Who hath believed our report? the prophet having in the three last verses of the former chapter made a general report concerning the great and wonderful humiliation and exaltation of Christ, of which he intended more largely to discourse in this chapter, before he descended to particulars he thought fit to use this preface.

Who not only of the Gentiles, but even of the Jews, will believe the truth-of what I have said and must say? Few or none. The generality of them will never receive nor believe in such a Messias as this. Thus this place is expounded by Christ himself, Joh 12:38 , and by Paul, Rom 10:16 . And this premonition was highly necessary, both to caution the Jews that they should not stumble at this stone, and to instruct the Gentiles that they should not be surprised, nor scandalized, nor seduced with their example.

The arm of the Lord either,

1. The word of God, called the report in the former clause; the doctrine of the gospel, which is expressly called the power of God , 1Co 1:18 , because of that admirable virtue and success which accompanied the preaching of it. Or,

2. The Messiah, who also is called the arm or power of God , 1Co 1:24 ; and that most fitly, because the almighty power of God was both seated in him, and declared and exercised by him in his powerful words and mighty deeds, as Simon for some great works wrought by him was called by the Samaritans the power of God , Act 8:10 .

Revealed not outwardly, for so Christ was revealed and preached to vast numbers, both of Jews and Gentiles, as is evident from this context, arid from divers other places of Scripture; but inwardly and with power to their minds and hearts, of which kind of revelation see Eph 1:17-19 , and compare it with 2Co 4:4 . Thus even Moses, though sufficiently revealed to the eyes and ears of the Jews, yet is said to be unrevealed or hid from their minds and hearts, 2Co 3:14,15 . The sense of the place is, few or none of the Jews will believe the gospel, or receive their Messiah when he comes among them.

For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground and the reason or occasion why the Jews will so generally reject their Messiah, is because he shall not come into the world with secular pomp and power, like an earthly monarch, as they carnally and groundlessly imagined; but

he shall grow up (or, spring up , Heb. ascend , to wit, out of the ground, as it follows, brought forth, and brought up)

before him (before the unbelieving Jews, of whom he spake Isa 53:1 , and that in the singular number, as here, who were witnesses of his mean original; and therefore despised him, according to Christ’ s observation, Joh 4:44 ; or, as others, according to his face , or outward appearance, as he was man; whereby he sufficiently implies that he had another, a far higher, and a Divine nature in him)

as a tender plant ( or, as this very word is translated, Eze 17:4 , a young twig , which is a small and inconsiderable thing,)

and as a root (as Christ is called, Rom 15:12 , and elsewhere; or, as a branch ; the root being put metonymically for the branch growing out of the root, as it is apparently used, where Christ is called the root of Jesse, and of David , Isa 11:10 Rev 5:5 , and in other places, as 2Ch 22:10 )

out of a dry ground out of a mean and barren soil, whose productions are generally poor and contemptible: either,

1. Out of the womb of a virgin; but that was no ground of contempt; or,

2. Of the Jewish nation, which was then poor, and despised, and enslaved; or,

3. Out of the poor, and decayed, and contemptible family, such as the royal family of David was at that time.

He hath no form nor comeliness his bodily presence and condition in the world shall be mean and contemptible.

When we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him when we shall look upon him, expecting to find incomparable beauty and majesty in his countenance, and carriage, and condition, we shall be altogether disappointed, and shall meet with nothing amiable or desirable in him. This the prophet speaketh in the person of the carnal and unbelieving Jews, we, i.e. our people, the Jewish nation.

He is despised and rejected of men accounted as the scum of mankind, as one unworthy of the company and conversation of all men.

A man of sorrows whose whole life was filled with, and in a manner made up of, an uninterrupted succession of sorrows and sufferings.

Acquainted with grief who had constant experience of and familiar converse with grievous afflictions; for knowledge is oft taken practically, or for experience, as Gen 3:5 2Co 5:21 , and elsewhere.

We hid as it were our faces from him we scorned and loathed to look upon him. Or, as others,

he hid as it were his face from us, as one ashamed to show his face, or to be seen by any men, as persons conscious to themselves of any great deformity do commonly shun the sight of men, as lepers did, Lev 13:45 .

He was despised, and we esteemed him not: here are divers words expressing the same thing, to signify both the utmost degree of contempt, and how strange and wonderful a thing it was, that so excellent a person should be so despised.

Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: and whereas it may seem all unreasonable and incredible thing, that so excellent and glorious, and so innocent and just, a person should meet with this usage, it must be known that his griefs and miseries were not laid upon him for his own sake, but wholly and solely for the sake of sinful men, in whose stead he stood, and for whose sins he suffered, as it here follows.

Yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted yet our people, the Jews, were so far from giving him the glory and praise of such a prodigious condescension and compassion, that they made a most perverse construction of it; and so great was their prejudice against him, that they believed that he was thus disgraced and punished, and at last put to death, by the just judgment of God, for his blasphemy and other manifold wickednesses.

But but this was a most false and unrighteous sentence.

He was wounded which word comprehends all his pains and punishments, and his death among and above the rest.

For our transgressions not by them, which is expressed by another particle, not by the wickedness of the Jews; but for or because of them, as this particle commonly signifies, for the guilt of their sins, which he had voluntarily taken upon himself, and for the expiation of their sins, which was hereby purchased and procured of God for men. Which interpretation is confirmed,

1. By the opposition of this truth to the false opinion mentioned in the foregoing clause, that he was smitten of God for the guilt of his own sins.

2. By the following clause, as we shall see.

3. By the nature of the thing; this being evident from scriptures both from the Old and New Testament, that Christ was not to suffer for his own, but for other men’ s sins. See Dan 9:24,26 .

The chastisement of our peace those punishments by which our peace, i.e. our reconciliation to God, and salvation, or happiness, was to be purchased.

Was upon him was laid upon him by God’ s justice with his own consent.

With his stripes we are healed by his sufferings we are saved from our sins, and from the dreadful effects thereof.

All we all mankind, the Jews no less than the Gentiles,

like sheep which are simple and foolish creatures, and exceeding apt to straggle and lose themselves, have gone astray from God, and from the way of his precepts, in which he put our first parents, and in which he commanded us to walk.

To his own way in general, to the way and course of sin, which may well be called a man’ s own way , as sins are called men’ s own lusts, Jam 1:14 2Pe 3:3 , and elsewhere, because sin is natural to us, inherent in us, born with us, and very dear to us; and in particular, to those several paths of divers lusts which several men choose and follow, according to their differing opinions, inclinations, occasions, and circumstances.

Hath laid Heb. hath made to meet , as all the rivers meet in the sea.

The iniquity not properly, for so he knew no sin, 2Co 5:21 ; but the punishment of iniquity, as that word is most frequently used, as Gen 4:1:3 Lev 20:17 , &c.; that which was due for all the sins of all his people, whether Jews or Gentiles, which must needs be so great and heavy a lead, that if he had not been God as well as man, he must have sunk under the burden of them. This was actually verified in Christ. And both this and divers other passages here do as manifestly and fully point at Christ, as if they were not a prophetical representation of things to come, but an historical relation of them after they were done. Nor do I see how they can be excused from the fearful wresting of the Scripture that expound these places of the prophet Jeremiah, of any other person but Christ.

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted he was sorely punished for our sins. But there is another translation, which seems to be more emphatical, and more agreeable to the Hebrew text; It (to wit, our iniquity last mentioned, or the punishment of all our sins) was exacted or required , (as this word most properly and frequently signifies, of which see my Latin Synopsis. God’ s justice expected and required satisfaction from us for our sins; which, alas! we could not make to him,)

and he was afflicted or punished ; he bore the guilt and punishment of our sins in his body upon the tree, as is said, 1Pe 2 24 ; or, as others render this last word, and he answered , i.e. became our surety, or undertook to pay the debt, and to suffer the law in our stead, and for our sake.

Yet he opened not his mouth he neither murmured against God for causing him to suffer for other men’ s sins, nor reviled men for punishing him without cause, nor used apologies or endeavours to save his own life; but willingly and patiently accepted of the punishment of our iniquity.

Is dumb bears the loss of its fleece or life without any such clamour or resistance as other creatures use in such cases.

He was taken from prison and from judgment: these words are understood either,

1. Of Christ’ s humiliation or suffering; and then the words are to be thus rendered,

He was taken away (to wit, out of this life, as this word is used, Psa 31:13 Pro 1:19 , and elsewhere; he was put to death) by distress (or violence , or tyranny , as this word is used with this preposition before it, Psa 107:39 ) and judgment ; by oppression and violence, under a form and pretence of justice. Or rather,

2. Of Christ’ s exaltation, because of the following clause; which is not unseasonably mentioned in the midst of his sufferings, to take off the scandal which might have arisen from Christ’ s sufferings, if there had not been a prospect and assurance of his victoriousness over them, and his glory after them; and so the words may be rendered, He was taken up (or, taken away, freed or delivered) from prison (i.e. from the grave, which being called a house, Job 30:23 , and a pit , in which men are shut up Psa 69:15 , may fitly be called a prison ; or, from distress or affliction , or oppression , from the power and malice of his enemies, and from the torments of his own soul, arising from the sense of men’ s sins and God’ s displeasure) and from judgment , i.e. from all the sufferings and punishments inflicted upon him, either by the unrighteous judgment of men, or by the just judgment of God, punishing him for those sins which he had voluntarily taken upon himself; or, which is the same tiling, from the sentence of condemnation, and all the effects of it; for in this sense judgment is very commonly taken both in Scripture and other authors.

Who shall declare? who can declare it? the future being taken potentially, as it is frequently; no words can sufficiently express it.

His generation either,

1. His age, or the continuance of his life. So the sense is, that he shall not only be delivered from death, and all his punishments, but also shall be restored to an inexpressible or endless life; and to an everlasting kingdom. Thus great interpreters understand it; with whom I cannot comply, because I do not find this Hebrew word to be ever used in Scripture of the continuance of one man’ s life. Or rather,

2. His posterity; and so this word is unquestionably used, Gen 15:16 Exo 20:5 Deu 23:2,3,8 , and in many other places. And so the sense of the place is this, that Christ’ s death shall not be unfruitful, and that when he is raised from the dead, he shall have a spiritual seed, as is promised, Isa 53:10 ; a numberless multitude of those who shall believe in him, and be regenerated and adopted by him into the number of his children, and of the children of God, Joh 1:12 Heb 2:10,13,14 . He was cut off , to wit, by a violent death. And this may be added as a reason, both of his exaltation, and of the blessing of a numerous posterity conferred upon him, because he was willing to be cut off for the transgression of his people; and, as it followeth, Isa 53:10 , made his soul an offering for sin; Christ’ s death being elsewhere declared to be the only way and necessary means of obtaining both these ends. Luk 24:26,46 Joh 12:24,32,33 Php 2 8,9 . But these words may be rendered, although he was cut off , to signify that his death should not hinder these glorious effects.

For the transgression of my people was he stricken: this is repeated again, as it was fit it should be, to prevent men’ s mistakes about and stumbling at the death of Christ, and to assure them that Christ did not die for his own sins, but only for the sins and salvation of his people.

He made his grave with the wicked and although he did not die for his own, but only for his people’ s sins, yet he was willing to die like a malefactor, or like a sinner, as all other men are, and to be put into the grave, as they used to be; which was a further degree of his humiliation. He saith, he made his grave , because this was Christ’ s own act, and he willingly yielded up himself to death and burial. And that which follows, with the wicked , doth not note the sameness of place, as if he should be buried in the same grave with ether malefactors, but the sameness of condition; as when David prayeth, Psa 26:9 , Gather not my soul (to wit, by death) with sinners, he doth not mean it of the same grave, but of the same state of the dead.

With the rich in his death: this passage is thought by many to signify that Christ should be buried in the sepulchre of Joseph, who is said to be both rich , Mat 27:57 , and honourable , Mar 15:43 , which they conceive to be intimated as a token of favour and honour showed to him; which to me seems not probable, partly because this disagrees with the former clause, which confessedly speaks of the dishonour which was done to him; and partly because the burial of Christ, whatsoever circumstances it was attended with, is ever mentioned in Scripture as a part of his humiliation, Ac 2 24,27 . And it seems more reasonable, and more agreeable to the usage of the Holy Scripture, that this clause should design the same thing with the former, and that by rich he means the same persons whom he now called wicked , not as if all rich men were or must needs be wicked, but because for the most part they are so; upon which ground riches and rich men do commonly pass under an ill name in Scripture; of which see Psa 37:10 49:6 Luk 6:24 18:24 Jam 1:11 5:1 .

In his death Heb. in or at (or after, as this particle is frequently taken, as hath been already noted) his deaths ; for Christ’ s death might well be called deaths, in the plural number, because he underwent many kinds of death, and many deadly dangers and pains, which are frequently called by the name of death in Scripture, of which instances have been formerly given; and he might say, with no less truth than Paul did, 1Co 15:31 , I die daily , and 2Co 11:23 . I was in deaths oft. Because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth : this some suppose to be added as a reason of the last branch of the foregoing clause, why God so overruled matters by his providence, that Christ should not be buried in the same grave, or in the same ignominious manner, as malefactors were, but in a more honourable manner, in Joseph’ s own tomb. But the last part of the foregoing clause cannot, without violence, be pulled asunder from the former, wherewith it is so closely joined, not only by a conjunction copulative, and, but also by being under the government of the same verb; and therefore this latter clause of the verse, if thus rendered, must be added as the reason of what is said to be done in the former. And so the sense of the place may be thus conceived, This was all the reward of the unspotted innocency of all his words and actions, to be thus ignominiously used. But these words may well be and are otherwise rendered, both by Jewish and Christian interpreters, either thus, although he had done , &c., or rather thus, not for (as these two same particles placed in the very same order are rendered by our translator, and others, Job 16:17 ) any violence (or injury , or iniquity ) which he had done, nor for any deceit which was in his mouth ; not for his own sins, but, as hath been said before, for his people’ s sins; in which translation there is nothing supplied but what is most frequent in Scripture also.

Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him but although he was perfectly innocent, it pleased God for other just and wise reasons to punish him.

He hath put him to grief God was the principal Cause of all his sorrows and sufferings, although men’ s sins were the deserving cause.

When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin when thou, O God, shalt make, or have made, thy Son a sacrifice, by giving him up to death for the atonement of men’ s sins. His

soul is here put for his life, or for himself, or his whole human nature, which was sacrificed; his soul being tormented with the sense of God’ s wrath, and his body crucified, and soul and body separated by death. Or the words may be rendered, when his soul shall make , or have made , itself

an offering for sin whereby it may be implied that he did not lay down his life by force, but willingly.

He shall see his seed his death shall be glorious to himself, and highly beneficial to others; for he shall have a numerous issue of believers reconciled to God, and saved by his death.

He shall prolong his days he shall be raised to immortal life, and shall live and reign with God for ever; he shall die no more , Ro 6 9 , and of his kingdom there shall be no end , Luk 1:33 .

The pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand God’ s gracious decree for the redemption and salvation of mankind shall be effectually carried on by his ministry and mediation.

He shall see he shall receive or enjoy, as this word commonly signifies,

of the travail of his soul the comfortable and blessed fruit of all his hard labours and grievous sufferings,

and shall be satisfied he shall esteem his own and his Father’ s glory, and the salvation of his people, an abundant recompence for all his sufferings.

By his knowledge either,

1. Actively, by that knowledge of God’ s will, and of the way of salvation, which is in him in its highest perfection, and which by him is revealed unto men, and by his Spirit is imprinted in the minds and hearts of his people, so as to produce faith and obedience in them. Or,

2. Passively, by the knowledge of him, as my fear and thy fear are put for the fear of me and of thee , Psa 5:7 Jer 32:40 ; knowledge being here, as it is most frequently in Scripture, taken practically, for that kind of knowledge which worketh faith, and love, and obedience to him. So the sense is the same in both cases.

My righteous servant which title is here given to Christ, partly to vindicate him from those false imputations of wickedness which were fastened upon him by his adversaries, and which found the more belief because of his most grievous and unexampled sufferings both from God and men; and partly to show his fitness for this great work of justifying sinners, because he was exactly

holy, and harmless, and undefiled Heb 7:26 , and

fulfilled all righteousness according to his duty, Mat 3:15 ; and therefore his person and performance must needs be acceptable to God, and effectual for the justification of his people, which was the great design of his coming into the world. Justify acquit them from the guilt of their sins, and all the dreadful consequences thereof; for justification is here opposed to condemnation, as appears from the following clause, and from many other passages in this chapter, and as it is used in all places of Scripture, one, or two at most, excepted, where it is mentioned. And Christ is said to justify sinners meritoriously, because he purchaseth and procureth it for us; as God the Father is commonly said to do it authoritatively, because he accepted the price paid by Christ for it, and the pronunciation of the sentence of absolution is referred to him in the gospel dispensation.

Many which word is seasonably added, partly by way of restriction, to show that Christ will not justify all, but only such as believe in him and obey him; and partly by way of amplification, to declare that this blessed privilege shall not now be, as hitherto it had in a manner been, confined to Judea, and the Jews, but shall be conferred upon an innumerable company of all the nations of the world.

For he shall bear their iniquities for he shall satisfy the justice and law of God for them, by bearing the punishment due to their sins, and therefore by the principles of reason and justice they must be justified or acquitted, otherwise the same debt should be twice required and paid.

Therefore will I God the Father, the Spectator and Judge of the action or combat,

divide him give him his share; or, impart or give to him ; for this word is oft used without respect to any distribution or division, as Deu 4:19 29:26 , and elsewhere.

A portion which is very commodiously supplied out of the next clause, where a word which answers to it,

the spoil is expressed. With the great ; or, among the great ; such as the great and mighty potentates of the world use to have after a sharp combat and a glorious victory. Though he be a very mean and obscure person, as to his extraction and outward condition in the world, yet he shall attain to as great a pitch of glory as the greatest monarchs enjoy.

He shall divide the spoil with the strong: the same thing is repeated in other words, after the manner of prophetical writers. The sense of both clauses is, that God will give him, and he shall receive, great and happy success in his glorious undertaking; he shall conquer all his enemies, and lead captivity captive, as is said, Eph 4:8 , and Set up his universal and everlasting kingdom in the world.

Because he hath poured out his soul unto death because he willingly laid down his life in obedience to God’ s command, Joh 10:17,18 , and in order to the redemption of mankind. Death is here called a pouring out of the soul, or life , either because the soul or life, which in living men is contained in the body, is turned out of the body by death; or to signify the manner of Christ’ s death, that it should be with the shedding of his blood, in which the life of man consists, Lev 17:11,14 .

He was numbered with the transgressors he was willing for God’ s glory and for man’ s good to be reproached and punished like a malefactor, in the same manner and place, and betwixt two of them, as is noted with reference to this place, Mar 15:27,28 .

He bare the sin of many which was said Isa 53:11 , and is here repeated to prevent a mistake, and to intimate, that although Christ was numbered with transgressors, and was used accordingly, yet he was no transgressor, nor did submit to and suffer this usage for his own sins, but for the sins of others, the punishment whereof was by his own consent laid upon him.

Made intercession for the transgressors either,

1. By way of satisfaction; he interposed himself between an angry God and sinners, and received those blows in his own body which otherwise must have fallen upon them. Or,

2. In way of petition, as this word is constantly used. He prayed upon earth for all sinners, and particularly for those that crucified him, Luk 23:34 ; and in heaven he still intercedeth for them, not by a humble petition, but by a legal demand of those good things which he purchased for his own people by the sacrifice of himself, which, though past, he continually represents to his Father, as if it were present.

He was a man of sorrow, and acquainted with grief. He was despised and rejected of men. The shepherds found the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. His reputed father was a poor carpenter, and his mother a poor virgin, both of the house of David, but that royal and illustrious family was reduced and sunk, so that Christ being born of such poor parents, he might be esteemed a root out of the dry ground, and of Galilee, a country of small repute, where nothing good, nothing great, could be expected to come out of it.

He had no form nor comeliness, nothing which one might expect to see in the Immanuel, God with us. They that saw him could see nothing in him more than in another man. Moses, when he was born, was exceeding fair; Ac 7:20; Heb 11:23. David, when he was anointed, was of a beautiful countenance, and goodly to look on. But our Lord, in his person, or manner of appearing in the world, had nothing of sensible glory, or that was calculated to meet the expectation of the Jews. His gospel was not preached with the enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in all plainness and simplicity, and his doctrine was objectionable to them, for it exposed their depravity, and robbed them of all their self-righteousness. It was expected that he should live a pleasant life, and have a full enjoyment of all the delights of men, which would fill the expectations of men, and gather crowds of admirers around him. But on the contrary he was a man of sorrow, and acquainted with grief. His life was a life of misery, poverty, and distress, so that he could say, " Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head;" Lu 9:58. Seeing his poverty, sorrow, deep distress, and humiliation, the prophet says, " Surely, he hath borne our grief’s, and carried our sorrows." Sin had brought the curse on us, that we should eat in sorrow all the days of our lives; Ge 3:17; and our sins were laid on him, and his was a life of sorrow. He was unsettled, had no home, no resting-place, no downy pillows for his head; a man of sorrow and acquainted with grief, through his whole life. He was hated, persecuted, and rejected by men, and treated as one not worthy to live. He was of a tender spirit, and sympathized with the sufferings of humanity, and was among them doing good, healing their sick, giving sight to their blind, and raising their dead, and in return he received their hatred, their mockings, and persecutions, so that it was said he was never known to smile, but that his countenance always showed sorrow and grief. Who can read the life of our Lord and Savior, and witness the conduct of men toward him, and doubt the total depravity of human nature, and that the unpurged heart is wicked above all things? All these sorrows Jesus bore without uttering a word of complaint.

Eld. Gregg Thompson

Revealed. Who could have believed such things? The apostles complain how few were converted, John xii. 38., and Romans x. 16. (Calmet) ---

These would not submit, though the gospel was not against reason. (Worthington)

Plant. Hebrew also, "suckling child." (Septuagint, &c.) ---

Ground. The blessed Virgin [Mary]. (Calmet) ---

Was. Septuagint, "he had no appearance nor beauty. But his appearance was abject and deficient above all men; a," &c. ---

That we. Literally, "and we have desired him." Notwithstanding his abject condition, He was the desired of all nations, and by his wounds we are healed. (Haydock) ---

Some assert that the person of Christ was not beautiful, while others think that his wounds prevented it from being discerned. Salmeron would supply a negation from the first number: "We have not desired him."

