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all the prophets. But the two subjoined clauses are opposed to that interpretation. The second and fourth clauses state the reason of the first and third, and point to the source from which that emanates which is stated in them. There cannot be any doubt but that in the second and fourth clauses, the Servant of God indicates that He stands under the protection of divine omnipotence, so that the expression: "Whom I uphold," in chap. xlii. 1, is parallel. The shadow is the ordinary figure of protection. The figure of the sword is dropped in the second clause, and hence the objection, that a drawn sword does not require any protection, is out of place. This will appear from a comparison of chap. li. 16: " And I put my words in thy mouth, and I cover thee with the shadow of mine hand," where the sword is not mentioned at all, and the shadow belongs simply to the person. The quiver which keeps the arrow is likewise a natural image of divine protection. The two accessory clauses do not suit, if the first and third clauses are referred to the rhetorical endowment of the Servant of God; that does not flow from the source of the protecting omnipotence of God. These accessory clauses rather suggest the idea that, by the comparison of the mouth with the sharp sword, of the whole person with the sharpened arrow, there is indicated the absolutely conquering power which, under the protection of omnipotence, adheres to the word and person of the Servant of God, so that He will easily put down every thing which opposes,-equivalent to: He has endowed me with His omnipotence, so that my word produces destructive effects, and puts down all opposition, just as does His word; so that there would be a parallel in chap. xi. 4, where the word of the Servant of God likewise appears as being borne by omnipotence: "He smiteth the earth with the rod of His mouth, and with the breath of His lips He slayeth the wicked." To the same result we are led also by a comparison of chap. li. 16, where the word of the Lord, which is put into the mouth of the Servant of God, is so living and powerful, so borne by omnipotence, that thereby the heavens are planted, and the foundations of the earth are laid. But of special importance are those passages of Revelation which refer to the verse under consideration. In chap. i. 16, the sharp two-edged sword does not by any means represent the power of the discourse piercing the heart for salva

tion; but rather the destructive power of the word which is borne by omnipotence. It designates the almighty punitive power of Christ directed against His enemies. "By the circumstance, that the sword goes out of the mouth of Christ, that destructive power is attributed to His mere word, He appears as partaking of divine omnipotence. For it belongs to God to slay by the words of His mouth, Hos. vi. 5." The same applies to chap. ii. 16. On Rev. xix. 15: "And out of His mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it He should smite the nations," we remarked: “The sharp sword is not that of a teaching king, but that of omnipotence which speaks and it is done, and slayeth by the breath of the lips. How Christ casts down His enemies by the word of His mouth is seen, in a prophetical instance, John xviii. 6; Acts ix. 4, 5." With the sword, Christ appears even where He does not mean to destroy, but to bring salvation; for, even in those who are to be blessed, hostile powers are to be overcome. The image, however, is here, in the fundamental passage, occasioned by the comparison of the Servant of God with the conqueror from the East, whose sword, according to chap. xli. 2, the Lord makes as dust, and his bow as the driven stubble. Where the mere word serves as a sword, the effect must be much more powerful. The conquering power throwing down every opposing power, which, in the first clause, is assigned to the mouth, is, in the third clause ("And He hath made me a sharpened arrow"), attributed to the whole person. He, of whom it was already said in Ps. xlv. 6: "Thine arrows are sharp, people fall under thee, they enter into the heart of the king's enemies," is himself to be esteemed as a sharp arrow.

Ver. 3. "And He said unto me: Thou art my Servant, O Israel, in whom I glorify myself."

"My Servant" stands here as an honorary designation; to be the Servant of God appears here as the highest privilege, as is evident not only from the analogy of the parallel passages, which treat of the Servant of God, (comp. remarks on chap. xlii. 1), but also from the parallel second clause. In it, the Servant of God is called Israel as the concentration and consummation of the covenant-people, as He in whom it is to attain to its destination, in whom its idea is to be realized. (It is evident from ver. 5, and from those passages of the second part in which the

