what is stated, in the preceding verses, about the manner in which the Servant of God has attained to this glory. Worldly triumphs are not acquired by the deepest humiliation, by sufferings and death voluntarily undergone for the salvation of mankind. 2. From that which the Servant of God, in the state of glory, is to do to those who turn to Him. According to chap. lii. 15, He is to sprinkle them with His blood; and this sprinkling is there expressly stated as the reason of the reverential homage of the Gentile world. He is to justify them and to bear their sins, ver. 11, and to make intercession for them, ver. 12. All that does not apply to a worldly conqueror and ruler.-The merits of the Servant of God are then once more pointed out,-the merits by which He has acquired so exalted and all-important a position to himself, and, at the same time, to the Kingdom of God, of which He is the Head. "Because He hath poured out His soul unto death.” נמנה y in the Niphal, "to be poured out," means in Piel "to pour out," Gen. xxiv. 20, and Ps. cxli. 8, where it is said of the soul: "Do not pour out my soul," just as here the Hiphil is used. The term has been transferred to the soul from the blood, in which is the soul, Gen. ix. 4: "Flesh with its soul (namely with its blood) you shall not eat." Ver. 5: "Your blood in which your souls.” "He was numbered," is here, according to the context, equivalent to: He caused himself to be numbered; for it is only that which was undergone voluntarily which can be stated as the reason of the reward. This voluntary undergoing, however, is not implied in the word itself, but only in the connection with: "He hath poured out His soul;" for that signifies a voluntary act. The y here, just as they in ver. 9, are not sinners, but criminals. This appears from the connection in which the being "numbered with the transgressors" stands with the "pouring out of the soul unto death." We can hence think of executed criminals only. The pure, innocent One was not only numbered with sinners, such as all men are, but He was numbered with criminals. It is in this sense also that our Lord understands the words, in His quotation of them in Luke xxii. 37 : λέγω γὰρ ὑμῖν, ὅτι ὅτι τοῦτο τὸ γεγραμμένον δεῖ τελεσθῆναι ἐν ἐμοὶ, τό· καὶ μετὰ ἀνόμων ἐλογίσθη, Kai vàρ тà Teρì èμoû τéλos exei; compare Matt. xxvi. 54, where the Lord strengthens His disciples against the offence of His being taken a prisoner, by saying, with a view to the passage before us: πῶς οὖν πληρωθώσιν αἱ γραφαὶ, ὅτι οὕτω δεῖ γένεσOai; ver. 56, where, after having reproached the guards for having numbered Him with criminals: ὡς ἐπὶ λῃστὴν ἐξήλθετε μετὰ μαχαιρῶν καὶ ξύλων συλλαβεῖν με, He says to them : τοῦτο δὲ ὅλον γέγονεν ἵνα πληρωθῶσιν αἱ γραφαὶ τῶν προφητῶν. Twv. Mark, in chap. xv. 28, designates the fact that two robbers were crucified with Christ, as the most perfect fufilment of our prophecy. It was in this fact that it came out most palpably, that Christ had been made like criminals. The rulers of the people caused two common criminals to be crucified with Him, just that they might declare that they put Him altogether among their number.-" And He beareth the sin of many, and for the transgressors He shall make intercession." By N, it is indicated that the subsequent words are no more to be viewed must not, as is done by the יפגיע תחת אשר as depending on LXX., be referred to the state of humiliation; for the Future in the preceding verses has reference to the exaltation. The parallel must therefore be viewed as a Praeteritum propheticum. It corresponds with in ver. 11, and, like it, does not designate something done but once by the Servant of God, but something which He does constantly. The intercession is here brought into close connection with the bearing of the sin, by which Christ represents himself as being the true sin-offering (comp. ver. 10, where He was designated as the true trespassoffering), and hence it is equivalent to: He will make intercession for sinners, by taking upon himself their sin,-of which the thief on the cross was the first instance. This close connection, and the deep meaning suggested by it, are overlooked and lost by those expositors who, in the intercession, think of prayer only. The Servant of God, on the contrary, makes intercession, by pleading before God His merit, as the ground of the acceptance of the transgressors, and of the pardon of their sins. This is evident from the connection also in which: "For the transgressors He shall make intercession," stands with: "He was numbered with the transgressors." The vicarious suffering is thereby pointed out as the ground of the intercession. Calvin says: "Under the Old Testament dispensation, the High-priest, who never went in without blood, made intercession for the people. What was there foreshadowed has been fulfilled in Christ. For, in the first place, He offered up the sacrifice of His body, and shed His blood, and thus suffered the punishment due to us. And, in the second place, in order that the expiation might profit us, He undertakes the office of an advocate, and makes intercession for all who, by faith, lay hold of this sacrifice." Comp. Rom. viii. 34: ds Kai ÉVTvyxáveι vπèρ ýμôv; Hebr. ix. 24, according to which passage Christ is entered into the holy places νῦν ἐμφανισ θῆναι τῷ προςώπῳ τοῦ Θεοῦ ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν ; 1 John ii. 1 : παράκλητον ἔχομεν πρὸς τὸν πατέρα Ἰησοῦν Χριστὸν δίκαιον. We have hitherto expounded the passage before us without any regard to the difference of the interpretation as to the whole, and have supposed the reference to Christ to be the correct one. But it is still incumbent upon