Not. The whole life of Christ was spent in the midst of poverty, and contradictions, Hebrews iv. 15. He has thus taught us to despise ourselves.

Sorrows. Healing them by his own afflictions, Matthew viii. 15. Sickness is an effect of sin, which Jesus came to destroy, 1 Peter ii. 24 ---

Leper, who was bound to have his face covered, ver. 3., and Leviticus xiii. 45. ---

God. Payva (Def. Trin. iv.) assures us that many Jews were converted by the perusal of this chapter, and particularly of this verse, which may be rendered "as a God wounded and afflicted." (Calmet)

Healed. He inculcates this important truth repeatedly. Christ nailed the hand-writing that was against us to the cross, Colossians ii. 14. (Haydock)

Astray. We belong to his fold, chap. xl. 11., John x. 11., and Luke xv. 4.--- Laid. Septuagint, "abandoned him to our sins," as to so many executioners; (Calmet) "and he, because he had been abused, opened," &c. (Haydock)

Will. The pagans were very attentive that the victim should not make much resistance. ( Macrobius iii. 5.)

Judgment, or by an unjust and cruel judgment. (Haydock) ---

Hebrew, "from prison and judgment." (Calmet) ---

Septuagint, "in humiliation, (Haydock) or humility, his judgment was taken away," or rescinded, by his glorious resurrection. St. Philip follows this version in explaining this passage to the eunuch, Acts viii. 33. ---

Generation, from his eternal Father or from the Virgin [Mary], his incarnation, life, resurrection, or posterity in the Church. All these may be meant, and are inexplicable. (Calmet)

Death. Hebrew, "and he made his grave with the wicked men, and with the rich man, in his death." (Haydock) ---

Grave and death seem to be transposed; and we might better read, "He was taken up with wicked men in his death, and with a rich man was his sepulchre." This indeed is only a conjecture, but well grounded in the context. See Josue xxiv. 19. (Kennicott) ---

Septuagint, "and I will give the wicked for his grave, and the rich men for his death." (Haydock) ---

The rich man may denote the small number of Jews who embraced the faith. (Calmet) ---

They esteemed themselves rich, and were highly favoured by God; yet they were blinded, (Haydock) and given up to the Romans, in punishment of their deicide, Matthew xxvii. 25. The Church is gathered both from Jews and Gentiles, ver. 10. (Calmet) (St. Jerome) ---

"He will send to hell the wicked," (Chaldean) who slew him. (Menochius) ---

Christ was buried where malefactors were generally, yet honourably, in the tomb of Joseph [of Arimathea]. (Worthington) (Matthew xxvii. 57.)

Bruise. Septuagint, "to cleanse him from the wound." (Haydock) ---

God was pleased that he should satisfy fro our crimes. ---

Hand. Christ has died for all, and established a Church which shall not perish.

Many. Even to the ends of the earth, Psalm ii. 8. ---

Strong. Demons, Jews, &c. Hebrew, "with the strong" apostles. ---

Wicked thieves. Barabbas, &c. ---

Transgressors. His executioners. The gospel could not speak plainer. (Calmet)

Who hath believed our report?.... Or "hearing" ^a. Not what we hear, but others hear from us; the doctrine of the Gospel, which is a report of the love, grace, and mercy of God in Christ; of Christ himself, his person, offices, obedience, sufferings, and death, and of free and full salvation by him: it is a good report, a true and faithful one, and to be believed, and yet there are always but few that give credit to it; there were but few in the times of the Prophet Isaiah that believed what he had before reported, or was about to report, concerning the Messiah; and but few in the times of Christ and his apostles, whom the prophet here represented; for to those times are the words applied, Joh 12:38, the Jews had the report first made unto them, and saw the facts that were done, and yet believed not; when Gentile kings, and their subjects, listened with the most profound silence, and heard with the greatest attention and reverence, as in the latter part of the preceding chapter, to which some think this is opposed; wherefore some begin the text with the adversative particle "but". According to the Septuagint and Arabic versions, the words are directed to God the Father, for they render them, "Lord, who hath believed", &c.; and so they are quoted in the above places in the New Testament:

and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? meaning either the Gospel itself, the power of God unto salvation, hidden from the generality of men; for though externally, yet not internally revealed and made known; which to do is the Lord's work, and is owing to his special grace: or Christ, who is the power of God, by whom all the works of creation, providence, grace, and salvation, are wrought; and by whom the blessings of grace are dispensed; and by whom the Lord upholds all things, and supports his people; and who was not revealed but to a very few, as the true Messiah, as God's salvation, and in them the hope of glory: or else the powerful and efficacious grace of the Spirit, and the exertion and display of it, which is necessary to a true and spiritual believing the Gospel, and the report of it; which, unless it comes with the power and Spirit of God, is ineffectual.

For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant,.... Which springs out of the earth without notice; low in its beginning, slow in its growth, liable to be crushed with the foot, or destroyed with the frost, and no great probability of its coming to any perfection; or rather as a little "sucker", as the word ^b signifies, which grows out of the root of a tree, at some little distance from it, of which no notice or care is taken, nor anything hoped for from it; and the figure denotes the mean and unpromising appearance of Christ at his incarnation; which is the reason given why the Jews in general disbelieved, rejected, and despised him; for this phrase of "growing up" does not design his exaltation, or rising up from a low to a high estate; but his mean entrance into the world, like that of the springing up of a low and insignificant plant or shrub out of the earth: and the phrase "before him" is to be understood either of God the Father, by whom he was taken notice of, though not by men; and in whose sight he was precious, though despised by men; or his growing up, and the manner of it, or his mean appearance, were all before the Lord, and according to his will: or else it may be understood of Christ himself, and be rendered "before himself", who was meek and lowly, and was mean and low in his own eyes; or rather it may be interpreted of the unbelieving Jew, of any or everyone of them that did not believe the report concerning him: because before him, in the sight of everyone of them, he sprung up in the manner described; unless it can be thought that it would be better rendered "to his face" ^c; or "to his appearance"; that is, as to his outward appearance, in the external view of him, so he grew up:

and as a root out of a dry ground; or rather, "as a branch from a root out of a dry ground"; agreeably to Isa 11:1, meaning not so much the land of Judea, where he was born; or the country of Galilee, where he was brought up; as the family of David, from whence he sprung, which was reduced to a very low condition when he was born of it; his supposed father being a carpenter, and his real mother a poor virgin in Nazareth, though both of the lineage and house of David; from this passage the ancient Jews ^d are said to conclude that the Messiah would be born without a father, or the seed of man:

he hath no form nor comeliness; like a poor plant or shrub just crept out of the ground, in a dry and barren soil, ready to wither away as soon as up; has no strength nor straightness, of body; without verdure, leaves, blossom, and fruit things which make plants comely and beautiful. This regards not the countenance of Christ, which probably was comely, as were his types Moses and David; since he is said to be "fairer than the children of men"; and since his human nature was the immediate produce of the Holy Ghost, and without sin: but his outward circumstances; there was no majesty in him, or signs of it; it did not look probable that he would be a tall cedar, or a prince in Israel, much less the Prince Messiah; he was born of mean parents; brought up in a contemptible part of the country; lived in a town out of which no good is said to come; dwelt in a mean cottage, and worked at a trade:

and when we shall see him: as he grows up, and comes into public life and service, declaring himself, or declared by others, to be the Messiah: here the prophet represents the Jews that would live in Christ's time, who would see his person, hear his doctrines, and be witnesses of his miracles, and yet say,

there is no beauty, that we should desire him; or "sightliness" ^e in him; nothing that looks grand and majestic, or like a king; they not beholding with an eye of faith his glory, as the glory of the only begotten of the Father; only viewing him in his outward circumstances, and so made their estimate of him; they expected the Messiah as a temporal prince, appearing in great pomp and state, to deliver them from the Roman yoke, and restore their nation to its former splendour and glory; and being disappointed herein was the true reason of their unbelief, before complained of, and why they did not desire him, who is the desire of all nations.

He is despised, and rejected of men,.... Or, "ceaseth from men" ^f; was not admitted into the company and conversation of men, especially of figure; or ceased from the class of men, in the opinion of others; he was not reckoned among men, was accounted a worm, and no man; or, if a man, yet not in his senses, a madman, nay, one that had a devil: or "deficient of men"; he had none about him of any rank or figure in life, only some few fishermen, and some women, and publicans, and harlots. The Vulgate Latin version renders it, "the last of men", the most abject and contemptible of mankind; despised, because of the meanness of his birth, and parentage, and education, and of his outward appearance in public life; because of his apostles and audience; because of his doctrines, not agreeably to carnal reason, and his works, some of them being done on the sabbath day, and, as they maliciously suggested, by the help of Satan; and especially because of his ignominious sufferings and death:

a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: or "known by grief" ^g; he was known by his troubles, notorious for them; these were his constant companions, his familiar acquaintance, with whom he was always conversant; his life was one continued series of sorrow, from the cradle to the cross; in his infancy his life was sought for by Herod, and he was obliged to be taken by his parents, and flee into Egypt; he ate his bread in sorrow, and with the sweat of his brow; he met with much sorrow from the hardness and unbelief of men's hearts, and from the contradiction of sinners against himself, and even much from the frowardness of his own disciples; much from the temptations of Satan, and more from the wrath and justice of God, as the surety of his people; he was exceeding sorrowful in the garden, when his sweat was as it were great drops of blood; and when on the cross, under the hidings of his Father's face, under a sense of divine displeasure for the sins of his people, and enduring the pains and agonies of a shameful and an accursed death; he was made up of sorrows, and grief was familiar to him. Some render it, "broken with infirmity", or "grief" ^h:

and we hid as it were our faces from him; as one loathsome and abominable as having an aversion to him, and abhorrence of him, as scorning to look at him, being unworthy of any notice. Some render it, "he hid as it were his face from us" ⁱ; as conscious of his deformity and loathsomeness, and of his being a disagreeable object, as they said; but the former is best:

he was despised, and we esteemed him not; which is repeated to show the great contempt cast upon him, and the disesteem he was had in by all sorts of persons; professors and profane, high and low, rich poor, rulers and common people, priests, Scribes, and Pharisees; no set or order of men had any value for him; and all this disgrace and dishonour he was to undergo, to repair the loss of honour the Lord sustained by the sin of man, whose surety Christ became.

Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows,.... Or "nevertheless", as Gussetius ^k; notwithstanding the above usage of him; though it is a certain and undoubted truth, that Christ not only assumed a true human nature, capable of sorrow and grief, but he took all the natural sinless infirmities of it; or his human nature was subject to such, as hunger, thirst, weariness, &c.; and to all the sorrow and pain arising from them; the same sorrows and griefs he was liable to as we are, and therefore called ours and hence he had a sympathy with men under affliction and trouble; and, to show his sympathizing spirit, he healed all sorts of bodily diseases; and also, to show his power, he healed the diseases of the soul, by bearing the sins of his people, and making satisfaction for them; since he that could do the one could do the other; wherefore the evangelist applies this passage to the healing of bodily diseases, Mat 8:17, though the principal meaning of the words may be, that all the sorrows and griefs which Christ bore were not for any sins of his own, but for the sins of his people; wherefore these griefs and sorrows signify the punishment of sin, and are put for sins, the cause of them and so the apostle interprets them of Christ's bearing our sins in his own body on the tree, 1Pe 2:24, and the Septuagint and Arabic versions render the words here, "he bears our sins"; and the Targum is,

"wherefore he will entreat for our sins;''

these being laid upon him, as is afterwards said, were bore by him as the surety of his people; and satisfaction being made for them by his sufferings and death, they are carried and taken away, never to be seen any more:

yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted; so indeed he was by the sword of divine justice, which was awaked against him, and with which he was stricken and smitten, as standing in the room of his people; but then it was not for any sin of his own, as the Jews imagined, but for the sins of those for whom he was a substitute; they looked upon all his sorrows and troubles in life, and at death, as the just judgment of God upon him for some gross enormities he had been guilty of; but in this they were mistaken. The Vulgate Latin version is, "we esteemed him as a leprous person"; and so Aquila and Symmachus render the word; and from hence the Jews call the Messiah a leper ^l; they say,

"a leper of the house of Rabbi is his name''

as it is said, "surely he hath borne our griefs", &c.; which shows that the ancient Jews understood this prophecy of the Messiah, though produced to prove a wrong character of him; and so it is applied unto him in other ancient writings of theirs; See Gill on Mat 8:17. The words are by some rendered, "and we reckoned him the stricken, smitten of God" ^m, and "humbled"; which version of the words proved the conversion of several Jews in Africa, as Andradius and others relate ⁿ; by which they perceived the passage is to be understood not of a mere man, but of God made man, and of his humiliation and sufferings in human nature.

But he was wounded for our transgressions,.... Not for any sins of his own, but for ours, for our rebellions against God, and transgressions of his law, in order to make atonement and satisfaction for them; these were the procuring and meritorious causes of his sufferings and death, as they were taken upon him by him to answer for them to divine justice, which are meant by his being wounded; for not merely the wounds he received in his hands, feet, and side, made by the nails and spear, are meant, but the whole of his sufferings, and especially his being wounded to death, and which was occasionally by bearing the sins of his people; and hereby he removed the guilt from them, and freed them from the punishment due unto them:

he was bruised for our iniquities; as bread corn is bruised by threshing it, or by its being ground in the mill, as the manna was; or as spice is bruised in a mortar, he being broken and crushed to pieces under the weight of sin, and the punishment of it. The ancient Jews understood this of the Messiah; in one place they say ^o,

"chastisements are divided into three parts, one to David and the fathers, one to our generation, and one to the King Messiah; as it is written, "he was wounded for our transgressions; and bruised for our iniquities":''

and in another place ^p,

"at that time they shall declare to the Messiah the troubles of Israel in captivity, and the wicked which are among them, that do not mind to know the Lord; he shall lift up his voice, and weep over the wicked among them; as it is said, "he was wounded for our transgressions", &c.''

the chastisement of our peace was upon him; that is, the punishment of our sins was inflicted on him, whereby our peace and reconciliation with God was made by him; for chastisement here does not design the chastisement of a father, and in love, such as the Lord chastises his people with; but an act of vindictive justice, and in wrath, taking vengeance on our sins, of our surety, whereby divine wrath is appeased, justice is satisfied, and peace is made:

and with his stripes we are healed; or "by his stripe" ^q, or "bruise": properly the black and blue mark of it, so called from the gathering and settling of the blood where the blow is given. Sin is a disease belonging to all men, a natural, hereditary, nauseous, and incurable one, but by the blood of Christ; forgiving sin is a healing of this disease; and this is to be had, and in no other way, than through the stripes and wounds, the blood and sacrifice, of the Son of God. Christ is a wonderful physician; he heals by taking the sicknesses of his people upon himself, by bearing their sins, and being wounded and bruised for them, and by his enduring blows, and suffering death itself for them. The Targum is,

"when we obey his words, our sins will be forgiven us;''

but forgiveness is not through our obedience, but the blood of Christ.

All we like sheep have gone astray,.... Here the prophet represents all the elect of God, whether Jews or Gentiles; whom he compares to "sheep", not for their good qualities, but for their foolishness and stupidity; and particularly for their being subject to go astray from the shepherd, and the fold, and from their good pastures, and who never return of themselves, until they are looked up, and brought back by the shepherd, or owner of them; so the people of God, in a state of nature, are like the silly sheep, they go astray from God, are alienated from the life of him, deviate from the rule of his word, err from the right way, and go into crooked paths, which lead to destruction; and never return of themselves, of their own will, and by their own power, until they are returned, by powerful and efficacious grace, unto the great Shepherd and Bishop of souls; see 1Pe 2:25 where the apostle has a manifest respect to this passage:

we have turned everyone to his own way; and that is an evil one, a dark and slippery one, a crooked one, the end of it is ruin; yet this is a way of a man's own choosing and approving, and in which he delights; and it may not only intend the way of wickedness in general, common to all men in a state of nature, but a particular way of sinning, peculiar to each; some are addicted to one sin, and some to another, and have their own way of committing the same sin; men turn their faces from God, and their backs upon him, and look to their own way, and set their faces towards it, and their hearts on it; and which seems right and pleasing to them, yet the end of it are the ways of death; and so bent are men on these ways, though so destructive, that nothing but omnipotent grace can turn them out of them, and to the Lord; and which is done in consequence of what follows:

and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all; that is, God the Father, against whom we have sinned, from whom we have turned, and whose justice must be satisfied; he has laid on Christ, his own Son, the sins of all his elect ones; which are as it were collected together, and made one bundle and burden of, and therefore expressed in the singular number, "iniquity", and laid on Christ, and were bore by him, even all the sins of all God's elect; a heavy burden this! which none but the mighty God could bear; this was typified by laying of hands, and laying of sins upon the sacrifice, and putting the iniquities of Israel upon the head of the scapegoat, by whom they were bore, and carried away. The words may be rendered, "he made to meet upon him the iniquity of us all" ^r; the elect of God, as they live in every part of the world, their sins are represented as coming from all quarters, east, west, north, and south; and as meeting in Christ, as they did, when he suffered as their representative on the cross: or "he made to rush, or fall upon him the iniquity of us all" ^s; our sins, like a large and mighty army, beset him around, and fell upon him in a hostile manner, and were the cause of his death; by which means the law and justice of God had full satisfaction, and our recovery from ruin and destruction is procured, which otherwise must have been the consequence of turning to our own ways; so the ancient Jews understood this of the Messiah. R. Cahana ^t on these words, "binding his ass's colt to the choice vine", Gen 49:11 says,

"as the ass bears burdens, and the garments of travellers, so the King Messiah will bear upon him the sins of the whole world; as it is said, "the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all",'' Isa 53:6.

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,.... He was injuriously treated by the Jews; they used him very ill, and handled him very roughly; he was oppressed and afflicted, both in body and mind, with their blows, and with their reproaches; he was afflicted, indeed, both by God and men: or rather it may be rendered, "it was exacted", required, and demanded, "and he answered" ^u, or "was afflicted"; justice finding the sins of men on him, laid on him by imputation, and voluntarily received by him, as in the preceding verse, demanded satisfaction of him; and he being the surety of his people, was responsible for them, and did answer, and gave the satisfaction demanded: the debt they owed was required, the payment of it was called for, and he accordingly answered, and paid the whole, every farthing, and cancelled the bond; the punishment of the sins of his people was exacted of him, and he submitted to bear it, and did bear it in his own body on the tree; this clearly expresses the doctrine of Christ's satisfaction:

yet he opened not his mouth; against the oppressor that did him the injury, nor murmured at the affliction that was heavy upon him: or, "and he opened not his mouth"; against the justice of God, and the demand that was made upon him, as the surety of his people; he owned the obligation he had laid himself under; he paid the debt, and bore the punishment without any dispute or hesitation: "he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb"; or, "as a sheep to the slaughter, and as an ewe before her shearer" ^w; these figurative phrases are expressive, not only of the harmlessness and innocence of Christ, as considered in himself, but of his meekness and patience in suffering, and of his readiness and willingness to be sacrificed in the room and stead of his people; he went to the cross without any reluctance, which; when there was any in the sacrifice, it was reckoned a bad omen among the Heathens, yea, such were not admitted to be offered ^x; but Christ went as willingly to be sacrificed as a lamb goes to the slaughter house, and was as silent under his sufferings as a sheep while under the hands of its shearers; he was willing to be stripped of all he had, as a shorn sheep, and to be slaughtered and sacrificed as a lamb, for the sins of his people:

so he opened not his mouth: not against his enemies, by way of threatening or complaint; nor even in his own defence; nor against the justice of God, as bearing hard upon him, not sparing him, but demanding and having full satisfaction; nor against his people and their sins, for whom he suffered; see 1Pe 2:23.

He was taken from prison, and from judgment,.... After he had suffered and died, and made satisfaction to divine justice; or after he had been arrested by the justice of God, and was laid in prison, and under a sentence of condemnation, had judgment passed upon him, and that executed too; he was taken in a very little time from the prison of the grave where he lay, and from the state of condemnation into which he was brought, and was acquitted, justified, and declared righteous, and his people in him; a messenger was sent from heaven to roll away the stone, and set him free: though some render it,

he was taken by distress and judgment; that is, his life was taken away in a violent manner, under a pretence of justice; whereas the utmost injustice was done him; a wrong charge was brought against him, false witnesses were suborned, and his life was taken away with wicked hands; which sense seems to be favoured by the quotation in Act 8:32 "in his humiliation his judgment was taken away": he had not common justice done him:

and who shall declare his generation? which is not to be understood of his divine generation, as the Son of God, which is in a way ineffable and inconceivable; nor of his human generation, as the Son of Man, which is unaccountable, being born of a virgin; nor of the duration of his life after his resurrection, he dying no more, but living for ever, which is more probable; nor of the vast number of his spiritual offspring, the fruit of his sufferings, death, and resurrection; but of the age, and men of it, in which he lived, whose barbarity to him, and wickedness they were guilty of, were such as could not be declared by the mouth, or described by the pen of man. The Targum is,

"and the wonderful things which shall be done for us in his days, who can declare?''

for he was cut off out of the land of the living; was not suffered to live, was taken off by a violent death; he was cut off in a judiciary way, as if he had been a malefactor; though lest it should be thought it was for his own sins he was cut off, which is denied, Dan 9:26 it is added,

for the transgression of my people was he stricken; that is, either through the malice and wickedness of the people of the Jews, whom the prophet calls his people, he was stricken, not only with the scourges of the whip, but with death itself, as the efficient cause thereof; or rather because of the transgressions of God's elect, in order to make satisfaction for them, he was stricken by divine justice, and put to death, as the meritorious cause thereof; and so they are the words of God the Father; and this, with the preceding clause, give a reason, showing both why he was taken from the prison of the grave, acquitted, and exalted, and why the wickedness of his age could not be declared; he being stricken and cut off in such a manner, when he was an innocent person; and since it was only for the transgressions of others, even of God's covenant people, the people he chose, and gave to Christ, Mat 1:21.

