to what follows; and so also does ^S, which points back to riNT. Instead of "uOB* or ~foy? we have here IBB*, the HKT being described personally instead of objectively. ri3B> is used as a masculine in vers. 2 and 6 (cf. ch. lviii. 13), although the word is not formed after the same manner as tej?, but is rather contracted from n^W (a festive time, possibly with ny—HTJ understood), and therefore was originally a feminine; and it is so personified in the language employed in the worship of the synagogue.1 The prophet here thinks of H2^ as H2^n nS\ and gives it the gender of Di\
The ^IBW (blessed) of ver. 2 is now extended to those who might imagine that they had no right to console themselves with the promises which it contained. Ver. 3. " And let not the foreigner, who hath not joined himself to Jehovah, speak thus: A ssuredly Jehovah will cut me off from His people; and let not the eunuch say, I am only a dry tree? As nib is not pointed as a participle (H5??)> Dut as a 3d pers. pres., the n of nipan is equivalent to "1BW, as in Josh. x. 24, Gen. xviii. 21, xxi. 3, xlvi. 27, 1 Kings xi. 9 (Ges. § 109). By the eunuchs we are to understand those of Israelitish descent, as the attributive clause is not repeated in their case. Heathen, who professed the religion of Jehovah, and had attached themselves to Israel, might be afraid lest, when Israel should be restored to its native land, according to the promise, as a holy and glorious community with a thoroughly priestly character, Jehovah would no longer tolerate them, i.e. would forbid their receiving full citizenship. *J?V!j3* has the connecting vowel a, as in Gen. xix. 19, xxix. 32, instead of the usual e. And the Israelitish
1 According to b. Sabbath 119a, R. Chanina dressed himself on Friday evening in his sabbath-clothes, and said, " Come, and let us go to meet Queen Sabbath." And so did also Jannai, saying, " Come, 0 bride; come, 0 bride." Hence the customary song with winch the Sabbath was greeted had ni>2pJ rDK* MB rfo TlfcOp^ Hft 71 J? as its commencement and refrain.
eunuchs, who had been mutilated against their will, that they might serve at heathen courts or in the houses of foreign lords, and therefore had not been unfaithful to Jehovah, might be afraid lest, as unfruitful trees, they should be pronounced unworthy of standing in the congregation of Jehovah. There was more ground for the anxiety of the latter than for that of the former. For the law in Deut. xxiii. 4-7 merely prohibits Ammonites and Moabites for all time to come from reception into the congregation, on account of their unbrotherly conduct towards the Israelites as they came out of Egypt, whilst that in Deut. xxiii. 8, 9 prohibits the reception of Edomites and Egyptians to the third generation; so that there was no prohibition as to other allies — such, for example, as the Babylonians. On the other hand, the law in Deut. xxiii. 2 expressly declares, as an expression of the horror of God at any such mutilation of nature, and for the purpose of precluding it, that no kind of emasculated person is to enter the congregation of Jehovah. But prophecy breaks through these limits of the law. Vers. 4, 5. " For thus saith JeJiovaJi to the circumcised, Those who keep my Sabbaths, and decide for that in which I take pleasure, and take fast hold of my covenant; I give to them in my house and within my walls a memorial and a name better than sons and daughters: I give such a man an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off." The second condition after the sanctification of the Sabbath has reference to the regulation of life according to the revealed will of God; the third to fidelity with regard to the covenant of circumcision. T also means a side, and hence a place (Deut. xxiii. 13); but in the passage before us, where E^) T form a closely connected pair of words, to which rriDlipi D^3J? is appended, it signifies the memorial, equivalent to rnsfD (2 Sam. xviii. 18; 1 Sam. xv. 12), as an index lifted up on high (Ezek. xxi. 24), which strikes the eye and arrests attention, pointing like a signpost to the person upon whom it is placed, like monumentum a monendo. They are assured that they will not be excluded from close fellowship with the church (" in my house and within my walls"), and also promised, as a superabundant compensation for the want of posterity, long life in the memory of future ages, by whom their long tried attachment to Jehovah and His people in circumstances of great temptation will not be forgotten.
The fears of proselytes from among the heathen are also removed. Vers. 6, 7. u And the foreigners, who have joined themselves to Jehovah, to serve Him, and to love the name of Jehovah, to be His servants, whoever keepeth the Sabbath from desecrating it, and those who hold fast to my covenant, 1 bring them to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their whole-offerings and their slain-offerings are wellpleasing upon mine altar: for my house, a house of prayer shall it be called for all nations." The proselytes, who have attached themselves to Jehovah ('rr^y),1 the God of Israel, with the pure intention of serving Him with love, are not to be left behind in the strange land. Jehovah will bring them along with His people to the holy mountain, upon which His temple rises once more; there will He cause them to rejoice, and all that they place upon His altar will find a most gracious acceptance. It is impossible that the prophet should be thinking here of the worship of the future without sacrifice, although in ch. liii. he predicts the self-sacrifice of the " Servant of Jehovah," which puts an end to all animal sacrifices. But here the temple is called " the house of prayer," from the prayer which is the soul of all worship. It will be called a house of prayer for all nations; and therefore its nature will correspond to its name. This ultimate intention is already indicated in Solomon's dedicatory prayer (1 Kings viii. 41-43); but our prophet was the first to give it this definite universal expression. Throughout this passage the spirit of the law is striving to liberate itself from its bondage. Nor is there anything to surprise us in the breaking down of the party wall, built up so absolutely between the eunuchs on the one hand and the congregation on the other, or the one partially erected between the heathen and the congregation of Israel; as we may see from ch. lxvi. 21, where it is affirmed that Jehovah will even take priests and Levites out of the midst of the heathen whom Israel will bring back with it into its own land.