us: I. to give the history of the interpretation; II. to refute the arguments against the Messianic interpretation; III. to state the arguments in favour of it; and IV. to show that the non-Messianic interpretation is untenable. I. HISTORY OF THE INTERPRETATION. A. WITH THE JEWS. 1. There cannot be any doubt that, in those earlier times, when the Jews were still more firmly attached to the tradition of their Fathers,-when the carnal disposition had not yet become so entirely prevalent among them,—and when controversy with the Christians had not made them so narrow-minded in their Exegesis, the Mesianic explanation was pretty generally received, at least by the better portion of the people. This is admitted even by those later interpreters who pervert the prophecy, e.g., Abenezra, Jarchi, Abarbanel, Moses Nachmanides. Gesenius also says: "It was only the later Jews who abandoned this interpretation, no doubt, in consequence of their contro versies with the Christians." We shall here collect, from the existing Jewish writings, the principal passages in which this interpretation occurs. The whole translation of the Chaldee Paraphrast, Jonathan, notwithstanding the many perversions in which he indulges, refers the prophecy to Christ. He para behold“ הא יצלח עבדי משיחא : phrases the very first clause my Servant Messiah shall prosper." The Medrash Tanchuma, an old commentary on the Pentateuch (ed. Cracov. f. 53, c. 3, 1. 7), remarks on the words: yn (ed. Cracov. f. זה מלך המשיח ירום וגבה ונשא מאוד וריס : (1.7 .3 .c ,53 this is the *) מן אברהם ונשא ממשה וגבה מן מלאכי השרת King Messiah who is high and lifted up, and very exalted, more exalted than Abraham, elevated above Moses, higher than the ministering angels"). This passage is remarkable, for this reason also, that it contains the doctrine of the exaltation of the Messiah above all created beings, and even above the angels themselves, and, hence, the doctrine of His divinity,-a doctrine contested by the later Jews. Still more remarkable is a passage from the very old book Pesikta, cited in the treatise Abkath Rokhel (pas printed separately at Venice in 1597, and reprinted in Hulsii Theologia Judaica, where this passage occurs p. 309): "When God created His world, He stretched out His hand under the throne of His glory, and brought forth the soul of the Messiah. He said to Him: Wilt thou heal and redeem my sons after 6000 years?' He answered Him: I will. Then God said to Him: Wilt thou then also bear the punishment in order to blot out their sins, as it is written: But he bore our diseases' (chap. liii. 4)? And He answered Him: I will joyfully bear them." In this passage, as well as in several others which will be afterwards cited, the doctrine of the vicarious sufferings of the Messiah is contained, and derived from Is. liii., although the later Jews rejected this doctrine. In a similar manner, Rabbi Moses Haddarshan expresses himself on Gen. i. 3 (Latin in Galatinus, De Arcanis Cath. ver. p. 329; in the original in Raimund Mar tini Pug. Fid. fol 333; comp. Wolf, Bibl. Hebr. i. p. 818): "Jehovah said: Messiah, thou my righteous One, those who are concealed with thee will be such that their sins will bring a heavy yoke upon thee.-The Messiah answered: Lord of the universe, I cheerfully take upon myself all those plagues and sufferings; and immediately the Messiah, out of love, took upon himself all those plagues and sufferings, as is written in Is. liii.: He was abused and oppressed." Compare another passage, in which ver. 5 is referred to the Messiah, in Raim. Martin, fol. iv. 30. In the Talmud (Gemara, tract. Sanhedrim chap. xi.), it is said of the Messiah: "He sits before the gates of the city of Rome among the sick and leprous" (according to ver. 3). To the question: What is the name of the Messiah, it is answered: He is called “the leper,” and, in proof, ver. 4 is quoted according to the erroneous interpretation of by leprosus,—an interpretation which is met with in Jerome also. In the work Rabboth (a commentary on the Pentateuch and the five Megilloth, which, as to its principal portions, is very old, although much interpolated at later periods, and which, according to the statements of the Jews, was composed about the year of our Lord 300, comp. Wolf, I. c. II., p. 1423 sqq. in commentary on Ruth ii. 14 [p. 46.ed. Cracov]), the fifth verse is quoted, and referred to the sufferings of the Messiah.-In the Medrash Tillim (an allegorical commentary on the Psalms, printed at Venice in 1546), it is said in Ps. ii. 7 (fol. 4): "The things of King Messiah and His mysteries are announced in the Law, the Prophets, and the Hagiographa. In the Prophets, e.g., in the passage Is. lii. 13, and xlii. 1; in the Hagiographa e.g., Ps. cx. and Dan. vii. 13." In the book Chasidim (a collection of moral tales, printed at Venice and Basle in 1581) p. 60, the following story is to be found "There was, among the Jews, a pious man, who in summer made his bed among fleas, and in winter put his feet into cold water; and when it froze, his feet froze at the same time. When asked why he did so, he answered, that he too must make some little expiation, since the Messiah bears the sin of Israel ( Saw my bao)." The ancient explanation is, from among the later interpreters, assented to by Rabbi Alschech (his commentary on Is. liii. is given entire in Hulsii Theologia Judaica p. 321 sqq). He says: "Upon the testimony of tradition, our old Rabbins have unanimously admitted that King Messiah is here the subject of discourse. For the same reason, we, in harmony with them, conclude that King David, i.e., the Messiah, must be considered as the subject of this prophecy,--a view which is |