And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death,.... These words are generally supposed to refer to a fact that was afterwards done; that Christ, who died with wicked men, as if he himself had been one, was buried in a rich man's grave. Could the words admit of the following transposition, they would exactly agree with it, "and he made his grave with the rich; and with the wicked in his death"; for he died between two thieves, and was buried in the sepulchre of Joseph of Arimathaea, a rich man. Or the meaning perhaps in general is, that, after his death, both rich men and wicked men were concerned in his sepulchre, and about his grave; two rich men, Nicodemus and Joseph, in taking down his body from the cross, in embalming it, and in laying it in the tomb of the latter; and wicked men, Roman soldiers, were employed in guarding the sepulchre, that his disciples might not take away the body. Or the sense is, "he" the people, the nation of the Jews, through whose enmity against him he suffered death, "gave", intended, and designed, that "his grave" should be with "the wicked"; and therefore accused him to the Roman governor, and got him condemned capitally, and condemned to a Roman death, crucifixion, that he might be buried where such sort of persons usually were; and then it may be supplied, "but he made it"; that is, God ordered and appointed, in his overruling providence, that it should be "with the rich in his death", as it was. Aben Ezra observes, that the word במתיו, which we translate "in his death", signifies a structure over a grave, "a sepulchral monument"; and then it may be rendered impersonally thus, "his grave was put or placed with the wicked, but his tomb", or sepulchral monument, was "with the rich"; his grave was indeed put under the care and custody of the wicked soldiers; yet a famous tomb being erected over it, at the expense of a rich man, Joseph of Arimathaea, which was designed for himself, made the burial of Christ honourable: which honour was done him,

because he had done no violence: or injury to any man's person or property; had not been guilty of rapine and oppression, theft and robbery; murder and cruelty; he had not been a stirrer up of sedition, an encourager of mobs, riots, and tumults, to the harm of the civil government:

neither was any deceit in his mouth: no false doctrine was delivered by him; he was no deceiver of the people, as he was charged; he did not attempt to seduce them from the true worship of God, or persuade them to believe anything contrary to the law of Moses, and the prophets; he was no enemy to church or state, nor indeed guilty of any manner of sin, nor given to any arts of trick and dissimulation; see 1Pe 2:22. Some render the words, "though" ^y "he had done no violence", &c. and connect them with the following.

Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him,.... The sufferings of Christ are signified by his being "bruised"; See Gill on Isa 53:5, and as it was foretold he should have his heel bruised by the serpent, Gen 3:15, but here it is ascribed to the Lord: he was bruised in body, when buffeted and scourged, and nailed to the cross; and was bruised and broken in spirit, when the sins of his people were laid on him, and the wrath of God came upon him for them: the Lord had a hand in his sufferings; he not only permitted them, but they were according to the counsel of his will; they were predetermined by him, Act 2:23, yea, they were pleasing to him, he took a kind of delight and pleasure in them; not in them simply considered as sufferings, but as they were an accomplishment of his purposes, a fulfilment of his covenant and promises, and of the prophecies in his word; and, particularly, as hereby the salvation of his people was brought about; see Joh 10:17,

he hath put him to grief; when he awoke the sword of justice against him; when he spared him not, but delivered him up into the hands of wicked men, and unto death: he was put to grief in the garden, when his soul was exceeding sorrowful; and on the cross, when he was nailed to it, had the weight of his people's sins, and his Father's wrath, on him; and when he hid his face from him, which made him cry out, "my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" or, "hath put him to pain": suffered him to be put to pain, both in body and mind:

when thou shall make his soul an offering for sin: not his soul only, but his body also, even his whole human nature, as in union with his divine Person; for it was he himself that was offered up in the room and stead of his people, to make atonement and satisfaction for their sins, Heb 9:14, or, "when thou shalt make his soul sin" ^z; so Christ was made by imputation, 2Co 5:21, and when he was so made, or had the sins of his people imputed to him, then was he bruised, and put to pain and grief, in order to finish them, and make an end of them, and make reconciliation for them: or, "when his soul shall make an offering" ^a "for sin", or "sin" itself; make itself an offering; for Christ offered up himself freely and voluntarily; he gave himself an offering and a sacrifice to God, for a sweetsmelling savour, Eph 5:2, he was altar, sacrifice, and priest.

He shall see his seed; or, "a seed"; a spiritual seed and offspring; a large number of souls, that shall be born again, of incorruptible seed, as the fruit of his sufferings and death; see Joh 12:24, this he presently began to see after his resurrection from the dead, and ascension to heaven; when great numbers were converted among the Jews, and after that multitudes in the Gentile world, and more or less in all ages; ever since has he had a seed to serve him; and so he will in the latter day, and to the end of time:

he shall prolong his days: live long, throughout all ages, to all eternity; though he was dead, he is alive, and lives for evermore; lives to see all the children that the Father gave him, and he has gathered together by his death, when scattered abroad, and see them all born again, and brought to glory. Some connect this with the preceding clause, "he shall see a seed that shall prolong its days" ^b; for Christ will never want issue, his church will never fail, his seed will endure for ever, Psa 89:29. So the Targum, paraphrasing the words of Christ and his seed,

"they shall see the kingdom of their Messiah; they shall multiply sons and daughters; they shall prolong their days:''

and so Aben Ezra says these words are spoken of the generation that shall return to God, and to the true religion, at the coming of the Messiah.

And the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand; the work of man's redemption, put into the hands of Christ, which he undertook to accomplish; which was with him and before him, when he came into this world, and was his meat and drink to do; this he never left till he had finished it; so that it succeeded and prospered with him: and this may well be called "the pleasure of the Lord"; it was the good pleasure of his will; it was what he purposed and resolved; what his heart was set upon, and was well pleasing to him, as effected by his Son. Likewise the setting up of the kingdom and interest of Christ in the world, and the continuance and increase of it; the ministry of the word, and the success of that as the means thereof, may be also meant; for the Gospel will be preached, and a Gospel church still continued, until all the elect of God are gathered in.

He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied,.... "The travail of his soul" is the toil and labour he endured, in working out the salvation of his people; his obedience and death, his sorrows and sufferings; particularly those birth throes of his soul, under a sense of divine wrath, for the allusion is to women in travail; and all the agonies and pains of death which he went through. Now the fruit of all this he sees with inexpressible pleasure, and which gives him an infinite satisfaction; namely, the complete redemption of all the chosen ones, and the glory of the divine perfections displayed therein, as well as his own glory, which follows upon it; particularly this will be true of him as man and Mediator, when he shall have all his children with him in glory; see Heb 12:2. The words are by some rendered, "seeing himself or his soul freed from trouble, he shall be satisfied" ^c; so he saw it, and found it, when he rose from the dead, and was justified in the Spirit; ascended to his God and Father, was set down at his right hand, and was made glad with his countenance, enjoying to the full eternal glory and happiness with him: and by others this, "after the travail ^d of his soul, he shall see a seed, and shall be satisfied"; as a woman, after her travail and sharp pains are over, having brought forth a son, looks upon it with joy and pleasure, and is satisfied, and forgets her former pain and anguish; so Christ, after all his sorrows and sufferings, sees a large number of souls regenerated, sanctified, justified, and brought to heaven, in consequence of them, which is a most pleasing and satisfactory sight unto him,

By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; Christ is the servant of the Lord; See Gill on Isa 53:1, Isa 49:3, Isa 52:13. He is said to be "righteous", because of the holiness of his nature, and the righteousness of his life as a man; and because of his faithful discharge of his work and office as Mediator; and because he is the author and bringer in of an everlasting righteousness, by which he justifies his people; that is, acquits and absolves them, pronounces them righteous, and frees them from condemnation and death; he is the procuring and meritorious cause of their justification; his righteousness is the matter of it; in him, as their Head, are they justified, and by him the sentence is pronounced: for this is to be understood not of making men holy and righteous inherently, that is sanctification; nor of a teaching men doctrinally the way and method of justifying men, which is no other than ministers do; but it is a forensic act, a pronouncing and declaring men righteous, as opposed to condemnation: and they are many who are so justified; the many who were ordained to eternal life; the many whose sins Christ bore, and gave his life a ransom for; the many sons that are brought by him to glory. This shows that they are not a few, which serves to magnify the grace of God, exalt the satisfaction and righteousness of Christ, and encourage distressed sinners to look to him for justification of life; and yet they are not all men, for all men have not faith, nor are they saved; though all Christ's spiritual seed and offspring shall be justified, and shall glory: and this is "by" or "through his knowledge"; the knowledge of him, of Christ, which is no other than faith in him, by which a man sees and knows him, and believes in him, as the Lord his righteousness; and this agrees with the New Testament doctrine of justification by faith; which is no other than the manifestation, knowledge, sense, and perception of it by faith.

For he shall bear their iniquities; this is the reason of Christ's justifying many, the ground and foundation of it; he undertook to satisfy for their sins; these, as before observed, were laid on him; being laid on him, he bore them, the whole of them, and all the punishment due to them; whereby he made satisfaction for them, and bore them away, so as they are to be seen no more; and upon this justification proceeds.

Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great,.... The great ones of the earth, the kings and princes of the earth: these are the words of God the Father, promising Christ that he shall have as great a part or portion assigned him as any of the mighty monarchs of the world, nay, one much more large and ample; that he would make him higher than the kings of the earth, and give him a name above every name in this world, or that to come; and all this in consequence of his sufferings, and as a reward of them; see Phi 2:8 and whereas the Lord's people are his portion, and with which Christ is well pleased, and greatly delighted, Deu 32:9, they may be intended here, at least as a part of the portion which Christ has assigned him. For the words may be rendered ^e, "therefore will I divide, assign, or give many to him": so the Vulgate Latin version; and which is favoured by the Targum,

"therefore will I divide to him the prey of many people;''

and by the Septuagint version, therefore he shall inherit many, or possess many as his inheritance; so the Arabic version. The elect of God were given to Christ, previous to his sufferings and death, in the everlasting council of peace and covenant of grace, to be redeemed and saved by him; and they are given to him, in consequence of them, to believe in him, to be subject to him, and serve him; and so it denotes a great multitude of persons, both among Jews and Gentiles, that should be converted to Christ, embrace him, profess his Gospel, and submit to his ordinances; and which has been true in fact, and took place quickly after his resurrection and ascension.

And he shall divide the spoil with the strong; or "the strong as a spoil"; that is, he shall spoil principalities and powers, destroy Satan and his angels, and make an entire conquest of all his mighty and powerful enemies. The Septuagint, Vulgate Latin, and Arabic versions, render the words, "he shall divide the spoil of the strong"; of Satan and his principalities; those they make a spoil of he shall take out of their hands, and possess them as his own. The best comment on this version is Luk 11:22. Or rather the words may be rendered, "he shall have or possess for a spoil or prey very many" ^f; for the word for "strong" has the signification of a multitude; and so the sense is the same as before, that a great multitude of souls should be taken by Christ, as a prey out of the hands of the mighty, and become his subjects; and so his kingdom would be very large, and he have great honour and glory, which is the thing promised as a reward of his sufferings. Some understand, by the "great" and "strong", the apostles of Christ, to whom he divided the gifts he received when he led captivity captive; to some apostles, some prophets, &c. Eph 4:10, and others the soldiers, among whom his garments were parted; but they are senses foreign from the text.

Because he hath poured out his soul unto death; as water is poured out, Psa 22:14 or rather as the wine was poured out in the libations or drink offerings; for Christ's soul was made an offering for sin, as before; and it may be said with respect to his blood, in which is the life, that was shed or poured out for the remission of sin; of which he was emptied,

and made bare, as the word ^g signifies, when his hands, feet, and side, were pierced. The phrase denotes the voluntariness of Christ's death, that he freely and willingly laid down his life for his people.

And he was numbered with the transgressors; he never was guilty of any one transgression of the law; he indeed appeared in the likeness of sinful flesh, and was calumniated and traduced as a sinner, and a friend of the worst of them; he was ranked among them, and charged as one of them, yet falsely; though, having all the sins of his people upon him, he was treated, even by the justice and law of God, as if he had been the transgressor, and suffered as if he had been one; of which his being crucified between two thieves was a symbolical representation, and whereby this Scripture was fulfilled, Mar 15:28.

and he bore the sin on many; everyone of their sins, even the sins of all those whose iniquity was laid on him, of the many chosen in him, and justified by him; See Gill on Isa 53:11 where this is given as the reason for their justification; and here repeated as if done, to show the certainty of it; to raise the attention of it, as being a matter of great importance; see 1Pe 2:24.

And made intercession for the transgressors; as he did upon the cross, even for those that were the instruments of his death, Luk 23:34 and as he now does, in heaven, for all those sinners for whom he died; not merely in a petitionary way, but by presenting himself, blood, righteousness, and sacrifice; pleading the merits of these, and calling for, in a way of justice and legal demand, all those blessings which were stipulated in an everlasting covenant between him and his Father, to be given to his people, in consequence of his sufferings and death; see Rom 8:33.

¹ tn The perfect has a hypothetical force in this rhetorical question. For another example, see Gen 21:7.

² sn The speaker shifts here from God to an unidentified group (note the first person plural pronouns throughout vv. 1-6). The content of the speech suggests that the prophet speaks here as representative of the sinful nation Israel. The group acknowledges its sin and recognizes that the servant suffered on their behalf.

³ tn The first half of v. 1 is traditionally translated, “Who has believed our report?” or “Who has believed our message?” as if the group speaking is lamenting that no one will believe what they have to say. But that doesn’t seem to be the point in this context. Here the group speaking does not cast itself in the role of a preacher or evangelist. No, they are repentant sinners, who finally see the light. The phrase “our report” can mean (1) the report which we deliver, or (2) the report which was delivered to us. The latter fits better here, where the report is most naturally taken as the announcement that has just been made in 52:13-15.

⁴ tn Heb “to whom” (so KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV).

⁵ tn Heb “the arm of the Lord.” The “arm of the Lord” is a metaphor of military power; it pictures the Lord as a warrior who bares his arm, takes up his weapon, and crushes his enemies (cf. 51:9-10; 63:5-6). But Israel had not seen the Lord’s military power at work in the servant.

¹ tn Heb “before him.” Some suggest an emendation to “before us.” If the third singular suffix of the Hebrew text is retained, it probably refers to the Lord (see v. 1b). For a defense of this reading, see R. Whybray, Isaiah 40-66 (NCBC), 173-74.

² sn The metaphor in this verse suggests insignificance.

³ tn Heb “that we might see him.” The vav conjunctive prefixed to the imperfect introduces a result clause here. See GKC 504-5 §166.a.

⁴ tn Heb “that we should desire him.” The vav conjunctive prefixed to the imperfect introduces a result clause here. See GKC 504-5 §166.a.

¹ tn Heb “lacking of men.” If the genitive is taken as specifying (“lacking with respect to men”), then the idea is that he lacked company because he was rejected by people. Another option is to take the genitive as indicating genus or larger class (i.e., “one lacking among men”). In this case one could translate, “he was a transient” (cf. the use of חָדֵל [khadel] in Ps 39:5 HT [39:4 ET]).

² tn Heb “like a hiding of the face from him,” i.e., “like one before whom the face is hidden” (see BDB 712 s.v. מַסְתֵּר).

³ sn The servant is likened to a seriously ill person who is shunned by others because of his horrible disease.

¹ sn Illness and pain stand by metonymy (or perhaps as metaphors) for sin and its effects, as vv. 11-12 make clear.

² tn The words “for something he had done” are supplied in the translation for clarification. The group now realizes he suffered because of his identification with them, not simply because he was a special target of divine anger.

¹ tn The preposition מִן (min) has a causal sense (translated “because of”) here and in the following clause.

² tn Heb “the punishment of our peace [was] on him.” שָׁלוֹם (shalom, “peace”) is here a genitive of result, i.e., “punishment that resulted in our peace.”

³ sn Continuing to utilize the imagery of physical illness, the group acknowledges that the servant’s willingness to carry their illnesses (v. 4) resulted in their being healed. Healing is a metaphor for forgiveness here.

¹ tn Elsewhere the Hiphil of פָגַע (paga’) means “to intercede verbally” (Jer 15:11; 36:25) or “to intervene militarily” (Isa 59:16), but neither nuance fits here. Apparently here the Hiphil is the causative of the normal Qal meaning, “encounter, meet, touch.” The Qal sometimes refers to a hostile encounter or attack; when used in this way the object is normally introduced by the preposition -בְּ (bet, see Josh 2:16; Judg 8:21; 15:12, etc.). Here the causative Hiphil has a double object – the Lord makes “sin” attack “him” (note that the object attacked is introduced by the preposition -בְּ. In their sin the group was like sheep who had wandered from God’s path. They were vulnerable to attack; the guilt of their sin was ready to attack and destroy them. But then the servant stepped in and took the full force of the attack.

¹ tn The translation assumes the Niphal is passive; another option is take the clause (note the subject + verb pattern) as concessive and the Niphal as reflexive, “though he humbled himself.”

² sn This verse emphasizes the servant’s silent submission. The comparison to a sheep does not necessarily suggest a sacrificial metaphor. Sheep were slaughtered for food as well as for sacrificial rituals, and טֶבַח (tevakh) need not refer to sacrificial slaughter (see Gen 43:16; Prov 7:22; 9:2; Jer 50:27; note also the use of the related verb in Exod 21:37; Deut 28:31; 1 Sam 25:11).

¹ tn The precise meaning of this line is uncertain. The present translation assumes that מִן (min) here has an instrumental sense (“by, through”) and understands עֹצֶר וּמִמִּשְׁפָּט (’otser umimmishpat, “coercion and legal decision”) as a hendiadys meaning “coercive legal decision,” thus “an unjust trial.” Other interpretive options include: (1) “without [for this sense of מִן, see BDB 578 s.v. 1.b] hindrance and proper judicial process,” i.e., “unfairly and with no one to defend him,” (2) “from [in the sense of “after,” see BDB 581 s.v. 4.b] arrest and judgment.”

² tn Heb “and his generation, who considers?” (NASB similar). Some understand “his generation” as a reference to descendants. In this case the question would suggest that he will have none. However, אֶת (’et) may be taken here as specifying a new subject (see BDB 85 s.v. I אֵת 3). If “his generation” refers to the servant’s contemporary generation, one may then translate, “As for his contemporary generation, who took note?” The point would be that few were concerned about the harsh treatment he received.

³ sn The “land of the living” is an idiom for the sphere where people live, in contrast to the underworld realm of the dead. See, for example, Ezek 32:23-27.

⁴ tn The Hebrew text reads “my people,” a reading followed by most English versions, but this is problematic in a context where the first person plural predominates, and where God does not appear to speak again until v. 11b. Therefore, it is preferable to read with the Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a עמו (“his people”). In this case, the group speaking in these verses is identified as the servant’s people (compare פְּשָׁעֵנוּ [pÿsha’enu, “our rebellious deeds”] in v. 5 with פֶּשַׁע עַמִּי [pesha’ ’ammi, “the rebellion of his people”] in v. 8).

¹ tn Heb “one assigned his grave with criminals.” The subject of the singular is impersonal; English typically uses “they” in such constructions.

² tn This line reads literally, “and with the rich in his death.” בְּמֹתָיו (bÿmotayv) combines a preposition, a plural form of the noun מוֹת (mot), and a third masculine singular suffix. The plural of the noun is problematic and the יו may be the result of virtual dittography. The form should probably be emended to בָּמָתוֹ (bamato, singular noun). The relationship between this line and the preceding one is uncertain. The parallelism appears to be synonymous (note “his grave” and “in his death”), but “criminals” and “the rich” hardly make a compatible pair in this context, for they would not be buried in the same kind of tomb. Some emend עָשִׁיר (’ashir, “rich”) to עָשֵׂי רָע (’ase ra’, “doers of evil”) but the absence of the ayin (ע) is not readily explained in this graphic environment. Others suggest an emendation to שְׂעִירִים (sÿ’irim, “he-goats, demons”), but the meaning in this case is not entirely transparent and the proposal assumes that the form suffered from both transposition and the inexplicable loss of a final mem. Still others relate עָשִׁיר (’ashir) to an alleged Arabic cognate meaning “mob.” See HALOT 896 s.v. עָשִׁיר. Perhaps the parallelism is antithetical, rather than synonymous. In this case, the point is made that the servant’s burial in a rich man’s tomb, in contrast to a criminal’s burial, was appropriate, for he had done nothing wrong.

³ tn If the second line is antithetical, then עַל (’al) is probably causal here, explaining why the servant was buried in a rich man’s tomb, rather than that of criminal. If the first two lines are synonymous, then עַל is probably concessive: “even though….”

¹ tn The meaning of this line is uncertain. It reads literally, “if you/she makes, a reparation offering, his life.” The verb תָּשִׂים (tasim) could be second masculine singular,in which case it would have to be addressed to the servant or to God. However, the servant is only addressed once in this servant song (see 52:14a), and God either speaks or is spoken about in this servant song; he is never addressed. Furthermore, the idea of God himself making a reparation offering is odd. If the verb is taken as third feminine singular, then the feminine noun נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh) at the end of the line is the likely subject. In this case one can take the suffixed form of the noun as equivalent to a pronoun and translate, “if he [literally, “his life”] makes a reparation offering.”

sn What constitutes the servant’s reparation offering? Some might think his suffering, but the preceding context views this as past, while the verb here is imperfect in form. The offering appears to be something the servant does after his suffering has been completed. Perhaps the background of the language can be found in the Levitical code, where a healed leper would offer a reparation offering as part of the ritual to achieve ceremonial cleanliness (see Lev 14). The servant was pictured earlier in the song as being severely ill. This illness (a metaphor for the effects of the people’s sin) separated him from God. However, here we discover the separation is not final; once reparation is made, so to speak, he will again experience the Lord’s favor.

² sn The idiomatic and stereotypical language emphasizes the servant’s restoration to divine favor. Having numerous descendants and living a long life are standard signs of divine blessing. See Job 42:13-16.

¹ tn Heb “he will be satisfied by his knowledge,” i.e., “when he knows.” The preposition is understood as temporal and the suffix as a subjective genitive. Some take בְּדַעְתּוֹ (bÿda’to, “by his knowledge”) with what follows and translate “by knowledge of him,” understanding the preposition as instrumental and the suffix as objective.

² sn The song ends as it began (cf. 52:13-15), with the Lord announcing the servant’s vindication and exaltation.