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people of Israel is spoken of as the Servant of God, [comp. remarks on chap. xlii.], that Israel must here be understood as the name of the people, not as the name of the ancestor only.) Hävernick rightly remarks that the Messiah is here called Israel, "in contrast to the people to whom this name does not properly belong." Analogous is Matt. ii. 15, where that which, in the Old Testament, is written of Israel, is referred to Christ. As the true Israel, Christ himself also represents himself in John i. 52; with a reference to that which in Gen. xxviii. 12 is written, not of Jacob as an individual, but as the representative of the whole race, it is said there: ἀπ ̓ ἄρτι ὄψεσθε τὸν οὐρανὸν ἀνεῳγότα, καὶ τοὺς ἀγγέ λους τοῦ θεοῦ ἀναβαίνοντας καὶ καταβαίνοντας ἐπὶ τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ȧvepúπov. All those declarations of the Old Testament, in which the name of Jacob or Israel is used to designate the election, to the exclusion of the false seed, the true Israelites in whom there is no guile, all those passages prepare the way for, and come near to the one before us. Thus Ps. lxiii. 1: "Truly good is God to Israel, to such as are of a clean heart ;" and then Ps. xxiv. 6: "They that seek thy face are Jacob," i.e., those only who, with zeal and energy in sanctification, seek for the favour of God. In the passage before us, the same principle is farther carried out. The true Israel is designated as he in whom God glorifies, or will glorify himself, inasmuch as his glorification will bear testimony to God's mercy and faithfulness; comp. John xii. 23 : ἐλήλυθεν ἡ ὥρα ἵνα δοξασθῇ ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου; xvii. 5 : καὶ νῦν δόξασόν με σὺ πάτερ. The verb means in Piel, "to adorn," in Hithp. "to adorn one's self," "to glorify one's self." Thus it occurs in Judg. vii. 2; Is. x. 15, lx. 21: "Work of my hands for glorifying," i.e., in which I glorify myself; lxi. 3: "Planting of the Lord for glorifying." There is no reason for abandoning this well-supported signification either here or in chap. xliv. 23; "The Lord hath redeemed Israel and glorified himself in Israel." If God glorifies himself in His Servant, He just thereby gets occasion to glory in Him as a monument of His goodness and faithfulness. Our Saviour prays in John xii. 28: IIáтeρ dóğaσóv σov тò ovoμa. The Father, by glorifying the Son, glorifies at the same time His name. Those who explain by: per quem ornabor, overlook the circumstance that, also in the phrase: "Thou art my Servant," the main

stress does not, according to the parallel passages, lie in that which the Servant has to perform, but in His being the protected and preserved by God.

Ver. 4. "And I said: I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for emptiness and vanity; but my right is with the Lord, and my reward with my God."

The Servant of God, after having spoken of His sublime dignity and mission, here prepares the transition for proclaiming His destination to be a Saviour of the Gentiles, to whom His whole discourse is addressed. He complains of the small fruits of His ministry among Israel; but comforts himself by the confidence placed upon the righteousness of God, that the faithful discharge of the duty committed to Him cannot remain without reward. The speaking on the part of the Servant of God in this verse refers to the speaking of God in verse 3. Jerome, who remarks on this point: "But when the Father told me that which I have repeated, I answered Him: How wilt thou be glorified in me, seeing that I have laboured in vain ?" recognised this reference, but erroneously viewed the words as being addressed to the Lord. It is a soliloquy which we have here before us. Instead of "I said," we are not at liberty to put: "I imagined;" the Servant of God had in reality expended His strength for nothing and vanity. As the scene of the vain labour of the Servant of God, the heathen world cannot be thought of; inasmuch as this is, first in ver. 6, assigned to Him as an indemnification for that which, according to the verse before us, He had lost elsewhere. It is Israel only which can be the object of the vain labour of the Servant of God; for it was to them that, according to ver. 5, the mission of the Servant of God in the first instance referred: The Lord had formed Him to be His Servant, to bring back to Him Jacob and Israel that were not gathered. Since, then, the mission is directed to apostate Israel, it can the less be strange that the labour was in vain. To the same result we are led also by the circumstance that, in ver. 6, the saving activity of the Servant of God appears as limited to the preserved of Israel, while the original mission had been directed to the whole. And this portion to which His activity is limited, is comparatively a small portion. For that is suggested by the circumstance that to have the preserved of Israel

for His portion is represented as a light thing-not at all corresponding to the dignity of the Servant of God. As, in that verse, the preserved of Israel form the contrast to the mass of the people given up by the Lord, so, in the verse under consideration, the opposition which the Servant of God finds, is represented as so great, that His ministry was, in the main, in vain; so that accordingly the great mass of the people must have been unsusceptible of it. In the view that a great portion of the people would reject the salvation offered in Christ, and thereby become liable to judgment, the Song of Solomon had already preceded our Prophet. As regards the natural grounds of this foresight, we remarked in the Commentary on the Song of Solomon, S. 245: "With a knowledge of human nature, and especially of the nature of Israel, as it was peculiar to the people from the beginning, and was firmly and deeply impressed upon them by the Mosaic laws, -after the experience which the journey through the wilderness, the time of the Judges, the reign of David and of Solomon also offered, it was absolutely impossible for the enlightened to entertain the hope that, at the appearance of the Messiah, the whole people would do homage to Him with sincere and cordial devotion." How very much this was the case, the very first chapter of Isaiah can prove. It is impossible that one who has so deeply recognized the corrupted nature of his people, should give himself up to vain patriotic fancies; to such an one, the time of the highest manifestation of salvation must necessarily be, at the same time, a period of the highest realization of judgment. The same view which is given here, we meet with also in chap. liii. 1-3. In harmony with Isaiah, Zechariah, too, prophesies, in chaps. xi., xiii. 8, that the greater portion of the Jews will not believe in Christ. Malachi iii. 1-6, 19, 24, contrasts with the longed-for judgment upon the heathen, the judgment which, in the Messianic time, is to be executed upon the people itself.-On the words: "My right is with the Lord, and my reward with my God," compare Lev. xix. 13: "The reward of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all night until the morning." The God who watches that among men the well-earned wages of faithful labour shall not be withheld, will surely himself not withhold them from His Servant. The right, the well deserved reward of His Servant is with Him; it is there safely kept, in

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