The expression " saying of the Lord" (Ne'um Jehovah), which is so solemn an expression in itself, and which stands
1 The oriental reading, not in ver. 3, but here in ver. 6, is 'rri>y; the western, 'n~?K. The Masora follows the western OfcOiyD), i.e. the Palestinian, and reckons this passage as one of the 31 Tr^y in the Old Testament Scriptures.
here at the head of the following declaration, is a proof that it contains not only something great, but something which needs a solemn confirmation because of its strangeness. Not only is there no ground for supposing that Gentiles who love Jehovah will be excluded from the congregation; but it is really Jehovah's intention to gather some out of the heathen, and add them to the assembled diaspora of Israel. Ver. 8. " Word of the Lord, Jehovah: gathering the outcasts of Israel, I will also gather beyond itself to its gathered ones" We only find 'n D&O at the commencement of a sentence, in this passage and Zech. xii. 1. The double name of God, Adonai Jehovah, also indicates something great. 1yV (to it) refers to Israel, and VVnpp? is an explanatory permutative, equivalent to VVDp:"^; or else?V denotes the fact that the gathering will exceed the limits of Israel (cf. Gen. xlviii. 22), and? the addition that will be made to the gathered ones of Israel. The meaning in either case remains the same. Jehovah here declares what Jesus says in John x. 16: "Other sheep I have which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold and one Shepherd;" " Jehovah one, and His name one," as it is expressed in Zech. xiv. 9. Such are the views and hopes that have grown up out of the chastisement inflicted by their captivity. God has made it a preparatory school for New Testament times. It has been made subservient to the bursting of the fetters of the law, the liberation of the spirit of the law, and the establishment of friendship between Israel and the Gentile world as called to one common salvation.
It is a question whether ch. lvi. 9 forms the commencement of a fresh prophecy, or merely the second half of the prophecy contained in ch. lvi. 1-8. We decide, for our part, in favour of the former. If ch. lvi. 9 sqq. formed an antithetical second half to the promising first half in ch. lvi. 1-8, we should expect to find the prophets and leaders of Israel, whose licentiousness and want of principle are here so severely condemned, threatened with destruction in the heathen land, whilst true proselytes and even eunuchs were brought to the holy mountain. But we meet with this antithesis for the first time in ch. lvii. 13, where we evidently find ourselves in the midst of another prophetic address. And where can that address commence, if not at ch. lvi. 9, from which point onwards we have that hard, dull, sharp, and concise language of strong indignation (see p. 130), which recals to mind psalms written " in a thundering style" {Psalter, i. 80) and the reproachful addresses of Jeremiah, and which passes again in ch. lvii. 11 sqq. into the lofty crystalline language peculiar to our prophet's u book of consolation?" The new prophetic address commences, like ch. lv. 1, with a summons. Ver. 9. " All ye beasts of the field, come near! To devour, all ye beasts in the forest /" According to the accentuation before us (?2$b mercha, Wirfa tiphchah), the beasts of the field are summoned to devour the beasts in the forest. This accentuation, however, is false, and must be exchanged for another which is supported by some MSS., viz.?2tfb tiphchah, 1ivrr?3 mercha, and "iyu Beth raphatum. It is true that even with these accents we might still adhere to the view favoured by Jewish commentators, viz. that the beasts of the field are to be devoured by the beasts of the forest, if this view yielded any admissible sense (compare, for example, that supported by Meyer, " Ye enemies, devour the scattered ones of my congregation "), and had not against it the synonymous parallelism of HB> irvn and "IJP2 irvn (ch. xliii. 20; Ps. civ. 11, 20; cf. Gen. iii. 14). But there remains another view, according to which "iys2 irprra is a second vocative answering to Hb> irvrrfa. According to the Targum, what is to be devoured is the great body of heathen kings attacking Jerusalem; according to Jerome, Cyril, Stier, etc., the pasture and food provided by the grace of God. But what follows teaches us something different from this. Israel has prophets and shepherds, who are blind to every coming danger, and therefore fail to give warning of its approach, because they are sunken in selfishness and debauchery. It resembles a flock without a keeper, and therefore an easy prey (Ezek. xxxiv. 5); and the meaning of the appeal, which is certainly addressed to the nations of the world, the enemies of the people of God, is this;