³ tn Heb “he will acquit, a righteous one, my servant, many.” צַדִּיק (tsadiq) may refer to the servant, but more likely it is dittographic (note the preceding verb יַצְדִּיק, yatsdiq). The precise meaning of the verb (the Hiphil of צָדַק, tsadaq) is debated. Elsewhere the Hiphil is used at least six times in the sense of “make righteous” in a legal sense, i.e., “pronounce innocent, acquit” (see Exod 23:7; Deut 25:1; 1 Kgs 8:32 = 2 Chr 6:23; Prov 17:15; Isa 5:23). It can also mean “render justice” (as a royal function, see 2 Sam 15:4; Ps 82:3), “concede” (Job 27:5), “vindicate” (Isa 50:8), and “lead to righteousness” (by teaching and example, Dan 12:3). The preceding context and the next line suggest a legal sense here. Because of his willingness to carry the people’s sins, the servant is able to “acquit” them.

sn Some (e.g., H. M. Orlinsky, “The So-called ‘Suffering Servant’ in Isaiah 53,22,” VTSup 14 [1967]: 3-133) object to this legal interpretation of the language, arguing that it would be unjust for the righteous to suffer for the wicked and for the wicked to be declared innocent. However, such a surprising development is consistent with the ironic nature of this song. It does seem unfair for the innocent to die for the guilty. But what is God to do when all have sinned and wandered off like stray sheep (cf. v. 6)? Covenant law demands punishment, but punishment in this case would mean annihilation of what God has created. God’s justice, as demanded by the law, must be satisfied. To satisfy his justice, he does something seemingly unjust. He punishes his sinless servant, the only one who has not strayed off! In the progress of biblical revelation, we discover that the sinless servant is really God in the flesh, who offers himself because he is committed to the world he has created. If his justice can only be satisfied if he himself endures the punishment, then so be it. What appears to be an act of injustice is really love satisfying the demands of justice!

⁴ tn The circumstantial clause (note the vav [ו] + object + subject + verb pattern) is understood as causal here. The prefixed verb form is either a preterite or an imperfect used in a customary manner.

¹ tn Scholars have debated the precise meaning of the term רַבִּים (rabbim) that occurs five times in this passage (Isa 52:14, 15; 53:11, 12 [2x]). Its two broad categories of translation are “much”/“many” and “great” (HALOT 1171-72 s.v. I רַב). Unlike other Hebrew terms for might or strength, this term is linked with numbers or abundance. In all sixteen uses outside of Isaiah 52:13-53:12 (articular and plural) it signifies an inclusive meaning: “the majority” or “the multitude” (J. Jeremias, TDNT 6:536-37). This term occurs in parallelism with עֲצוּמִים (’atsumim), which normally signifies “numerous” or “large” or “powerful” (through large numbers). Like רַבִּים (rabbim), it refers to greatness in numbers (cf. Deut 4:38; 7:1; 9:1; 11:34). It emphasizes the multitudes with whom the Servant will share the spoil of his victory. As J. Olley wrote: “Yahweh has won the victory and vindicates his Servant, giving to him many subservient people, together with their spoils. These numerous peoples in turn receive blessing, sharing in the “peace” resulting from Yahweh’s victory and the Servant’s suffering” (John W. Olley, “‘The Many’: How Is Isa 53,12a to Be Understood,” Bib 68 [1987]: 330-56).

² sn The servant is compared here to a warrior who will be richly rewarded for his effort and success in battle.

³ tn Heb “because he laid bare his life”; traditionally, ASV “because he (+ hath KJV) poured out his soul (life NIV) unto death.”

⁴ tn The Hiphil of פָּגַע (paga’) can mean “cause to attack” (v. 6), “urge, plead verbally” (Jer 15:11; 36:25), or “intervene militarily” (Isa 59:16). Perhaps the third nuance fits best here, for military imagery is employed in the first two lines of the verse.

Who ^{( a )} hath believed our report? and to whom is the ^{( b )} arm of the LORD revealed?

^{( a )} The prophet shows that very few will receive their preaching from Christ, and from their deliverance by him, (Joh 12:38; Rom 10:16).

^{( b )} Meaning, that no one can believe but whose hearts God touches with the virtue of his Holy Spirit.

For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a ^{( c )} root out of a dry ^{( d )} ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, [there is] no beauty that we should desire him.

^{( c )} The beginning of Christ's kingdom will be small and contemptible in the sight of man, but it will grow wonderfully and flourish before God.

^{( d )} Read (Isa 11:1).

He is despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with ^{( e )} grief: and we hid as it were [our] faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

^{( e )} Which was by God's singular providence for the comfort of sinners, (Heb 4:15).

Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried ^{( f )} our sorrows: yet we did esteem him ^{( g )} stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.

^{( f )} That is, the punishment due to our sins, for which he has both suffered and made satisfaction, (Mat 8:17; 1Pe 2:24).

^{( g )} We judge evil, thinking that he was punished for his own sins, and not for ours.

But he [was] wounded for our transgressions, [he was] bruised for our iniquities: the ^{( h )} chastisement for our peace [was] upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

^{( h )} He was chastised for our reconciliation, (1Co 15:3).

All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the ^{( i )} iniquity of us all.

^{( i )} Meaning, the punishment of our iniquity, and not the fault itself.

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he ^{( k )} opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth.

^{( k )} But willingly and patiently obeyed his father's appointment, (Mat 26:63; Act 8:32).

He was taken from ^{( l )} prison and from judgment: ^{( m )} and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off from the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken.

^{( l )} From the cross and grave, after that he was condemned.

^{( m )} Though he died for sin, yet after his resurrection he will live forever and this his death is to restore life to his members, (Rom 6:9).

^{( n )} And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither [was any] deceit in his mouth.

^{( n )} God the Father delivered him into the hands of the wicked, and to the powers of the world to do with him what they would.

Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put [him] to grief: when ^{( o )} thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see [his] seed, he shall prolong [his] days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.

^{( o )} Christ by offering up himself will give life to his Church, and so cause them to live with him forever.

He shall see of the ^{( p )} travail of his soul, [and] shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my ^{( q )} righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.

^{( p )} That is, the fruit and effect of his labour, which is the salvation of his Church.

^{( q )} Christ will justify by faith through his word, while Moses could not justify by the law.

Therefore I will divide to him [a portion] with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because ^{( r )} he hath poured out his soul to death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bore the sin ^{( s )} of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

^{( r )} Because he humbled himself, therefore he will be extolled to glory, (Phi 2:7-12).

^{( s )} That is, of all that believe in him.

Marching Orders

Depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from thence, touch no unclean thing; go ye out of the midst of her; be ye clean, that bear the vessels of the Lord. 12. For ye shall not go out with haste, nor go by flight: for the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your reward.'--Isaiah 53:11-12.

THESE ringing notes are parts of a highly poetic picture of that great deliverance which inspired this prophet's most exalted strains. It is described with constant allusion to the first Exodus, but also with significant differences. Now no doubt the actual historical return of the Jews from the Babylonish captivity is the object that fills the foreground of this vision, but it by no means exhausts its significance. The restriction of the prophecy to that more immediate fulfilment may well seem impossible when we note that my text follows the grand promise that all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God,' and immediately precedes the Messianic prophecy of the fifty-third chapter. Egypt was transparent, and through it shone Babylon; Babylon was transparent, and through it shone Christ's redemption. That was the real and highest fulfilment of the prophet's anticipations, and the trumpet-calls of my text are addressed to all who have a share in it. We have, then, here, under highly metaphorical forms, the grand ideal of the Christian life; and I desire to note briefly its various features.

I. First, then, we have it set forth as a march of warrior priests.

Note that phrase--Ye that bear the vessels of the Lord.' The returning exiles as a whole are so addressed, but the significance of the expression, and the precise metaphor which it is meant to convey, may be questionable. The word rendered vessel' is a wide expression, meaning any kind of equipment, and in other places of the Old Testament the whole phrase rendered here, ye that bear the vessels,' is translated armour-bearers.' Such an image would be quite congruous with the context here, in which warlike figures abound. And if so, the picture would be that of an army on the march, each man carrying some of the weapons of the great Captain and Leader. But perhaps the other explanation is more likely, which regards the vessels of the Lord as being an allusion to the sacrificial and other implements of worship, which, in the first Exodus, the Levites carried on the march. And if that be the meaning, as seems more congruous with the command of purity which is deduced from the function of bearing the vessels, then the figure here, of course, is that of a company of priests. I venture to throw the two ideas together, and to say that we may here find an ideal of the Christian community as being a great company of warrior-priests on the march, guarding a sacred deposit which has been committed to their charge.

Look, then, at that combination in the true Christian character of the two apparently opposite ideas of warrior and priest. It suggests that all the life is to be conflict, and that all the conflict is to be worship; that everywhere, in the thick of the fight, we may still bear the remembrance of the secret place of the most High.' It suggests, too, that the warfare is worship, that the offices of the priest and of the warrior are one and the same thing, and both consist in their mediating between man and God, bringing God in His Gospel to men, and bringing men through their faith to God. The combination suggests, likewise, how, in the true Christian character, there ought ever to be blended, in strange harmony, the virtues of the soldier and the qualities of the priest; compassion for the ignorant and them that are out of the way, with courage; meekness with strength; a quiet, placable heart hating strife, joined to a spirit that cheerily fronts every danger and is eager for the conflict in which evil is the foe and God the helper. The old Crusaders went to battle with the Cross on their hearts, and on their shoulders, and on the hilts of their swords; and we, too, in all our warfare, have to remember that its weapons are not carnal but spiritual, and that only then do we fight as the Captain of our salvation fought, when our arms are meekness and pity, and our warfare is waged in gentleness and love.

Note, further, that in this phrase we have the old, old metaphor of life as a march, but so modified as to lose all its melancholy and weariness and to become an elevating hope. The idea which runs through all poetry, of life as a journey, suggests effort, monotonous change, a uniform law of variety and transiency, struggle and weariness, but the Christian thought of life, while preserving the idea of change, modifies it into the blessed thought of progress. Life, if it is as Christ meant it to be, is a journey in the sense that it is a continuous effort, not unsuccessful, toward a clearly discerned goal, our eternal home. The Christian march is a march from slavery to freedom, and from a foreign land to our native soil.

Again, this metaphor suggests that this company of marching priests have in charge a sacred deposit. Paul speaks of the glorious Gospel which was committed to my trust.' That good thing which was committed unto thee by the Holy Ghost, keep.' The history of the return from Babylon in the Book of Ezra presents a remarkable parallel to the language of my text, for there we are told how, in the preparation for the march, the leader entrusted the sacred vessels of the temple, which the liberality of the heathen king had returned to him, to a group of Levites and priests, weighing them at the beginning, and bidding them keep them safe until they were weighed again in the courts of the Lord's house in Jerusalem.

And, in like manner, to us Christians is given the charge of God's great weapons of warfare, with which He contends with the wickedness of the world--viz, that great message of salvation through, and in, the Cross of Jesus Christ. And there are committed to us, further, to guard sedulously, and to keep bright and untarnished and undiminished in weight and worth, the precious treasures of the Christian life of communion with Him. And we may give another application to the figure and think of the solemn trust which is put into our hands, in the gift of our own selves, which we ourselves can either waste, and stain, and lose, or can guard and polish into vessels meet for the Master's use.'

Gathering, then, these ideas together, we take this as the ideal of the Christian community--a company of priests on the march, with a sacred deposit committed to their trust. If we reflected more on such a conception of the Christian life, we should more earnestly hearken to, and more sedulously discharge, the commands that are built thereon. To these commands I now turn.

II. Note the separation that befits the marching company.

Depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from thence, touch no unclean thing, go ye out of the midst of her.' In the historical fulfilment of my text, separation from Babylon was the preliminary of the march. Our task is not so simple; our separation from Babylon must be the constant accompaniment of our march. And day by day it has to be repeated, if we would lift a foot in advance upon the road. There is still a Babylon. The order in the midst of which we live is not organised on the fundamental laws of Christ's Kingdom. And wherever there are men who seek to order their lives as Christ would have them to be ordered, the first necessity for them is, Come out from amongst them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord.' There is no need in this day to warn Christian people against an exaggerated interpretation of these commandments. I almost wish there were more need. We have been told so often, in late years, of how Christian men ought to mingle with all the affairs of life, and count nothing that is human foreign to themselves, that it seems to me there is vast need for a little emphasis being put on the other side of the truth, and for separation being insisted upon. Wherever there is a real grasp of Jesus Christ for a man's own personal Saviour, and a true submission to Him as the Pattern and Guide of life, a bread line of demarcation between that man and the irreligious life round him will draw itself. If the heart have its tendrils twined round the Cross, it will have detached them from the world around. Separation by reason of an entirely different conception of life, separation because the present does not look to you as it looks to the men who see only it, separation because you and they have not only a different ideal and theory of life, but are living from different motives and for different ends and by different powers, will be the inevitable result of any real union with Jesus Christ. If I am joined to Him I am separated from the world; and detachment from it is the simple and necessary result of any real attachment to Him. There will always be a gulf in feeling, in purpose, in view, and therefore there will often have to be separation outward things. So did not I because of the fear of the Lord will have to be said over and over again by any real and honest follower of the Master.

This separation will not only be the result of union with Jesus Christ, but it is the condition of all progress in our union with Him. We must be unmoored before we can advance. Many a caravan has broken down in African exploration for no other reason than because it was too well provided with equipments, and so collapsed of its own weight. Therefore, our prophet in the context says, Touch no unclean thing.' There is one of the differences between the new Exodus and the old. When Israel came out of Egypt they spoiled the Egyptians, and came away laden with gold and jewels; but it is dangerous work bringing anything away from Babylon with us. Its treasure has to be left if we would march close behind our Lord and Master. We must touch no unclean thing,' because our hands are to be filled with the vessels of the Lord.' I am preaching no impossible asceticism, no misanthropical withdrawal from the duties of life, and the obligations that we owe to society. God's world is a good one; man's world is a bad one. It is man's world that we have to leave, but the loftiest sanctity requires no abstention from anything that God has ordained.

Now, dear friends, I venture to think that this message is one that we all dreadfully need to-day. There are a great many Christians, so-called, in this generation, who seem to think that the main object they should have in view is to obliterate the distinction between themselves and the world of ungodly men, and in occupation and amusements to be as like people that have no religion as they possibly can manage. So they get credit for being liberal Christians, and praise from quarters whoso praise is censure, and whoso approval ought to make a Christian man very uncomfortable. Better by far the narrowest Puritanism--I was going to say better by far monkish austerities--than a Christianity which knows no self-denial, which is perfectly at home in an irreligious atmosphere, and which resents the exhortation to separation, because it would fain keep the things that it is bidden to drop. God's reiteration of the text through Paul to the Church in luxurious, corrupt, wealthy Corinth is a gospel for this day for English Christians,' Come out from among them, and I will receive you.

III. Further, note the purity which becomes the bearers of the vessels of the Lord.

Be ye clean.' The priest's hands must be pure, which figure, being translated, is that transparent purity of conduct and character is demanded from all Christian men who profess to bear God's sacred deposit. You cannot carry it unless your hands are clean, for all the gifts that God gives us glide from our grasp if our hands be stained. Monkish legends tell of sacred pictures and vessels which, when an impure touch was laid upon them, refused to be lifted from their place, and grew there, as rooted, in spite of all efforts to move them. Whoever seeks to hold the gifts of God in His Gospel in dirty hands will fail miserably in the attempt; and all the joy and peace of communion, the assurance of God's love, and the calm hope of immortal life will vanish as a soap bubble, grasped by a child, turns into a drop of foul water on its palm, if we try to hold them in foul hands. Be clean, or you cannot bear the vessels of the Lord.

And further, remember that no priestly service nor any successful warfare for Jesus Christ is possibly, except on the same condition. One sin, as well as one sinner, destroys much good, and a little inconsistency on the part of us professing Christians neutralises all the efforts that we may ever try to put forth for Him. Logic requires that God's vessels should be carried with clean hands. God requires it, men require it, and have a right to require it. The mightiest witness for Him is the witness of a pure life, and if we go about the world professing to be His messengers, and carrying His epistle in our dirty fingers, the soiled thumb-mark upon it will prevent men from caring for the message; and the Word will be despised because of the unworthiness of its bearers. Be ye clean that bear the vessels of the Lord.'

IV. The leisurely confidence which should mark the march that is guarded by God.

Lastly, notice the leisurely confidence which should mark the march that is guarded by God. Ye shall not go out with haste, nor go by flight, for the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your reward.'

This is partly an analogy and partly a contrast with the story of the first Exodus. The unusual word translated with haste is employed in the Pentateuch to describe the hurry and bustle, not altogether due to the urgency of the Egyptians, but partly also to the terror of Israel, with which that first flight was conducted. And, says my text, in this new coming out of bondage there shall be no need for tremor or perturbation, lending wings to any man's feet; but, with quiet deliberation, like that with which Peter was brought out of his dungeon, because God knew that He could bring him out safely, the new Exodus shall be carried on.

He that believeth shall not make haste.' Why should he? There is no need for a Christian man ever to be flurried, or to lose his self-command, or ever to be in an undignified and unheroic hurry. His march should be unceasing, swift, but calm and equable, as the motions of the planets, unhasting and unresting.

There is a very good reason why we need not be in any haste due to alarm. For, as in the first Exodus, the guiding pillar led the march, and sometimes, when there were foes behind, as at the Red Sea, shifted its place to. the rear, so the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rereward.' He besets us behind and before, going in front to be our Guide, and in the rear for our protection, gathering up the stragglers, so that there shall not be a hoof left behind,' and putting a wall of iron between us and the swarms of hovering enemies that hang on our march. Thus encircled by God, we shall be safe. Christ fulfils what the prophet pledged God to do; for He goes before us, the Pattern, the Captain of our salvation, the Forerunner, the Breaker is gone up before them ; and He comes behind us to guard us from evil; for He is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, the Almighty.'

Dear brethren, life for us all must be a weary pilgrimage. We cannot alter that. It is the lot of every son of man. But we have the power of either making it a dreary, solitary tramp over an undefended desert, to end in the great darkness, or else of making it a march in which the twin sisters Joy and Peace shall lead us forth, and go out with us, and the other pair of angel-forms, Goodness and Mercy,' shall follow us all the days of our lives. We may make it a journey with Jesus for Guide and Companion, to Jesus as our Home. The ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs, and everlasting joy upon their heads.'

The Arm Of The Lord

To whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? '--Isaiah 53:1.

In the second Isaiah there are numerous references to the arm of the Lord.' It is a natural symbol of the active energy of Jehovah, and is analogous to the other symbol of the Face of Jehovah,' which is also found in this book, in so far as it emphasises the notion of power in manifestation, though the Face' has a wider range and may be explained as equivalent to that part of the divine Nature which is turned to men. The latter symbol will then be substantially parallel with the Name.' But there are traces of a tendency to conceive of the arm of the Lord as personified, for instance, where we read (Isaiah 63:12) that Jehovah caused His glorious arm to go at the right hand of Moses.' Moses was not the true leader, but was himself led and sustained by the divine Power, dimly conceived as a person, ever by his side to sustain and direct. There seems to be a similar imperfect consciousness of personification in the words of the text, especially when taken in their close connection with the immediately following prophecy of the suffering servant. It would be doing violence to the gradual development of Revelation, like tearing asunder the just-opening petals of a rose, to read into this question of the sad prophet full-blown Christian truth, but it would be missing a clear anticipation of that truth to fail to recognise the forecasting of it that is here.

I. We have here a prophetic forecast that the arm of the Lord is a person.

The strict monotheism of the Old Testament does not preclude some very remarkable phenomena in its modes of conception and speech as to the divine Nature. We hear of the angel of His face,' and again of the angel in whom is His Name.' We hear of the angel' to whom divine worship is addressed and who speaks, as we may say, in a divine dialect and does divine acts. We meet, too, with the personification of Wisdom in the Book of Proverbs, to which are ascribed characteristics and are attributed acts scarcely distinguishable from divine, and eminently associated in the creative work. Our text points in the same direction as these representations. They all tend in the direction of preparing for the full Christian truth of the personal Power of God.' What was shown by glimpses at sundry times and in divers manners,' with many gaps in the showing and much left all unshown, is perfectly revealed in the Son. The New Testament, by its teaching as to the Eternal Word,' endorses, clears, and expands all these earlier dimmer adumbrations. That Word is the agent of the divine energy, and the conception of power as being exercised by the Word is even loftier than that of it as put forth by the arm,' by intelligible utterance is more spiritual and higher than force of muscle. The apostolic designation of Jesus as the power of God and the wisdom of God blends the two ideas of these two symbols. The conception of Jesus Christ as the arm of the Lord, when united with that of the Eternal Word, points to a threefold sphere and manner of His operations, as the personal manifestation of the active power of God. In the beginning, the arm of the Lord stretched out the heavens as a tent to dwell in, and without Him was not anything made that was made.' In His Incarnation, He carried into execution all God's purposes and fulfilled His whole will. From His throne He wields divine power, and rules the universe. The help that is done on earth, He doeth it all Himself,' and He works in the midst of humanity that redeeming work which none but He can effect.

II. We have here a prophetic paradox.

We have here a prophetic paradox that the mightiest revelation of the arm of the Lord is in weakness.

The words of the text stand in closest connection with the great picture of the Suffering Servant which follows, and the pathetic figure portrayed there is the revealing of the arm of the Lord. The close bringing together of the ideas of majesty and power and of humiliation, suffering, and weakness, would be a paradox to the first hearers of the prophecy. Its solution lies in the historical manifestation of Jesus. Looking on Him, we see that the growing up of that root out of a dry ground was the revelation of the great power of God. In Jesus' lowly humanity God's power is made perfect in man's weakness, in another and not less true sense than that in which the apostle spoke. There we see divine power in its noblest form, in its grandest operation, in its widest sweep, in its loftiest purpose. That humble man, lowly and poor, despised and rejected in life, hanging faint and pallid on the Roman cross, and dying in the dark, seems a strange manifestation of the glory' of God, but the Cross is indeed His throne, and sublime as are the other forms in which Omnipotence clothes itself, this is, to human eyes and hearts, the highest of them all. In Jesus the arm of the Lord is revealed in its grandest operation. Creation and the continual sustaining of a universe are great, but redemption is greater. It is infinitely more to say, He giveth power to the faint,' than to say, For that He is strong in might, not one faileth,' and to principalities and powers in heavenly places who have gazed on the grand operations of divine power for ages, new lessons of what it can effect are taught by the redemption of sinful men. The divine power that is enshrined in Jesus' weakness is power in its widest sweep, for it is to every one that believeth, and in its loftiest purpose, for it is unto salvation.'

III. We have here a prophetic lament that the power revealed to all is unseen by many.

The text is a wail over darkened eyes, blind at noonday. The prophet's radiant anticipations of the Servant's exaltation, and of God's holy arm being made bare in the eyes of all nations, are clouded over by the thought of the incredulity of the multitude to our report.' Jehovah had indeed made bare His arm,' as a warrior throws back his loose robe, when he would strike. But what was the use of that, if dull eyes would not look? The report had been loudly proclaimed, but what was the use of that, if ears were obstinately stopped? Alas, alas! nothing that God can do secures that men shall see what He shows, or listen to what He speaks. The mystery of mysteries is that men can, the tragedy of tragedies is that they will, make any possible revelation of none effect, so far as they are concerned.

The Arm is revealed, but only by those who have believed our report does the prophet deem it to be actually beheld. Faith is the individual condition on which the perfected revelation becomes a revelation to me. The salvation of our God is shown in splendour to all the ends of the earth,' but only they who exercise faith in Jesus, who is the power of God, will see that far-shining light. If we are not of those who believe the report,' we shall, notwithstanding that He hath made bare His holy arm,' be of those who grope at noonday as in the dark.

The Suffering Servant--I

For He grew up before Him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: He hath no form nor comeliness; and when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. 3. He was despised, and rejected of men; a Man of Sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and as one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we esteemed Him not.'--Isaiah 53:2-3.

To hold fast the fulfilment of this prophecy of the Suffering Servant in Jesus it is not necessary to deny its reference to Israel. Just as offices, institutions, and persons in it were prophetic, and by their failures to realise to the full their own role, no less than by their partial presentation of it, pointed onwards to Him, in whom their idea would finally take form and substance, so this great picture of God's Servant, which was but imperfectly reproduced even by the Israel within Israel, stood on the prophet's page a fair though sad dream, with nothing corresponding to it in the region of reality and history, till He came and lived and suffered.

If we venture to make it the theme of a short series of sermons, our object is simply to endeavour to bring out clearly the features of the wonderful portrait. If they are fully apprehended, it seems to us that the question of who is the original of the picture answers itself. We must note that the whole is introduced by a For,' that is to say, that it is all explanatory of the unbelief and blindness to the revealed arm of the Lord, which the prophet has just been lamenting. This close connection with the preceding words accounts for the striking way in which the description of the person of the Servant is here blended with, or interrupted by, that of the manner in which he was treated.

I. The Servant's lowly origin and growth.

He grew, '--not shall grow. The whole is cast into the form of history, and to begin the description with a future tense is not only an error in grammar but gratuitously introduces an incongruity. The word rendered tender plant means a sucker, and root probably would more properly be taken as a shoot from a root, the tree having been felled, and nothing left but the stump. There is here, then, at the outset, an unmistakable reference to the prophecy in Isaiah 11:1, which is Messianic prophecy, and therefore there is a presumption that this too has a Messianic reference. In the original passage the stump or stock is explained as being the humiliated house of David, and it is only following the indications supplied by the fact of the second Isaiah's quotation of the first, if we take the implication in his words to be the same. Royal descent, but from a royal house fallen on evil days, is the plain meaning here.

And the eclipse of its glory is further brought out in that not only does the shoot spring from a tree, all whose leafy honours have long been lopped away, but which is in a dry ground.' Surely we do not force a profounder meaning than is legitimate into this feature of the picture when we think of the Carpenter's Son of the house and lineage of David,' of the Son of God who was found in fashion as a man,' of Him who was born in a stable, and grew up in a tiny village hidden away among the hills of Galilee, who, as it were, stole into the world not with observation,' and opened out, as He grew, the wondrous blossom of a perfect humanity such as had never before been evolved from any root, nor grown on the most sedulously cultured plant. Is this part of the prophet's ideal realised in any of the other suggested realisations of it?

But there is still another point in regard to the origin and growth of the lowly shoot from the felled stump--it is before Him. Then the unnoticed growth is noticed by Jehovah, and, though cared for by no others, is cared for, tended, and guarded, by Him.

II. The Servant's unattractive form.

Naturally a shoot springing in a dry ground would show but little beauty of foliage or flower. It would be starved and colourless beside the gaudy growths in fertile, well-watered gardens. But that unattractiveness is not absolute or real; it is only that we should desire Him.' We are but poor judges of true form or comeliness,' and what is lustrous with perfect beauty in God's eyes may be, and generally is, plain and dowdy in men's. Our tastes are debased. Flaunting vulgarities and self-assertive ugliness captivate vulgar eyes, to which the serene beauties of mere goodness seem insipid. Cockatoos charm savages to whom the iridescent neck of a dove has no charms. Surely this part of the description fits Jesus as it does no other. The entire absence of outward show, or of all that pleases the spoiled tastes of sinful men, need not be dwelt on. No doubt the world has slowly come to recognise in Him the moral ideal, a perfect man, but He has been educating it for nineteen hundred years to get it up to that point, and the educational process is very far from complete. The real desire of most men is for something much more pungent and dashing than Jesus' meek wisdom and stainless purity, which breed in them ennui rather than longing. Not this man but Barabbas,' was the approximate realisation of the Jewish ideal then; not this man but--some type or other of a less oppressive perfection, and that calls for less effort to imitate it, is the world's real cry still. Pilate's scornfully wondering question: Art Thou--such a poor-looking creature--the King of the Jews? is very much of a piece with the world's question still: Art Thou the perfect instance of manhood? Art Thou the highest revelation of God?

III. The Servant's reception by men.

The two preceding characteristics naturally result in this third. For lowliness of condition and lack of qualities appealing to men's false ideals will certainly lead to being despised and rejected.' The latter expression is probably better taken, as in the margin of the Rev. Ver. as forsaken.' But whichever meaning is adopted, what an Iliad of woes is condensed into these two words! The spurns that patient merit of the unworthy takes,' the loneliness of one who, in all the crowd descries none to trust--these are the wages that the world ever gives to its noblest, who live but to help it and be misunderstood by it, and as these are the wages of all who with self-devotion would serve God by serving the world for its good, they were paid in largest measure to the Servant of the Lord.' His claims were ridiculed, His words of wisdom thrown back on Himself; none were so poor but could afford to despise Him as lower than they, His love was repulsed, surely He drank the bitterest cup of contempt. All His life He walked in the solitude of uncomprehended aims, and at His hour of extremest need appealed in vain for a little solace of companionship, and was deserted by those whom He trusted most. His was a lifelong martyrdom inflicted by men. His was a lifelong solitude which was most utter at the last. And He brought it all on Himself because He would be God's Servant in being men's Saviour.

IV. The Servant's sorrow of heart.

The remarkable expression acquainted with grief seems to carry an allusion to the previous clause, in which men are spoken of as despising and rejecting the Servant. They left Him alone, and His only companion was grief '--a grim associate to walk at a man's side all his days! It is to be noted that the word rendered grief is literally sickness. That description of mental or spiritual sorrows under the imagery of bodily sicknesses is intensified in the subsequent terrible picture of Him as one from whom men hide their faces with disgust at His hideous appearance, caused by disease. Possibly the meaning may rather be that He hides His face, as lepers had to do.

Now probably the sorrows' touched on at this point are to be distinguished from those which subsequently are spoken of in terms of such poignancy as laid on the Servant by God. Here the prophet is thinking rather of those which fell on Him by reason of men's rejection and desertion. We shall not rightly estimate the sorrowfulness of Christ's sorrows, unless we bring to our meditations on them the other thought of His joys. How great these were we can judge, when we remember that He told the disciples that by His joy remaining in them their joy would be full. As much joy then as human nature was capable of from perfect purity, filial obedience, trust, and unbroken communion with God, so much was Jesus' permanent experience. The golden cup of His pure nature was ever full to the brim with the richest wine of joy. And that constant experience of gladness in the Father and in Himself made more painful the sorrows which He encountered, like a biting wind shrieking round Him, whenever He passed out from fellowship with God in the stillness of His soul into the contemptuous and hostile world. His spirit carrying with it the still atmosphere of the Holy Place, would feel more keenly than any other would have done the jarring tumult of the crowds, and would know a sharper pain when met with greetings in which was no kindness. Jesus was sinless, His sympathy with all sorrow was thereby rendered abnormally keen, and He made others' griefs His own with an identification born of a sympathy which the most compassionate cannot attain. The greater the love, the greater the sorrow of the loving heart when its love is spurned. The intenser the yearning for companionship, the sharper the pang when it is repulsed. The more one longs to bless, the more one suffers when his blessings are flung off. Jesus was the most sensitive, the most sympathetic, the most loving soul that ever dwelt in flesh. He saw, as none other has ever seen, man's miseries. He experienced, as none else has ever experienced, man's ingratitude, and, therefore, though God, even His God, anointed Him with the oil of gladness above His fellows,' He was a Man of Sorrows,' and grief was His companion during all His life's course.

The Suffering Servant--II

Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. 5. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed. 6. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid (made to light) on Him the iniquity of us all.'--Isaiah 53:4-6.

THE note struck lightly in the close of the preceding paragraph becomes dominant here. One. notes the accumulation of expressions for suffering, crowded into these verses--griefs, sorrows, wounded, bruised, smitten, chastisement, stripes. One notes that the cause of all this multiform infliction is given with like emphasis of reiteration--our griefs, our sorrows, and that these afflictions are invested with a still more tragic and mysterious aspect, by being traced to our transgressions, our iniquities. Finally, the deepest word of all is spoken when the whole mystery of the servant's sufferings is referred to Jehovah's making the universal iniquity to lie, like a crushing burden, on Him.

I. The Burdened Servant.

It is to be kept in view that the griefs which the servant is here described as bearing are literally sicknesses,' and that, similarly, the sorrows' may be diseases. Matthew in his quotation of the verse (Isaiah 8:17) takes the words to refer to bodily ailments, and finds their fulfilment' in Christ's miracles of healing. And that interpretation is part of the whole truth, for Hebrew thought drew no such sharp line of distinction between diseases of the body and those of the soul as we are accustomed to draw. All sickness was taken to be the consequence of sin, and the intimate connection between the two was, as it were, set forth for all forms of bodily disease by the elaborate treatment prescribed for leprosy, as pre-eminently fitted to stand as type of the whole. But the fulfilment through the miracles is but a parable of the deeper fulfilment in regard to the more virulent and deadly diseases of the soul. Sin is the sickness, as it is also the grief, which most afflicts humanity. Of the two words expressing the Servant's taking their burden on His shoulders, the former implies not only the taking of it but the bearing of it away, and the latter emphasises the weight of the load.

Following Matthew's lead, we may regard Christ's miracles of healing as one form of His fulfilment of the prophecy, in which the principles that shape all the forms are at work, and which, therefore, may stand as a kind of pictorial illustration of the way in which He bears and bears away the heavier burden of sin. And one point which comes out clearly is that, in these acts of healing, He felt the weight of the affliction that He took away. Even in that region, the condition of ability to remove it, was identifying Himself with the sorrow. Did He not sigh and look up' in silent appeal to heaven before He could say, Ephphatha? Did He not groan in Himself before He sent the voice into the tomb which the dead heard? His miracles were not easy, though He had all power, for He felt all that the sufferers felt, by the identifying power of the unparalleled sympathy of a pure nature. In that region His pain on account of the sufferers stood in vital relation with His power to end their sufferings. The load must gall His shoulders, ere He could bear it away from theirs.

But the same principles as apply to these deeds of mercy done on diseases apply to all His deeds of deliverance from sorrow and from sin. In Him is set forth in highest fashion the condition of all brotherly help and alleviation. Whoever would lighten a brother's load must stoop his own shoulders to carry it. And whilst there is an element in our Lord's sufferings, as the text passes on to say, which is not explained by the analogy with what is required from all human succourers and healers, the extent to which the lower experience of such corresponds with His unique work should always be made prominent in our devout meditations.

II. The Servant's sufferings in their reason, their intensity, and their issue.

The same measure that was meted out to Job by his so-called friends was measured to the servant, and at the impulse of the same heartless doctrinal prepossession. He must have been bad to suffer so much; that is the rough and ready verdict of the self-righteous. With crashing emphasis, that complacent explanation of the Servant's sufferings and their own prosperity is shivered to atoms, by the statement of the true reason for both the one and the other. You thought that He was afflicted because He was bad and you were spared because you were good--no, He was afflicted because you were bad, and you were spared because He was afflicted.

The reason for the Servant's sufferings was our transgressions.' More is suggested now than sympathetic identification with others' sorrows. This is an actual bearing of the consequences of sins which He had not committed, and that not merely as an innocent man may be overwhelmed by the flood of evil which has been let loose by others' sins to sweep over the earth. The blow that wounds Him is struck directly and solely at Him. He is not entangled in a widespread calamity, but is the only victim. It is pro-supposed that all transgression leads to wounds and bruises; but the transgressions are done by us, and the wounds and bruises fall on Him. Can the idea of vicarious suffering be more plainly set forth?

The intensity of the Servant's sufferings is brought home to our hearts by the accumulation of epithets, to which reference has already been made. He was wounded' as one who is pierced by a sharp sword; bruised' as one who is stoned to death; beaten and with livid weales on His flesh. A background of unnamed persecutors is dimly seen. The description moves altogether in the region of physical violence, and that violence is more than symbol.

It is no mere coincidence that the story of the Passion reproduces so many of the details of the prophecy, for, although the fulfilment of the latter does not depend on such coincidences, they are not to be passed by as of no importance. Former generations made too much of the physical sufferings of Jesus; is not this generation in danger of making too little of them?

The issue of the Servant's sufferings is presented in a startling paradox. His bruises and weales are the causes of our being healed. His chastisement brings our peace. Surely it is very hard work, and needs much forcing of words and much determination not to see what is set forth in as plain light as can be conceived, to strike the idea of atonement out of this prophecy. It says as emphatically as words can say, that we have by our sins deserved stripes, that the Servant bears the stripes which we have deserved, and that therefore we do not bear them.

III. The deepest ground of the Servant's sufferings.

The sad picture of humanity painted in that simile of a scattered flock lays stress on the universality of transgression, on its divisive effect, on the solitude of sin, and on its essential characteristic as being self-willed rejection of control. But the isolation caused by transgression is blessedly counteracted by the concentration of the sin of all on the Servant. Men fighting for their own hand, and living at their own pleasure, are working to the disruption of all sweet bonds of fellowship. But God, in knitting together all the black burdens into one, and loading the Servant with that tremendous weight, is preparing for the establishment of a more blessed unity, in experience of the healing brought about by His sufferings.

Can one man's iniquity,' as distinguished from the consequences of iniquity, be made to press upon any other? It is a familiar and not very profound objection to the Christian Atonement that guilt cannot be transferred. True, but in the first place, Christ's nature stands in vital relations to every man, of such intimacy that what is impossible between two of us is not impossible between Christ and any one of us; and, secondly, much in His life, and still more in His passion, is unintelligible unless the black mass of the world's sin was heaped upon Him, to His own consciousness. In that dread cry, wrung from Him as He hung there in the dark, the consciousnesses of possessing God and of having lost Him are blended inextricably and inexplicably. The only approach to an explanation of it is that then the world's sin was felt by Him, in all its terrible mass and blackness, coming between Him and God, even as our own sins come, separating us from God. That grim burden not only came on Him, but was laid on Him by God. The same idea is expressed by the prophet in that awful representation and by Jesus in that as awful cry, Why hast Thou forsaken Me?

The prophet constructs no theory of Atonement. But no language could be chosen that would more plainly set forth the fact of Atonement. And it is to be observed that, so far as this prophecy is concerned, the Servant's sole form of service is to suffer. He is not a teacher, an example, or a benefactor, in any of the other ways in which men need help. His work is to bear our griefs and be bruised for our healing.

The Suffering Servant--III

He was oppressed, yet He humbled Himself and opened not His mouth; as a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and as a sheep that before her shearers is dumb; yea, He opened not His mouth. 8. By oppression and judgment He was taken away; and as for His generation, who among them considered that He was cut off out of the Land of the living? for the transgression of my people was He stricken. 9. And they made His grave with the wicked, and with the rich in His death; although He had done no violence, neither was any deceit in His mouth.'--Isaiah 53:7-9. R.V.

IN this section of the prophecy we pass from contemplating the sufferings inflicted on the Servant to the attitude of Himself and of His contemporaries towards these, His patience and their blindness. To these is added a remarkable reference to His burial, which strikes one at first sight as interrupting the continuity of the prophecy, but on fuller consideration assumes great significance.

I. The unresisting endurance of the Servant.

The Revised Version's rendering of the first clause is preferable to that of the Authorised Version. Afflicted would be little better than tautology, but humbled Himself strikes the keynote of the verse, which dwells not on the Servant's afflictions, but on His bearing under them. Similarly, the pathetic imagery of the lamb led and the sheep dumb gives the same double representation, first of the indignities, and next of His demeanour in enduring them, as is conveyed in' He was oppressed, yet He humbled Himself.' Unremonstrating, unresisting endurance, then, is the point emphasised in the lovely metaphor.

We recall the fact that this emphatically reduplicated phrase opened not His mouth' was verbally fulfilled in our Lord's silence before each of the three authorities to whom He was presented, before the Jewish rulers, before Pilate, and before Herod. Only when adjured by the living God and when silence would have been tantamount to withdrawal of His claims, did He speak before the Sanhedrim Only when silence would have been taken as disowning His Kingship, did He speak before Pilate. And Herod, who had no right to question Him, received no answer at all. Jesus' lips were opened in witness but never in complaint or remonstrance. No doubt, the prophecy would have been as really fulfilled though there had been no such majestic silences, for its substance is patient endurance, not mere abstinence from speech. Still, as with other events in His life, the verbal correspondence with prophetic details may help, and be meant to help, to bring out more clearly, for purblind eyes, the true fulfilment. So we may meditate on the wonder and the beauty of that picture which the evangelists draw, and which the world has recognised, with whatever differences as to its interpretation, as the most perfect, pathetic, and majestic picture of meek endurance that has ever been painted.

But we gather only the most superficial of its lessons, if that is all that we find to say about it. For the main point for us to lay to heart is not merely the fact of that silent submission, but the motive which led to it. He opened not His mouth, because He willingly embraced the Cross, and He willingly embraced the Cross because He loved the Father and would do His will, because He loved the world and would be its Saviour.

That touching imagery of the dumb lamb has manifold felicities and significances beyond serving to figure meekness. And we are not forcing unintended meanings into a mere piece of poetic imagination when we note how remarkably the metaphor links on to that of strayed sheep in the preceding verse, or when we venture to recall John Baptist's first proclamation of the Lamb of God, and Peter's quotation of this very prophecy, and the continual recurrence in the Apocalypse of the name of The Lamb as the title of honour of Him who sitteth on the throne.' A kind of nimbus or aureole shines round the humble figure as drawn by the prophet.

II. The misunderstood end of the Servant's life.

The difficult expressions of Isaiah 53:8 are rendered in the Revised Version with clearness and so as to yield a profound meaning. We may note that here, for the first time, is spoken out that end to which all the preceding description of sufferings has been leading up, and yet it is spoken with a kind of solemn reticence, very impressive. The Servant is taken away,' cut off,' stricken.' Not yet is the grim word death' plainly uttered; that comes in the next verse, only after the Servant's death is supposed to be past. The three words suggest, at all events, though in half-veiled language, violence and suddenness in the Servant's fate. Who were the agents who took Him, cut Him off and struck Him, is left in impressive obscurity. But the fact that His death was a judicial murder is set in clear light. Whether we read By or From--oppression and judgment He was taken away,' the forms of law are represented as wrested to bring about flagrant injustice. And, if it were my object now to defend the Messianic interpretation, one might ask where any facts corresponding to this element in the picture are to be found in regard to either the national Israel, or the Israel within the nation.

That unjust death by illegal violence under the mask of law was, further, wholly misunderstood by His generation.' We need not do more than remark in a sentence how that feature corresponds with the facts in regard to Jesus, and ask whether it does so on any other theory of fulfilment.' Neither friends nor foes had even the faintest conception of what the death of Jesus was or was to effect. And it is worth while to dwell for a moment on this, because we are often told that there is no trace of the doctrine of an atoning sacrifice in the Gospels, and the inference is drawn that it was an afterthought of the apostles, and therefore to be set aside as an excrescence on Christianity according to Christ. The silence of Jesus on that subject is exaggerated; but certainly no thought of His being the Sacrifice for the sins of the world was in the minds of the sad watchers by the Cross, nor for many a day thereafter. Is it not worth noting that precisely such a blindness to the meaning of His death had been prophesied eight hundred years before?

But the reason why this feature is introduced seems mainly to be to underscore the lesson, that those who exercised the violence which hurried the Servant from the land of the living were blind instruments of a higher power. And may we not also see in it a suggestion of the great solitude of sorrow in which the Servant was to die, even as He had lived in it? Misapprehended and despised He lived, misapprehended He died. Jesus was the loneliest man that ever breathed human breath. He gave up His breath in a more awful solitude than ever isolated any other dying man. Utterly solitary, He died that none of us need ever face death alone.

III. The Servant's Grave.

Following on the mystery of the uncomprehended death comes the enigma of the burial. The words are an enigma, but they seem meaningless on any hypothesis but the Messianic one. As they stand, they assert that unnamed persons gave Him a grave with the wicked, as they would do by putting Him to death under strained forms of law, and that then, somehow, the criminal destined to be buried with other criminals in a dishonoured grave was laid in a tomb with the rich. It seems a singularly minute trait to find place in such a prophecy. The remarks already made as to similar minute correspondences in details of the prophecy with purely external facts in Christ's life need not be repeated now. One does not see that it is a self-evident axiom needing only to be enunciated in order to be accepted, that such minute prophecies are beneath the dignity of revelation. It might rather seem that, as one element in prophecy, they are eminently valuable. The smaller the detail, the more remarkable the prevision and the more striking the fulfilment. For a keen-sighted man may forecast tendencies and go far to anticipate events on the large scale, but only God can foresee trifles. The difficulty in which this prediction of the Servant's grave being with the rich places those who reject the Messianic reference of the prophecy to our Lord may be measured by the desperate attempts to evade it by suggesting other readings, or by making rich to be synonymous with wicked.' The words as they stand have a clear and worthy meaning on one interpretation, and we even venture to say, on one interpretation only, namely, that they refer to the reverent laying of the body of the Lord in the new tomb belonging to a certain rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph.'

If in the latter clause of Isaiah 53:9 we render Because rather than Although,' we get the thought that the burial was a sign that the Servant, slain as a criminal, yet was not a criminal. The criminals were either left unburied or disgraced by promiscuous interment in an unclean place. But that body reverently bedewed with tears, wrapped in fine linen clean and white, softly laid down by loving hands, watched by love stronger than death, lay in fitting repose as the corpse of a King till He came forth as a Conqueror. So once more the dominant note is struck, and this part of the prophecy closes with the emphatic repetition of the sinlessness of the Suffering Servant, which makes His sufferings a deep and bewildering mystery, unless they were endured because of our transgressions.'

The Suffering Servant--IV

It pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He hath put Him to grief: when Thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand.' --Isaiah 53:10.

WE have seen a distinct progress of thought in the preceding verses. There was first the outline of the sorrows and rejection of the Servant; second, the profound explanation of these as being for us; third, the sufferings, death and burial of the Servant.

We have followed Him to the grave. What more can there be to be said? Whether the Servant of the Lord be an individual or a collective or an ideal, surely all fitness of metaphor, all reality of fact would require that His work should be represented as ending with His life, and that what might follow His burial should be the influence of His memory, the continued operation of the principles He had set ageing and so on, but nothing more. Now observe that, however we may explain the fact, this is the fact to be explained, that there is a whole section, this closing one, devoted to the celebration of His work after His death and burial, and, still more remarkable, that the prophecy says nothing about His activity on the world till after death. In all the former portion there is not a syllable about His doing anything, only about His suffering; and then when He is dead He begins to work. That is the subject of these last three verses, and it would be proper to take them all for our consideration now, but for two reasons, one, because of their great fulness and importance, and one because, as you will observe, the two latter verses are a direct address of God's concerning the Servant. The prophetic words, spoken as in his own person, end with Isaiah 53:10, and, catching up their representations, expanding, defining, glorifying them, comes the solemn thunder of the voice of God. I now deal only with the prophet's vision of the work of the Servant of the Lord.

One ocher preliminary remark is that the work of the Servant after death is described in these verses with constant and very emphatic reference to His previous sufferings. The closeness of connection between these two is thus thrown into great prominence.

I. The mystery of God's treatment of the sinless Servant.

The first clause is to be read in immediate connection with the preceding verse. The Servant was of absolute sinlessness, and yet the Divine Hand crushed and bruised Him. Certainly, if we think of the vehemence of prophetic rebukes, and of the standing doctrine of the Old Testament that Israel was punished for its sin, we shall be slow to believe that this picture of the Sinless One, smitten for the sins of others, cab have reference to the nation in any of its parts, or to any one man. However other poetry may lament over innocent sufferers, the Old Testament always takes the ground: Our iniquities, like the wind, have carried us away.' But mark that here, however understood, the prophet paints a figure so sinless that God's bruising Him is an outstanding wonder and riddle, only to be solved by regarding these bruises as the stripes by which our sins were healed, and by noting that the pleasure of the Lord is carried on through Him, after and through His death. What conceivable application have such representations except to Jesus? We note, then, here:--

II. The solemn truth that His sufferings were divinely inflicted.

That is a truth complementary to the other views in the prophecy, according to which these sufferings are variously regarded as either inflicted by men (By oppression and judgment He was taken away ) or drawn on Him by His own sacrificial act (His soul shall make an offering for sin ). It was the divine counsel that used men as its instruments, though they were none the less guilty. The hands that crucified and slew' were no less the hands of lawless men,' because it was the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God that delivered Him up.'

But a still deeper thought is in these words. For we can scarcely avoid seeing in them a glimpse into that dim region of eclipse and agony of soul from which, as from a cave of darkness, issued that last cry: Eloi, Eloi, lama sabacthani? The bruises inflicted by the God, who made to meet on Him the iniquities of us all, were infinitely more severe than the weales of the soldiers' rods, or the wounds of the nails that pierced His hands and feet.

2. The staggering mystery of His sinlessness and sufferings.

The world has been full from of old of stories of goodness tortured and evil exalted, which have drawn tears and softened hearts, but which have also bewildered men who would fain believe in a righteous Governor and loving Father. But none of these have cast so black a shadow of suspicion on the government of the world by a good God as does the fate of Jesus, unless it is read in the light of this prophecy. Standing at the cross, faith in God's goodness and providence can scarcely survive, unless it rises to be faith in the atoning sacrifice of Him who was wounded there for our transgressions.

III. The Servant's work in His sufferings.

The margin of the Revised Version gives the best rendering-' His soul shall make an offering for sin.' The word employed for offering means a trespass offering, and carries us at once back to the sacrificial system. The trespass offering was distinguished from other offerings. The central idea of it seems to have been to represent sin or guilt as debt, and the sacrifice as making compensation. We must keep in view the variety of ideas embodied in His sacrifice, and how all correspond to realities in our wants and spiritual experience. Now there are three points here:

a. The representation that Christ's death is a sacrifice. Clearly connecting with whole Mosaic system--and that in the sense of a trespass offering. Christ seems to quote this verse in John 10:15, when He speaks of laying down His life, and when He declares that He came to give His life a ransom for many.' At any rate here is the great word, sacrifice, proclaimed for the first time in connection with Messiah. Here the prophet interprets the meaning of all the types and shadows of the law.

That sacrificial system bore witness to deep wants of men's souls, and prophesied of One in whom these were all met and satisfied.

b. His voluntary surrender.

He is sacrifice, but He is Priest also. His soul makes the offering, and His soul is the offering and offers itself in concurrence with the Divine Will. It is difficult and necessary to keep that double aspect in view, and never to think of Jesus as an unwilling Victim, nor of God as angry and needing to be appeased by blood.

c. The thought that the true meaning of His sufferings is only reached when we contemplate the effects that have flowed from them. The pleasure of the Lord in bruising Him is a mystery until we see how pleasure of the Lord prospers in the hand of the Crucified.

IV. The work of the Servant after death.

Surely this paradox, so baldly stated, is meant to be an enigma to startle and to rouse curiosity. This dead Servant is to see of the travail of His soul, and to prolong His days. All the interpretations of this chapter which refuse to see Jesus in it shiver on this rock. What a contrast there is between platitudes about the spirit of the nation rising transformed from its grave of captivity (which was only very partially the case), and the historical fulfilment in Jesus Christ! Here, at any rate, hundreds of years before His Resurrection, is a word that seems to point to such a fact, and to me it appears that all fair interpretation is on the side of the Messianic reference.

Note the singularity of special points.

a. Having died, the Servant sees His offspring.

The sacrifice of Christ is the great power which draws men to Him, and moves to repentance, faith, love. His death was the communication of life. Nowhere else in the world's history is the teacher's death the beginning of His gathering of pupils, and not only has the dead Servant children, but He sees them. That representation is expressive of the mutual intercourse, strange and deep, whereby we feel that He is truly with us, Jesus Christ, whom having not seen we love.'

b. Having died, the Servant prolongs His days.

He lives a continuous life, without an end, for ever. The best commentary is the word which John heard, as he felt the hand of the Christ laid on his prostrate form: I became dead, and lo, I am alive for evermore.'

c. Having died, the Servant carries into effect the divine purposes.

Prosper' implies progressive advancement. Christ's Sacrifice carried out the divine pleasure, and by His Sacrifice the divine pleasure is further carried out.

If Christ is the means of carrying out the divine purpose, consider what this implies of divinity in His nature, of correspondence between His will and the divine.

But Jesus not only carries into effect the divine purpose as a consequence of a past act, but by His present energy this dead man is a living power in the world today. Is He not?

The sole explanation of the vitality of Christianity, and the sole reason which makes its message a gospel to any soul, is Christ's death for the world and present life in the world.

The Suffering Servant--V

He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied: by His knowledge shall My righteous servant justify many; and He shall bear their iniquities.'--Isaiah 53:11.

THESE are all but the closing words of this great prophecy, and are the fitting crown of all that has gone before. We have been listening to the voice of a member of the race to whom the Servant of the Lord belonged, whether we limit that to the Jewish people or include in it all humanity. That voice has been confessing for the speaker and his brethren their common misapprehensions of the Servant, their blindness to the meaning of His sufferings and the mystery of His death. It has been proclaiming the true significance of these as now he had learned them, and has in Isaiah 53:10 touched the mystery of the reward and triumph of the Servant.

That note of His glory and coronation is caught up in the two closing verses, which, in substance, are the continuation of the idea of verse

The Suffering Servant--VI

Therefore will I divide Him a portion with the great, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong; because He hath poured out His soul unto death: and was numbered with the transgressors; and He bare the sins of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.'--Isaiah 53:12.

THE first clause of this verse is somewhat difficult. There are two ways of understanding it. One is that adopted in A. V., according to which the suffering Servant is represented as equal to the greatest conquerors. He is to be as gloriously successful in His victory as they have been in theirs. But there are two very strong objections to this rendering--first, that it takes the many in the sense of mighty, thus obscuring the identity of the expression hero and in the previous verso and in the end of this verse; and secondly, that it gives a very feeble and frigid ending to the prophecy. It does not seem a worthy close simply to say that the Servant is to be like a Cyrus or a Nebuchadnezzar in His conquests.

The other rendering, though there are some difficulties, is to be preferred. According to it the many and the strong' are themselves the prey or spoil. The words might be read, I will apportion to Him the many, and He shall apportion to Himself the strong ones.

This retains the same meaning of many' for the same expression throughout the context, and is a worthy ending to the prophecy. The force of the clause is then to represent the suffering Servant as a conqueror, leading back from His conquests a long train of captives, a rich booty.

I. Notice some points about this closing metaphor.

Mark its singular contrast to the tone of the rest of the prophecy. Note the lowliness, the suffering, the minor key of it all, and then, all at once, the leap up to rapture and triumph. The special form of the metaphor strikes one as singular. Nothing in the preceding context even remotely suggests it. Even the previous clause about making the many righteous' does not do much to prepare the way for it. Whatever be our explanation of the words, it must be one that does full justice to this metaphor, and presents some conquering power or person, whose victories are brilliant and real enough to be worthy to stand at the close of such a prophecy. We must keep in mind, too, what has been remarked on the two previous verses that this victorious campaign and growing conquest is achieved after the Servant is dead. That is a paradox. And note that the strength of language representing His activity can scarcely be reconciled with the idea that it is only the post-mortem influence of His life which is meant.

Note, too, the singular blending of God's power and the Servant's own activity in the winning of this extended sovereignty. Side by side the two are put. The same verb is used in order to emphasise the intended parallel. I will divide,' He shall divide.' I will give Him--He shall conquer for Himself. Remember the intense vehemence with which the Old Testament guards the absolute supremacy of divine power, and how strongly it always puts the thought that God is everything and man nothing. Look at the contrast of the tone when a human conqueror, whose conquests are the result of God's providence, is addressed (Isaiah 45:1-3). There is an entire suppression of his personality, not a word about his bravery, his military genius, or anything in him. It is all I, I, I. Remember how, in Isaiah 10., one of the sins for which the Assyrian is to be destroyed is precisely that he thought of his victories as due to his own strength and wisdom. So he is indignantly reminded that he is only a staff in Mine hand,' the axe with which God hewed the nations, whereas here the voice of God Himself speaks, and gives a strange place beside Himself to the will and power of this Conqueror. This feature of the prophecy should be accounted for in any satisfactory interpretation.

Note, too, the wide sweep of the Servant's dominion, which carries us back to the beginning of this prophecy in Isaiah 52:15, where we hear of the Servant as sprinkling' (or startling ) many nations, and the kings is parallel with the strong in this verse. No bounds are assigned to the Servant's conquests, which are, if not declared to be universal, at least indefinitely extended and striding on to world-wide empire.

These points are plainly here. I do not dilate upon them. But I ask whether any of the interpretations of these words, except one, gives adequate force to them? Is there anything in the history of the restored exiles which corresponds to this picture? Even if you admit the violent hypothesis that there was a better part of the nation, so good that the national sorrows had no chastisement for them, and the other violent hypothesis that the devoutest among the exiles suffered most, and the other that the death and burial and resurrection of the Servant only mean the reformation wrought on Israel by captivity. What is there in the history of Israel which can be pointed at as the conquest of the world? Was the nation that bore the yokes of a Ptolemy, an Antiochus, a Herod, a Caesar, the fulfiller of this dream of world-conquest? There is only one thing which can be called the Jew conquering the world. It is that which, as I believe, is meant here, viz. Christ's conquest. Apart from that, I know of nothing which would not be ludicrously disproportionate if it were alleged as fulfilment of this glowing prophecy.

This prophetic picture is at least four hundred years before Christ, by the admission of those who bring it lowest down, in their eagerness to get rid of prophecy. The life of Christ does correspond to it, in such a way that, clause by clause, it reads as if it were quite as much a history of Jesus as a prophecy of the Servant. This certainly is an extraordinary coincidence if it be not a prophecy. And there is really no argument against the Messianic interpretation, except dogmatic prejudice--there cannot be prophecy.'

No straining is needed in order to fit this great prophetic picture of the world-Conqueror to Jesus. Even that, at first sight incongruous, picture of a victor leading long lines of captives, such as we see on Assyrian slabs and Egyptian paintings, is historically true of Him who leads captivity captive,' and is, through the ages, winning ever fresh victories, and leading His enemies, turned into lovers, in His triumphal progress. He, and He only, really owns men. His slaves have made real self-surrenders to Him. Other conquerors may imprison or load with irons or deport to other lands, but they are only lords of bodies. Jesus' chains are silken, and bind hearts that are proud of their bonds. He carries off His free prisoners from the power of darkness' into His kingdom of light. His slaves rejoice to say, I am not my own,' and he only truly possesses himself who has given himself away to the Conquering Christ. For all these centuries He has been conquering hearts, enthralling and thereby liberating wills, making Himself the life of lives. There is nothing else the least like the bond between Jesus and millions who never saw him. Who among all the leaders of thought or religious teachers has been able to impress his personality on others and to dominate them in the fashion that Jesus has done and is doing to-day? How has He done this thing, which no other man has been able in the least to do? What is His charm, the secret of His power? The prophet has no doubt what it is, and unfolds it to us with a significant For.' We turn, then, to the prophetic explanation of that worldwide empire and note--

II. The foundation of the Servant's dominion.

That explanation is given in four clauses which fall into two pairs. They remarkably revert to the thought of the Servant's sufferings, but in how different a tone these are now spoken of, when they are no longer regarded as the results of man's blind failure to see His beauty, or as inflicted by the mysterious pleasure of Jehovah,' but as the causes of His triumph! Echoes of both the two first clauses are heard from the lips of Jesus. As He passed beneath the tremulous shadow of the olives of Gethsemane, He appealed for the companionship of the three, by an all but solitary revelation of His weakness and sorrow, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death; abide ye here and watch with Me.' And even more distinctly did He lay His hand on this prophecy when He ended all His words in the upper room with This which is written must be fulfilled in Me, And He was reckoned with "transgressors." May we not claim Jesus as endorsing the Messianic interpretation of this prophecy'? He gazed on the portrait painted ages before that night of sorrow, and saw in it His own likeness, and said, That is meant for Me. Some of us feel that, kenosis or no kenosis, He is the best judge of who is the original of the prophet's portrait.

The two final clauses are separated from the preceding by the emphatic introduction of the pronominal nominative, and cohere closely as gathering up for the last time all the description of the Servant, and as laying broad and firm the basis of His dominion, in the two great facts which sum up His office and between them stretch over the past and the future. He bare the sin of many, and maketh intercession for the transgressors.' The former of these two clauses brings up the pathetic picture of the scapegoat who bore upon him all their iniquities into a solitary land.' The Servant conquers hearts because He bears upon Him the grim burden which a mightier hand than Aaron's has made to meet on His head, and because He bears it away. The ancient ceremony, and the prophet's transference of the words describing it to his picture of the Servant who was to be King, floated before John the Baptist, when he pointed his brown, thin finger at Jesus and cried: Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.' The goat had borne the sins of one nation; the prophet had extended the Servant's ministry indefinitely, so as to include unnumbered many'; John spoke the universal word, the world.' So the circles widened.

But it is not enough to bear away sins. We need continuous help in the present. Our daily struggles, our ever-felt weakness, all the ills that flesh is heir to, cry aloud for a mightier than we to be at our sides. So on the Servant's bearing the sins of the many there follows a continuous act of priestly intercession, in which, not merely by prayer, but by meritorious and prevailing intervention, He makes His own the cause of the many whose sins He has borne.

On these two acts His dominion rests. Sacrifice and Intercession are the foundations of His throne.

The empire of men's hearts falls to Him because of what He has done and is doing for them. He who is to possess us absolutely must give Himself to us utterly.

The empire falls to Him who supplies men's deepest need. He who can take away men's sins rules. He who can effectually undertake men's cause will be their King.

If Jesus is or does anything less or else, He will not rule men for ever. If He is but a Teacher and a Guide, oblivion, which shrouds all, will sooner or later wrap Him in its misty folds. That His name should so long have resisted its influence is due altogether to men having believed Him to be something else. He will exercise an everlasting dominion only if He have brought in an everlasting righteousness. He will sit King for ever, if and only if He is a priest for ever. All other rule is transient.

A remarkable characteristic of this entire prophecy is the frequent repetition of expressions conveying the idea of sufferings borne for others. In one form or another that thought occurs, as we reckon, eleven times, and it is especially frequent in the last verses of the chapter. Why this perpetual harking back to that one aspect? It is to be further noticed that throughout there is no hint of any other kind of work which this Servant had to do. He fulfils His service to God and man by being bruised for men's iniquities. He came not to be ministered unto but to minister, and the chief form of His ministry was that He gave His life a ransom for the many. He came not to preach a gospel, but to die that there might be a gospel to preach. The Cross is the centre of His work, and by it He becomes the Centre of the world.

Look once more at the sorrowful, august figure that rose before the prophet's eye--with its strange blending of sinlessness and sorrow, God's approval and God's chastisement, rejection and rule, death and life, abject humiliation and absolute dominion. Listen to the last echoes of the prophet's voice as it dies on our ear--He bore the sins of the many.' And then hearken how eight hundred years after another voice takes up the echoes--but instead of pointing away down the centuries, points to One at his side, and cries, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.' Look at that life, that death, that grave, that resurrection, that growing dominion, that inexhaustible inter-cession--and say, Of whom speaketh the prophet this?

May we all be able to answer with clear confidence, These things saith Esaias when he saw His glory and spake of Him.' May we all take up the ancient confession: Surely He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows … He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed.'

No where in all the Old Testament is it so plainly and fully prophesied, that Christ ought to suffer, and then to enter into his glory, as in this chapter. But to this day few discern, or will acknowledge, that Divine power which goes with the word. The authentic and most important report of salvation for sinners, through the Son of God, is disregarded. The low condition he submitted to, and his appearance in the world, were not agreeable to the ideas the Jews had formed of the Messiah. It was expected that he should come in pomp; instead of that, he grew up as a plant, silently, and insensibly. He had nothing of the glory which one might have thought to meet with him. His whole life was not only humble as to outward condition, but also sorrowful. Being made sin for us, he underwent the sentence sin had exposed us to. Carnal hearts see nothing in the Lord Jesus to desire an interest in him. Alas! by how many is he still despised in his people, and rejected as to his doctrine and authority!

In these verses is an account of the sufferings of Christ; also of the design of his sufferings. It was for our sins, and in our stead, that our Lord Jesus suffered. We have all sinned, and have come short of the glory of God. Sinners have their beloved sin, their own evil way, of which they are fond. Our sins deserve all griefs and sorrows, even the most severe. We are saved from the ruin, to which by sin we become liable, by laying our sins on Christ. This atonement was to be made for our sins. And this is the only way of salvation. Our sins were the thorns in Christ's head, the nails in his hands and feet, the spear in his side. He was delivered to death for our offences. By his sufferings he purchased for us the Spirit and grace of God, to mortify our corruptions, which are the distempers of our souls. We may well endure our lighter sufferings, if He has taught us to esteem all things but loss for him, and to love him who has first loved us.

Come, and see how Christ loved us! We could not put him in our stead, but he put himself. Thus he took away the sin of the world, by taking it on himself. He made himself subject to death, which to us is the wages of sin. Observe the graces and glories of his state of exaltation. Christ will not commit the care of his family to any other. God's purposes shall take effect. And whatever is undertaken according to God's pleasure shall prosper. He shall see it accomplished in the conversion and salvation of sinners. There are many whom Christ justifies, even as many as he gave his life a ransom for. By faith we are justified; thus God is most glorified, free grace most advanced, self most abased, and our happiness secured. We must know him, and believe in him, as one that bore our sins, and saved us from sinking under the load, by taking it upon himself. Sin and Satan, death and hell, the world and the flesh, are the strong foes he has vanquished. What God designed for the Redeemer he shall certainly possess. When he led captivity captive, he received gifts for men, that he might give gifts to men. While we survey the sufferings of the Son of God, let us remember our long catalogue of transgressions, and consider him as suffering under the load of our guilt. Here is laid a firm foundation for the trembling sinner to rest his soul upon. We are the purchase of his blood, and the monuments of his grace; for this he continually pleads and prevails, destroying the works of the devil.

The prophet, in the close of the former chapter, had foreseen and foretold the kind reception which the gospel of Christ should find among the Gentiles, that nations and their kings should bid it welcome, that those who had not seen him should believe in him; and though they had not any prophecies among them of gospel grace, which might raise their expectations, and dispose them to entertain it, yet upon the first notice of it they should give it its due weight and consideration. Now here he foretels, with wonder, the unbelief of the Jews, notwithstanding the previous notices they had of the coming of the Messiah in the Old Testament and the opportunity they had of being personally acquainted with him. Observe here,

I. The contempt they put upon the gospel of Christ, Isa 53:1. The unbelief of the Jews in our Saviour's time is expressly said to be the fulfilling of this word, Joh 12:38. And it is applied likewise to the little success which the apostles' preaching met with among Jews and Gentiles, Rom 10:16. Note, 1. Of the many that hear the report of the gospel there are few, very few, that believe it. It is reported openly and publicly, not whispered in a corner, or confined to the schools, but proclaimed to all; and it is so faithful a saying, and so well worthy of all acceptation, that one would think it should be universally received and believed. But it is quite otherwise; few believed the prophets who spoke before of Christ; when he came himself none of the rulers nor of the Pharisees followed him, and but here and there one of the common people; and, when the apostles carried this report all the world over, some in every place believed, but comparatively very few. To this day, of the many that profess to believe this report, there are few that cordially embrace it and submit to the power of it. 2. Therefore people believe not the report of the gospel, because the arm of the Lord is not revealed to them; they do not discern, nor will be brought to acknowledge, that divine power which goes along with the word. The arm of the Lord is made bare (as was said, Isa 52:10) in the miracles that were wrought to confirm Christ's doctrine, in the wonderful success of it, and its energy upon the conscience; though it is a still voice, it is a strong one; but they do not perceive this, nor do they experience in themselves that working of the Spirit which makes the word effectual. They believe not the gospel because, by rebelling against the light they had, they had forfeited the grace of God, which therefore he justly denied them and withheld from them, and for want of that they believed not. 3. This is a thing we ought to be much affected with; it is to be wondered at, and greatly lamented, and ministers may go to God and complain of it to him, as the prophet here. What a pity is it that such rich grace should be received in vain, that precious souls should perish at the pool's side, because they will not step in and be healed!

II. The contempt they put upon the person of Christ because of the meanness of his appearance, Isa 53:2, Isa 53:3. This seems to come in as a reason why they rejected his doctrine, because they were prejudiced against his person. When he was on earth many that heard him preach, and could not but approve of what they heard, would not give it any regard or entertainment, because it came from one that made so small a figure and had no external advantages to recommend him. Observe here,

1. The low condition he submitted to, and how he abased and emptied himself. The entry he made into the world, and the character he wore in it, were no way agreeable to the ideas which the Jews had formed of the Messiah and their expectations concerning him, but quite the reverse. (1.) It was expected that his extraction would be very great and noble. He was to be the Son of David, of a family that had a name like to the names of the great men that were in the earth, 2Sa 7:9. But he sprang out of this royal and illustrious family when it was reduced and sunk, and Joseph, that son of David, who was his supposed father, was but a poor carpenter, perhaps a ship-carpenter, for most of his relations were fishermen. This is here meant by his being a root out of a dry ground, his being born of a mean and despicable family, in the north, in Galilee, of a family out of which, like a dry and desert ground, nothing green, nothing great, was expected, in a country of such small repute that it was thought no good thing could come out of it. His mother, being a virgin, was as dry ground, yet from her he sprang who is not only fruit, but root. The seed on the stony ground had no root; but, though Christ grew out of a dry ground, he is both the root and the offspring of David, the root of the good olive. (2.) It was expected that he should make a public entry, and come in pomp and with observation; but, instead of that, he grew up before God, not before men. God had his eye upon him, but men regarded him not: He grew up as a tender plant, silently and insensibly, and without any noise, as the corn, that tender plant, grows up, we know not how, Mar 4:27. Christ rose as a tender plant, which, one would have thought, might easily be crushed, or might be nipped in one frosty night. The gospel of Christ, in its beginning, was as a grain of mustard-seed, so inconsiderable did it seem, Mat 13:31, Mat 13:32. (3.) It was expected that he should have some uncommon beauty in his face and person, which should charm the eye, attract the heart, and raise the expectations of all that saw him. But there was nothing of this kind in him; not that he was in the least deformed or misshapen, but he had no form nor comeliness, nothing extraordinary, which one might have thought to meet with in the countenance of an incarnate deity. Those who saw him could not see that there was any beauty in him that they should desire him, nothing in him more than in another beloved, Son 5:9. Moses, when he was born, was exceedingly fair, to such a degree that it was looked upon as a happy presage, Act 7:20; Heb 11:23. David, when he was anointed, was of a beautiful countenance, and goodly to look to, 1Sa 16:12. But our Lord Jesus had nothing of that to recommend him. Or it may refer not so much to his person as to the manner of his appearing in the world, which had nothing in it of sensible glory. His gospel is preached, not with the enticing words of man's wisdom, but with all plainness, agreeable to the subject. (4.) It was expected that he should live a pleasant life, and have a full enjoyment of all the delights of the sons and daughters of men, which would have invited all sorts to him; but, on the contrary, he was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. It was not only his last scene that was tragical, but his whole life was so, not only mean, but miserable,

- but one continued chain

Of labour, sorrow, and consuming pain.

- Sir R. Blackmore

Thus, being made sin for us, he underwent the sentence sin had subjected us to, that we should eat in sorrow all the days of our life (Gen 3:17), and thereby relaxed much of the rigour and extremity of the sentence as to us. His condition was, upon many accounts, sorrowful. He was unsettled, had not where to lay his head, lived upon alms, was opposed and menaced, and endured the contradiction of sinners against himself. His spirit was tender, and he admitted the impressions of sorrow. We never read that he laughed, but often that he wept. Lentulus, in his epistle to the Roman senate concerning Jesus, says, " he was never seen to laugh; "and so worn and macerated was he with continual grief that when he was but a little above thirty years of age he was taken to be nearly fifty, Joh 8:57. Grief was his intimate acquaintance; for he acquainted himself with the grievances of others, and sympathized with them, and he never set his own at a distance; for in his transfiguration he talked of his own decease, and in his triumph he wept over Jerusalem. Let us look unto him and mourn.

2. The low opinion that men had of him, upon this account. Being generally apt to judge of persons and things by the sight of the eye, and according to outward appearance, they saw no beauty in him that they should desire him. There was a great deal of true beauty in him, the beauty of holiness and the beauty of goodness, enough to render him the desire of all nations; but the far greater part of those among whom he lived, and conversed, saw none of this beauty, for it was spiritually discerned. Carnal hearts see no excellency in the Lord Jesus, nothing that should induce them to desire an acquaintance with him or interest in him. Nay, he is not only not desired, but he is despised and rejected, abandoned and abhorred, a reproach of men, an abject, one that men were shy of keeping company with and had not any esteem for, a worm and no man. He was despised as a mean man, rejected as a bad man. He was the stone which the builders refused; they would not have him to reign over them. Men, who should have had so much reason as to understand things better, so much tenderness as not to trample upon a man in misery - men whom he came to seek and save rejected him: " We hid as it were our faces from him, looked another way, and his sufferings were as nothing to us; though never sorrow was like unto his sorrow. Nay, we not only behaved as having no concern for him, but as loathing him, and having him in detestation."It may be read, He hid as it were his face from us, concealed the glory of his majesty, and drew a veil over it, and therefore he was despised and we esteemed him not, because we could not see through that veil. Christ having undertaken to make satisfaction to the justice of God for the injury man had done him in his honour by sin (and God cannot be injured except in his honour), he did it not only by divesting himself of the glories due to an incarnate deity, but by submitting himself to the disgraces due to the worst of men and malefactors; and thus by vilifying himself he glorified his Father: but this is a good reason why we should esteem him highly, and study to do him honour; let him be received by us whom men rejected.

In these verses we have,

I. A further account of the sufferings of Christ. Much was said before, but more is said here, of the very low condition to which he abased and humbled himself, to which he became obedient even to the death of the cross. 1. He had griefs and sorrows; being acquainted with them, he kept up the acquaintance, and did not grow shy, no, not of such melancholy acquaintance. Were griefs and sorrows allotted him? He bore them, and blamed not his lot; he carried them, and did neither shrink from them, nor sink under them. The load was heavy and the way long, and yet he did not tire, but persevered to the end, till he said, It is finished. 2. He had blows and bruises; he was stricken, smitten, and afflicted. His sorrows bruised him; he felt pain and smart from them; they touched him in the most tender part, especially when God was dishonoured, and when he forsook him upon the cross. All along he was smitten with the tongue, when he was cavilled at and contradicted, put under the worst of characters, and had all manner of evil said against him. At last he was smitten with the hand, with blow after blow. 3. He had wounds and stripes. He was scourged, not under the merciful restriction of the Jewish law, which allowed not above forty stripes to be given to the worst of male factors, but according to the usage of the Romans. And his scourging, doubtless, was the more severe because Pilate intended it as an equivalent for his crucifixion, and yet it proved a preface to it. He was wounded in his hands, and feet, and side. Though it was so ordered that not a bone of him should be broken, yet he had scarcely in any part a whole skin (how fond soever we are to sleep in one, even when we are called out to suffer for him), but from the crown of his head, which was crowned with thorns, to the soles of his feet, which were nailed to the cross, nothing appeared but wounds and bruises. 4. He was wronged and abused (Isa 53:7): He was oppressed, injuriously treated and hardly dealt with. That was laid to his charge which he was perfectly innocent of, that laid upon him which he did not deserve, and in both he was oppressed and injured. He was afflicted both in mind and body; being oppressed, he laid it to heart, and, though, he was patient, was not stupid under it, but mingled his tears with those of the oppressed, that have no comforter, because on the side of the oppressors there is power, Ecc 4:1. Oppression is a sore affliction; it has made many a wise man mad (Ecc 7:7); but our Lord Jesus, though, when he was oppressed, he was afflicted, kept possession of his own soul. 5. he was judged and imprisoned, as is implied in his being taken from prison and judgment, Isa 53:8. God having made him sin for us, he was proceeded against as a malefactor; he was apprehended and taken into custody, and made a prisoner; he was judge, accused, tried, and condemned, according to the usual forms of law: God filed a process against him, judged him in pursuance of that process, and confined him in the prison of the grave, at the door of which a stone was rolled and sealed. 6. He was cut off by an untimely death from the land of the living, though he lived a most useful life, did so many good works, and they were all such that one would be apt to think it was for some of them that they stoned him. He was stricken to death, to the grave which he made with the wicked (for he was crucified between two thieves, as if he had been the worst of the three) and yet with the rich, for he was buried in a sepulchre that belonged to Joseph, an honourable counsellor. Though he died with the wicked, and according to the common course of dealing with criminals should have been buried with them in the place where he was crucified, yet God here foretold, and Providence so ordered it, that he should make his grave with the innocent, with the rich, as a mark of distinction put between him and those that really deserved to die, even in his sufferings.

II. A full account of the meaning of his sufferings. It was a very great mystery that so excellent a person should suffer such hard things; and it is natural to ask with amazement, "How came it about? What evil had he done?"His enemies indeed looked upon him as suffering justly for his crimes; and, though they could lay nothing to his charge, they esteemed him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted, Isa 53:4. Because they hated him, and persecuted him, they thought that God did, that he was his enemy and fought against him; and therefore they were the more enraged against him, saying, God has forsaken him; persecute and take him, Psa 71:11. Those that are justly smitten are smitten of God, for by him princes decree justice; and so they looked upon him to be smitten, justly put to death as a blasphemer, a deceiver, and an enemy to Caesar. Those that saw him hanging on the cross enquired not into the merits of his cause, but took it for granted that he was guilty of every thing laid to his charge and that therefore vengeance suffered him not to live. Thus Job's friends esteemed him smitten of God, because there was something uncommon in his sufferings. It is true he was smitten of God, Isa 53:10 (or, as some read it, he was God's smitten and afflicted, the Son of God, though smitten and afflicted), but not in the sense in which they meant it; for, though he suffered all these things,

1. He never did any thing in the least to deserve this hard usage. Whereas he was charged with perverting the nation, and sowing sedition, it was utterly false; he had done no violence, but went about doing good. And, whereas he was called that deceiver, he never deserved that character; for there was no deceit in his mouth (Isa 53:9), to which the apostle refers, 1Pe 2:22. He did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth. He never offended either in word or deed, nor could any of his enemies take up that challenge of his, Which of you convinceth me of sin? The judge that condemned owned he found no fault in him, and the centurion that executed him professed that certainly he was a righteous man.

2. He conducted himself under his sufferings so as to make it appear that he did not suffer as an evil-doer; for, though he was oppressed and afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth (Isa 53:7), no, not so much as to plead his own innocency, but freely offered himself to suffer and die for us, and objected nothing against it. This takes away the scandal of the cross, that he voluntarily submitted to it, for great and holy ends. By his wisdom he could have evaded the sentence, and by his power have resisted the execution; but thus it was written, and thus it behoved him to suffer. This commandment he received from his Father, and therefore he was led as a lamb to the slaughter, without any difficulty or reluctance (he is the Lamb of God ); and as a sheep is dumb before the shearers, nay, before the butchers, so he opened not his mouth, which denotes not only his exemplary patience under affliction (Psa 39:9), and his meekness under reproach (Psa 38:13), but his cheerful compliance with his Father's will. Not my will, but thine be done. Lo, I come. By this will we are sanctified, his making his own soul, his own life, an offering for our sin.

3. It was for our good, and in our stead, that Jesus Christ suffered. This is asserted here plainly and fully, and in a very great variety of emphatical expressions.

(1.) It is certain that we are all guilty before God. We have all sinned, and have come short of the glory of God (Isa 53:6): All we like sheep have gone astray, one as well as another. The whole race of mankind lies under the stain of original corruption, and every particular person stands charged with many actual transgressions. We have all gone astray from God our rightful owner, alienated ourselves from him, from the ends he designed us to move towards and the way he appointed us to move in. We have gone astray like sheep, which are apt to wander, and are unapt, when they have gone astray, to find the way home again. That is our true character; we are bent to backslide from God, but altogether unable of ourselves to return to him. This is mentioned not only as our infelicity (that we go astray from the green pastures and expose ourselves to the beasts of prey), but as our iniquity. We affront God in going astray from him, for we turn aside every one to his own way, and thereby set up ourselves, and our own will, in competition with God and his will, which is the malignity of sin. Instead of walking obediently in God's way, we have turned wilfully and stubbornly to our own way, the way of our own heart, the way that our own corrupt appetites and passions lead us to. We have set up for ourselves, to be our own masters, our own carvers, to do what we will and have what we will. Some think it intimates our own evil way, in distinction from the evil way of others. Sinners have their own iniquity, their beloved sin, which does most easily beset them, their own evil way, that they are particularly fond of and bless themselves in.

(2.) Our sins are our sorrows and our griefs (Isa 53:4), or, as it may be read, our sicknesses and our wounds: the Septuagint reads it, our sins; and so the apostle, 1Pe 2:24. Our original corruptions are the sickness and disease of the soul, an habitual indisposition; our actual transgressions are the wounds of the soul, which put conscience to pain, if it be not seared and senseless. Or our sins are called our griefs and sorrows because all our griefs and sorrows are owing to our sins and our sins deserve all our griefs and sorrows, even those that are most extreme and everlasting.

(3.) Our Lord Jesus was appointed and did undertake to make satisfaction for our sins and so to save us from the penal consequences of them. [1.] He was appointed to do it, by the will of his Father; for the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. God chose him to be the Saviour of poor sinners and would have him to save them in this way, by bearing their sins and the punishment of them; not the idem - the same that we should have suffered, but the tantundem - that which was more than equivalent for the maintaining of the honour of the holiness and justice of God in the government of the world. Observe here, First, In what way we are saved from the ruin to which by sin we had become liable - by laying our sins on Christ, as the sins of the offerer were laid upon the sacrifice and those of all Israel upon the head of the scape-goat. Our sins were made to meet upon him (so the margin reads it); the sins of all that he was to save, from every place and every age, met upon him, and he was met with for them. They were made to fall upon him (so some read it) as those rushed upon him that came with swords and staves to take him. The laying of our sins upon Christ implies the taking of them off from us; we shall not fall under the curse of the law if we submit to the grace of the gospel. They were laid upon Christ when he was made sin (that is, a sin-offering) for us, and redeemed us from the curse of the law by being made a curse for us; thus he put himself into a capacity to make those easy that come to him heavily laden under the burden of sin. See Psa 40:6-12. Secondly, By whom this was appointed. It was the Lord that laid our iniquities on Christ; he contrived this way of reconciliation and salvation, and he accepted of the vicarious satisfaction Christ was to make. Christ was delivered to death by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God. None but God had power to lay our sins upon Christ, both because the sin was committed against him and to him the satisfaction was to be made, and because Christ, on whom the iniquity was to be laid, was his own Son, the Son of his love, and his holy child Jesus, who himself knew no sin. Thirdly, For whom this atonement was to be made. It was the iniquity of us all that was laid on Christ; for in Christ there is a sufficiency of merit for the salvation of all, and a serious offer made of that salvation to all, which excludes none that do not exclude themselves. It intimates that this is the one only way of salvation. All that are justified are justified by having their sins laid on Jesus Christ, and, though they were ever so many, he is able to bear the weight of them all. [2.] He undertook to do it. God laid upon him our iniquity; but did he consent to it? Yes, he did; for some think that the true reading of the next words (Isa 53:7) is, It was exacted, and he answered; divine justice demanded satisfaction for our sins, and he engaged to make the satisfaction. He became our surety, not as originally bound with us, but as bail to the action: "Upon me be the curse, my Father."And therefore, when he was seized, he stipulated with those into whose hands he surrendered himself that that should be his disciples' discharge: If you seek me, let these go their way, Joh 18:8. By his own voluntary undertaking he made himself responsible for our debt, and it is well for us that he was responsible. Thus he restored that which he took not away.

(4.) Having undertaken our debt, he underwent the penalty. Solomon says: He that is surety for a stranger shall smart for it. Christ, being surety for us, did smart for it. [1.] He bore our griefs and carried our sorrows, Isa 53:4. He not only submitted to the common infirmities of human nature, and the common calamities of human life, which sin had introduced, but he underwent the extremities of grief, when he said, My soul is exceedingly sorrowful. He made the sorrows of this present time heavy to himself, that he might make them light and easy for us. Sin is the wormwood and the fall in the affliction and the misery. Christ bore our sins, and so bore our griefs, bore them off us, that we should never be pressed above measure. This is quoted (Mat 8:17) with application to the compassion Christ had for the sick that came to him to be cured and the power he put forth to cure them. [2.] He did this by suffering for our sins (Isa 53:5): He was wounded for our transgressions, to make atonement for them and to purchase for us the pardon of them. Our sins were the thorns in his head, the nails in his hands and feet, the spear in his side. Wounds and bruises were the consequences of sin, what we deserved and what we had brought upon ourselves, Isa 1:6. That these wounds and bruises, though they are painful, may not be mortal, Christ was wounded for our transgressions, was tormented or pained (the word is used for the pains of a woman in travail) for our revolts and rebellions. He was bruised, or crushed, for our iniquities; they were the procuring cause of his death. To the same purport is Isa 53:8, for the transgression of my people was he smitten, the stroke was upon him that should have been upon us; and so some read it, He was cut off for the iniquity of my people, unto whom the stroke belonged, or was due. He was delivered to death for our offences, Rom 4:25. Hence it is said to be according to the scriptures, according to this scripture, that Christ died for our sins, 1Co 15:3. Some read this, by the transgressions of my people; that is, by the wicked hands of the Jews, who were, in profession, God's people, he was stricken, was crucified and slain, Act 2:23. But, doubtless, we are to take it in the former sense, which is abundantly confirmed by the angel's prediction of the Messiah's undertaking, solemnly delivered to Daniel, that he shall finish transgression, make an end of sin, and make reconciliation for iniquity, Dan 9:24.

(5.) The consequence of this to us is our peace and healing, Isa 53:5. [1.] Hereby we have peace: The chastisement of our peace was upon him; he, by submitting to these chastisements, slew the enmity, and settled an amity, between God and man; he made peace by the blood of his cross. Whereas by sin we had become odious to God's holiness and obnoxious to his justice, through Christ God is reconciled to us, and not only forgives our sins and saves us from ruin, but takes us into friendship and fellowship with himself, and thereby peace (that is, all good) comes unto us, Col 1:20. He is our peace, Eph 2:14. Christ was in pain that we might be at ease; he gave satisfaction to the justice of God that we might have satisfaction in our own minds, might be of good cheer, knowing that through him our sins are forgiven us. [2.] Hereby we have healing; for by his stripes we are healed. Sin is not only a crime, for which we were condemned to die and which Christ purchased for us the pardon of, but it is a disease, which tends directly to the death of our souls and which Christ provided for the cure of. By his stripes (that is, the sufferings he underwent) he purchased for us the Spirit and grace of God to mortify our corruptions, which are the distempers of our souls, and to put our souls in a good state of health, that they may be fit to serve God and prepared to enjoy him. And by the doctrine of Christ's cross, and the powerful arguments it furnishes us with against sin, the dominion of sin is broken in us and we are fortified against that which feeds the disease.

(6.) The consequence of this to Christ was his resurrection and advancement to perpetual honour. This makes the offence of the cross perfectly to cease; he yielded himself to die as a sacrifice, as a lamb, and, to make it evident that the sacrifice he offered of himself was accepted, we are told here, Isa 53:8, [1.] That he was discharged: He was taken from prison and from judgment; whereas he was imprisoned in the grave under a judicial process, lay there under an arrest for our debt, and judgment seemed to be given against him, he was by an express order from heaven taken out of the prison of the grave, an angel was sent on purpose to roll away the stone and set him at liberty, by which the judgment given against him was reversed and taken off; this redounds not only to his honour, but to our comfort; for, being delivered for our offences, he was raised again for our justification. That discharge of the bail amounted to a release of the debt. [2.] That he was preferred: Who shall declare his generation? his age, or continuance (so the word signifies), the time of his life? He rose to die no more; death had no more dominion over him. He that was dead is alive, and lives for evermore; and who can describe that immortality to which he rose, or number the years and ages of it? And he is advanced to this eternal life because for the transgression of his people he became obedient to death. We may take it as denoting the time of his usefulness, as David is said to serve his generation, and so to answer the end of living. Who can declare how great a blessing Christ by his death and resurrection will be to the world? Some by his generation understand his spiritual seed: Who can count the vast numbers of converts that shall by the gospel be begotten to him, like the dew of the morning?

When thus exalted he shall live to see

A numberless believing progeny

Of his adopted sons; the godlike race

Exceed the stars that heav'n's high arches grace.

- Sir R. Blackmore

Of this generation of his let us pray, as Moses did for Israel, The Lord God of our fathers make them a thousand times so many more as they are, and bless them as he has promised them, Deu 1:11.

In the foregoing verses the prophet had testified very particularly of the sufferings of Christ, yet mixing some hints of the happy issue of them; here he again mentions his sufferings, but largely foretels the glory that should follow. We may observe, in these verses,

I. The services and sufferings of Christ's state of humiliation. Come, and see how he loved us, see what he did for us.

1. He submitted to the frowns of Heaven (Isa 53:10): Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him, to put him to pain, or torment, or grief. The scripture nowhere says that Christ is his sufferings underwent the wrath of God; but it says here, (1.) That the Lord bruised him, not only permitted men to bruise him, but awakened his own sword against him, Zec 13:7. They esteemed him smitten of God for some very great sin of his own (Isa 53:4); now it was true that he was smitten of God, but it was for our sin; the Lord bruised him, for he did not spare him, but delivered him up for us all, Rom 8:32. He it was that put the bitter cup into his hand, and obliged him to drink it (Joh 18:11), having laid upon him our iniquity. He it was that made him sin and a curse for us, and turned to ashes all his burnt-offering, in token of the acceptance of it, Psa 20:3. (2.) That he bruised him so as to put him to grief. Christ accommodated himself to this dispensation, and received the impressions of grief from his Father's delivering him up; and he was troubled to such a degree that it put him into an agony, and he began to be amazed and very heavy. (3.) It pleased the Lord to do this. He determined to do it; it was the result of an eternal counsel; and he delighted in it, as it was an effectual method for the salvation of man and the securing and advancing of the honour of God.

2. He substituted himself in the room of sinners, as a sacrifice. He made his soul an offering for sin; he himself explains this (Mat 20:28), that he came to give his life a ransom for many. When men brought bulls and goats as sacrifices for sin they made them offerings, for they had an interest in them, God having put them under the feet of man. But Christ made himself an offering; it was his own act and deed. We could not put him in our stead, but he put himself, and said, Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit, in a higher sense than David said, or could say it. "Father, I commit my soul to thee, I deposit it in thy hands, as the life of a sacrifice and the price of pardons."Thus he shall bear the iniquities of the many that he designed to justify (Isa 53:11), shall take away the sin of the world by taking it upon himself, Joh 1:29. This mentioned again (Isa 53:12): He bore the sin of many, who, if they had borne it themselves, would have been sunk by it to the lowest hell. See how this dwelt upon; for, whenever we think of the sufferings of Christ, we must see him in them bearing our sin.

3. He subjected himself to that which to us is the wages of sin (Isa 53:12): He has poured out his soul unto death, poured it out as water, so little account did he make of it, when the laying of it down was the appointed means of our redemption and salvation. He loved not his life unto the death, and his followers, the martyrs, did likewise, Rev 12:11. Or, rather, he poured it out as a drink-offering, to make his sacrifice complete, poured it out as wine, that his blood might be drink indeed, as his flesh is meat indeed to all believers. There was not only a colliquation of his body in his sufferings (Psa 22:14, I am poured out like water ), but a surrender of his spirit; he poured out that, even unto death, though he is the Lord of life.

4. He suffered himself to be ranked with sinners, and yet offered himself to be an intercessor for sinners, Isa 53:12. (1.) It was a great aggravation of his sufferings that he was numbered with transgressors, that he was not only condemned as a malefactor, but executed in company with two notorious malefactors, and he in the midst, as if he had been the worst of the three, in which circumstance of his suffering, the evangelist tells us, this prophecy was fulfilled, Mar 15:27, Mar 15:28. Nay, the vilest malefactor of all, Barabbas, who was a traitor, a thief, and a murderer, was put in election with him for the favour of the people, and carried it; for they would not have Jesus released, but Barabbas. In his whole life he was numbered among the transgressors; for he was called and accounted a sabbath-breaker, a drunkard, and a friend to publicans and sinners. (2.) It was a great commendation of his sufferings, and redounded very much to his honour, that in his sufferings he made intercession for the transgressors, for those that reviled and crucified him; for he prayed, Father, forgive them, thereby showing, not only that he forgave them, but that he was now doing that upon which their forgiveness, and the forgiveness of all other transgressors, were to be founded. That prayer was the language of his blood, crying, not for vengeance, but for mercy, and therein it speaks better things than that of Abel, even for those who with wicked hands shed it.

II. The grace and glories of his state of exaltation; and the graces he confers on us are not the least of the glories conferred on him. These are secured to him by the covenant of redemption, which these verses give us some idea of. He promises to make his soul an offering for sin, consents that the Father shall deliver him up, and undertakes to bear the sin of many, in consideration of which the Father promises to glorify him, not only with the glory he had, as God, before the world was (Joh 17:5), but with the glories of the Mediator.

1. He shall have the glory of an everlasting Father. Under this title he was brought into the world (Isa 9:6), and he shall not fail to answer the title when he goes out of the world. This was the promise made to Abraham (who herein was a type of Christ), that he should be the father of many nations and so be the heir of the world, Rom 4:13, Rom 4:17. As he was the root of the Jewish church, and the covenant was made with him and his seed, so is Christ of the universal church and with him and his spiritual seed is the covenant of grace made, which is grounded upon and grafted in the covenant of redemption, which here we have some of the glorious promises of. It is promised,

(1.) That the Redeemer shall have a seed to serve him and to bear up his name, Psa 22:30. True believers are the seed of Christ; the Father gave them to him to be so, Joh 17:6. He died to purchase and purify them to himself, fell to the ground as a corn of wheat, that he might bring forth much fruit, Joh 12:24. The word, that incorruptible see, of which they are born again, is his word; the Spirit, the great author of their regeneration, is his Spirit; and it is his image that is impressed upon them.

(2.) That he shall live to see his seed. Christ's children have a living Father, and because he lives they shall live also, for he is their life. Though he died, he rose again, and left not his children orphans, but took effectual care to secure to them the spirit, the blessing, and the inheritance of sons. He shall see a great increase of them; the word is plural, He shall see his seeds, multitudes of them, so many that they cannot be numbered.

(3.) That he shall himself continue to take care of the affairs of this numerous family: He shall prolong his days. Many, when they see their seed, their seed's seed, wish to depart in peace; but Christ will not commit the care of his family to any other, no, he shall himself live long, and of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, for he ever lives. Some refer it to believers: He shall see a seed that shall prolong its days, agreeing with Psa 89:29, Psa 89:36, His seed shall endure for ever. While the world stands Christ will have a church in it, which he himself will be the life of.

(4.) That his great undertaking shall be successful and shall answer expectation: The pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. God's purposes shall take effect, and not one iota or tittle of them shall fail. Note, [1.] The work of man's redemption is in the hands of the Lord Jesus, and it is in good hands. It is well for us that it is in his, for our own hands are not sufficient for us, but he is able to save to the uttermost. It is in his hands who upholds all things. [2.] It is the good pleasure of the Lord, which denotes not only his counsel concerning it, but his complacency in it; and therefore God loved him, and was well pleased in him, because he undertook to lay down his life for the sheep. [3.] It has prospered hitherto, and shall prosper, whatever obstructions or difficulties have been, or may be, in the way of it. Whatever is undertaken according to God's pleasure shall prosper, Isa 46:10. Cyrus, a type of Christ, shall perform all God's pleasure (Isa 44:28), and therefore, no doubt, Christ shall. Christ was so perfectly well qualified for his undertaking, and prosecuted it with so much vigour, and it was from first to last so well devised, that it could not fail to prosper, to the honour of his Father and the salvation of all his seed.

(5.) That he shall himself have abundant satisfaction in it (Isa 53:11): He shall see of the travail of his sous, and shall be satisfied. He shall see it beforehand (so it may be understood); he shall with the prospect of his sufferings have a prospect of the fruit, and he shall be satisfied with the bargain. He shall see it when it is accomplished in the conversion and salvation of poor sinners. Note, [1.] Our Lord Jesus was in travail of soul for our redemption and salvation, in great pain, but with longing desire to be delivered, and all the pains and throes he underwent were in order to it and hastened it on. [2.] Christ does and will see the blessed fruit of the travail of his soul in the founding and building up of his church and the eternal salvation of all that were given him. He will not come short of his end in any part of his work, but will himself see that he has not laboured in vain. [3.] The salvation of souls is a great satisfaction to the Lord Jesus. He will reckon all his pains well bestowed, and himself abundantly recompensed, if the many sons be by him brought through grace to glory. Let him have this, and he has enough. God will be glorified, penitent believers will be justified, and then Christ will be satisfied. Thus, in conformity to Christ, it should be a satisfaction to us if we can do any thing to serve the interests of God's kingdom in the world. Let it always be our meat and drink, as it was Christ's, to do God's will.

2. He shall have the glory of bringing in an everlasting righteousness; for so it was foretold concerning him, Dan 9:24. And here, to the same purport, By his knowledge (the knowledge of him, and faith in him) shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear the sins of many, and so lay a foundation for our justification from sin. Note, (1.) The great privilege that flows to us from the death of Christ is justification from sin, our being acquitted from that guilt which alone can ruin us, and accepted into God's favour, which alone can make us happy. (2.) Christ, who purchased our justification for us, applies it to us, by his intercession made for us, his gospel preached to us, and his Spirit witnessing in us. The Son of man had power even on earth to forgive sin. (3.) There are many whom Christ justifies, not all (multitudes perish in their sins), yet many, even as many as he gave his life a ransom for, as many as the Lord our God shall call. He shall justify not here and there one that is eminent and remarkable, but those of the many, the despised multitude. (4.) It is by faith that we are justified, by our consent to Christ and the covenant of grace; in this way we are saved, because thus God is most glorified, free grace most advanced, self most abased, and our happiness most effectually secured. (5.) Faith is the knowledge of Christ, and without knowledge there can be no true faith. Christ's way of gaining the will and affections is by enlightening the understanding and bringing that unfeignedly to assent to divine truths. (6.) That knowledge of Christ, and that faith in him, by which we are justified, have reference to him both as a servant to God and as a surety for us. [1.] As one that is employed for God to pursue his designs and secure and advance the interests of his glory. "He is my righteous servant, and as such justifies men."God has authorized and appointed him to do it; it is according to God's will and for his honour that he does it. He is himself righteous, and of his righteousness have all we received. He that is himself righteous (for he could not have made atonement for our sin if he had had any sin of his own to answer for) is made of God to us righteousness, the Lord our righteousness. [2.] As one that has undertaken for us. We must know him, and believe in him, as one that bore our iniquities - saved us from sinking under the load by taking it upon himself.

3. He shall have the glory of obtaining an incontestable victory and universal dominion, Isa 53:12. Because he has done all these good services, therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and, according to the will of the Father, he shall divide the spoil with the strong, as a great general, when he has driven the enemy out of the field, takes the plunder of it for himself and his army, which is both an unquestionable evidence of the victory and a recompense for all the toils and perils of the battle. Note, (1.) God the Father has engaged to reward the services and sufferings of Christ with great glory: "I will set him among the great, highly exalt him, and give him a name above every name."Great riches are also assigned to him: He shall divide the spoil, shall have abundance of graces and comforts to bestow upon all his faithful soldiers. (2.) Christ comes at his glory by conquest. He has set upon the strong man armed, dispossessed him, and divided the spoil. He has vanquished principalities and powers, sin and Satan, death and hell, the world and the flesh; these are the strong that he has disarmed and taken the spoil of. (3.) Much of the glory with which Christ is recompensed, and the spoil which he has divided, consists in the vast multitudes of willing, faithful, loyal subjects, that shall be brought in to him; for so some read it: I will give many to him, and he shall obtain many for a spoil. God will give him the heathen for his inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession, Psa 2:8. His dominion shall be from sea to sea. Many shall be wrought upon by the grace of God to give up themselves to him to be ruled, and taught, and saved by him, and hereby he shall reckon himself honoured, and enriched, and abundantly recompensed for all he did and all he suffered. (4.) What God designed for the Redeemer he shall certainly gain the possession of: "I will divide it to him,"and immediately it follows, He shall divide it, notwithstanding the opposition that is given to him; for, as Christ finished the work that was given him to do, so God completed the recompence that was promised him for it; for he is both able and faithful. (5.) The spoil which God divided to Christ he divides (it is the same word), he distributes, among his followers; for, when he led captivity captive, he received gifts for men, that he might give gifts to men; for as he has told us (Act 20:35) he did himself reckon it more blessed and honourable to give than to receive. Christ conquered for us, and through him we are more than conquerors. He has divided the spoils, the fruits of his conquest, to all that are his: let us therefore cast in our lot among them.

But, says the second turn in Isa 53:1-3, the man of sorrows was despised among us, and the prophecy as to his future was not believed. We hear the first lamentation (the question is, From whose mouth does it come?) in Isa 53:1 : "Who hath believed our preaching; and the arm of Jehovah, over whom has it been revealed?" "I was formerly mistaken,"says Hofmann ( Schriftbeweis , ii. 1, 159, 160), "as to the connection between Isa 53:1 and Isa 52:13-15, and thought that the Gentiles were the speakers in the former, simply because it was to them that the latter referred. But I see now that I was in error. It is affirmed of the heathen, that they have never heard before the things which they now see with their eyes. Consequently it cannot be they who exclaim, or in whose name the inquiry is made, Who hath believed our preaching?"Moreover, it cannot be they, both because the redemption itself and the exaltation of the Mediator of the redemption are made known to them from the midst of Israel as already accomplished facts, and also because according to Isa 52:15 (cf., Isa 49:7; Isa 42:4; Isa 51:5) they hear the things unheard of before, with amazement which passes into reverent awe, as the satisfaction of their own desires, in other words, with the glad obedience of faith. And we may also add, that the expression in Isa 53:8, "for the transgression of my people,"would be quite out of place in the mouths of Gentiles, and that, as a general rule, words attributed to Gentiles ought to be expressly introduced as theirs. Whenever we find a "we"introduced abruptly in the midst of a prophecy, it is always Israel that speaks, including the prophet himself (Isa 42:24; Isa 64:5; Isa 16:6; Isa 24:16, etc.). Hofmann therefore very properly rejects the view advocated by many, from Calvin down to Stier and Oehler, who suppose that it is the prophet himself who is speaking here in connection with the other heralds of salvation; "for,"as he says, "how does all the rest which is expressed in the 1st pers. plural tally with such a supposition?"If it is really Israel, which confesses in Isa 53:2. how blind it has been to the calling of the servant of Jehovah, which was formerly hidden in humiliation but is now manifested in glory; the mournful inquiry in Isa 53:1 must also proceed from the mouth of Israel. The references to this passage in Joh 12:37-38, and Rom 10:16, do not compel us to assign Isa 53:1 to the prophet and his comrades in office. It is Israel that speaks even in Isa 53:1. The nation, which acknowledges with penitence how shamefully it has mistaken its own Saviour, laments that it has put no faith in the tidings of the lofty and glorious calling of the servant of God. We need not assume, therefore, that there is any change of subject in Isa 53:2; and (what is still more decisive) it is necessary that we should not, if we would keep up any close connection between Isa 53:1 and Isa 52:15. The heathen receive with faith tidings of things which had never been heard of before; whereas Israel has to lament that it put no faith in the tidings which it had heard long, long before, not only with reference to the person and work of the servant of God, but with regard to his lowly origin and glorious end. שמוּעה (a noun after the form ישׁוּעה , שׁבוּעה , a different form from that of גּדלּה , which is derived from the adjective גדל ) signifies the hearsay ( ἀκοή ), i.e., the tidings, more especially the prophetic announcement in Isa 28:9; and שׁמעתנוּ , according to the primary subjective force of the suffix, is equivalent to שמענוּ אשר שמוּעה (cf., Jer 49:14), i.e., the hearsay which we have heard. There were some, indeed, who did not refuse to believe the tidings which Israel heard: ἀλλ ̓ οὖ πάντες ὑπήκουσαν τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ (Rom 10:16); the number of the believers was vanishingly small, when compared with the unbelieving mass of the nation. And it is the latter, or rather its remnant which had eventually come to its senses, that here inquires, Who hath believed our preaching, i.e., the preaching that was common among us? The substance of the preaching, which had not been believed, was the exaltation of the servant of God from a state of deep degradation. This is a work performed by the "arm of Jehovah,"namely, His holy arm that has been made bare, and that now effects the salvation of His people, and of the nations generally, according to His own counsel (Isa 52:10; Isa 51:5). This arm works down from on high, exalted far above all created things; men have it above them, and it is made manifest to those who recognise it in what is passing around them. Who, asks Israel, has had any faith in the coming exaltation of the servant of God? who has recognised the omnipotence of Jehovah, which has set itself to effect his exaltation? All that follows is the confession of the Israel of the last times, to which this question is the introduction. We must not overlook the fact that this golden "passional"is also one of the greatest prophecies of the future conversion of the nation, which has rejected the servant of God, and allowed the Gentiles to be the first to recognise him. At last, though very late, it will feel remorse. And when this shall once take place, then and not till then will this chapter - which, to use an old epithet, will ever be carnificina Rabbinorum - receive its complete historical fulfilment.

The confession, which follows, grows out of the great lamentation depicted by Zechariah in Zec 12:11. "And he sprang up like a layer-shoot before Him, and like a root-sprout out of dry ground: he had no form, and no beauty; and we looked, and there was no look, such that we could have found pleasure in him." Isa 53:2, as a sequel to Isa 53:1 , looks back to the past, and describes how the arm of Jehovah manifested itself in the servant's course of life from the very beginning, though imperceptibly at first, and unobserved by those who merely noticed the outside. The suffix of לפניו cannot refer to the subject of the interrogative sentence, as Hahn and Hofmann suppose, for the answer to the quis there is nemo ; it relates to Jehovah, by which it is immediately preceded. Before Jehovah, namely, so that He, whose counsel thus began to be fulfilled, fixed His eye upon him with watchfulness and protecting care, he grew up כּיּונק , like the suckling, i.e., (in a horticultural sense) the tender twig which sucks up its nourishment from the root and stem (not as Hitzig supposes, according to Eze 31:16, from the moisture in the soil); for the tender twig upon a tree, or trunk, or stalk, is called ינקת (for which we have יונק here): vid., Eze 17:22, the twig of a cedar; Psa 80:12 (11), of a vine; Job 8:16, of a liana . It is thought of here as a layer, as in Eze 17:22; and, indeed, as the second figure shows when taken in connection with Isa 11:1, as having been laid down after the proud cedar of the Davidic monarchy from which it sprang had been felled; for elsewhere it is compared to a shoot which springs from the root left in the ground after the tree has been felled. Both figures depict the lowly and unattractive character of the small though vigorous beginning. The expression "out of dry ground,"which belongs to both figures, brings out, in addition, the miserable character of the external circumstances in the midst of which the birth and growth of the servant had taken place. The "dry ground"is the existing state of the enslaved and degraded nation; i.e., he was subject to all the conditions inseparable from a nation that had been given up to the power of the world, and was not only enduring all the consequent misery, but was in utter ignorance as to its cause; in a word, the dry ground is the corrupt character of the age. In what follows, the majority of the commentators have departed from the accents, and adopted the rendering, "he had no form and no beauty, that we should look at Him"(should have looked at Him), viz., with fixed looks that loved to dwell upon Him. This rendering was adopted by Symmachus and Vitringa ( ἳνα εἴδωμεν αὐτόν ; ut ipsum respiceremus ). But Luther, Stier, and others, very properly adhere to the existing punctuation; since the other would lead us to expect בּו ונראה instead of ונראהוּ , and the close reciprocal relation of ולא־מראה ונראהוּ , which resembles a play upon the words, is entirely expunged. The meaning therefore is, "We saw Him, and there was nothing in His appearance to make us desire Him, or feel attracted by Him."The literal rendering of the Hebrew, with its lively method of transferring you into the precise situation, is ut concupisceremus eum ( delectaremur eo ); whereas, in our oriental style, we should rather have written ut concupivissemus , using the pluperfect instead of the imperfect, or the tense of the associated past. Even in this sense ונראהוּ is very far from being unmeaning: He dwelt in Israel, so that they had Him bodily before their eyes, but in His outward appearance there was nothing to attract or delight the senses.

On the contrary, the impression produced by His appearance was rather repulsive, and, to those who measured the great and noble by a merely worldly standard, contemptible. "He was despised and forsaken by men; a man of griefs, and well acquainted with disease; and like one from whom men hide their face: despised, and we esteemed Him not." All these different features are predicates of the erat that is latent in non species ei neque decor and non adspectus . Nibhzeh is introduced again palindromically at the close in Isaiah's peculiar style; consequently Martini's conjecture לא וגו נבזהוּ is to be rejected. This nibhzeh (cf., bâzōh , Isa 49:7) is the keynote of the description which looks back in this plaintive tone. The predicate c hădal 'ı̄shı̄m is misunderstood by nearly all the commentators, inasmuch as they take אישׁים as synonymous with בני־אדם , whereas it is rather used in the sense of בני־אישׁ (lords), as distinguished from b^e nē ' âdâm , or people generally (see Isa 2:9, Isa 2:11, Isa 2:17). The only other passages in which it occurs are Pro 8:4 and Psa 141:4; and in both instances it signifies persons of rank. Hence Cocceius explains it thus: "wanting in men, i.e., having no respectable men with Him, to support Him with their authority."It might also be understood as meaning the ending one among men, i.e., the one who takes the last place (S. ἐλάχιστος , Jer. novissimus ); but in this case He Himself would be described as אישׁ , whereas it is absolutely affirmed that He had not the appearance or distinction of such an one. But the rendering deficiens (wanting) is quite correct; compare Job 19:14, "my kinsfolk have failed"( defecerunt , c hâd^e lū , cognati mei ). The Arabic chadhalahu or chadhala ‛anhu (also points to the true meaning; and from this we have the derivatives c hâdhil , refusing assistance, leaving without help; and m achdhûl , helpless, forsaken (see Lane's Arabic Lexicon ). In Hebrew, c hâdal has not only the transitive meaning to discontinue or leave off a thing, but the intransitive, to case or be in want, so that c hădal 'ı̄shı̄m may mean one in want of men of rank, i.e., finding no sympathy from such men. The chief men of His nation who towered above the multitude, the great men of this world, withdrew their hands from Him, drew back from Him: He had none of the men of any distinction at His side. Moreover, He was מכאבות אישׁ , a man of sorrow of heart in all its forms, i.e., a man whose chief distinction was, that His life was one of constant painful endurance. And He was also חלי ידוּע , that is to say, not one known through His sickness (according to Deu 1:13, Deu 1:15), which is hardly sufficient to express the genitive construction; nor an acquaintance of disease (S. γνωστὸς νόσῳ , familiaris morbo ), which would be expressed by מידּע or מודע ; but scitus morbi , i.e., one who was placed in a state to make the acquaintance of disease. The deponent passive ירוּע , acquainted (like bâtuăch , confisus ; zâkbūr , mindful; peritus , pervaded, experienced), is supported by מדּוּע = מה־יּרוּע ; Gr. τί μαθών . The meaning is not, that He had by nature a sickly body, falling out of one disease into another; but that the wrath instigated by sin, and the zeal of self-sacrifice (Psa 69:10), burnt like the fire of a fever in His soul and body, so that even if He had not died a violent death, He would have succumbed to the force of the powers of destruction that were innate in humanity in consequence of sin, and of His own self-consuming conflict with them. Moreover, He was k^e mastēr pânı̄m m immennū . This cannot mean, "like one hiding his face from us,"as Hengstenberg supposes (with an allusion to Lev 13:45); or, what is comparatively better, "like one causing the hiding of the face from him:"for although the feminine of the participle is written מסתּרת , and in the plural מסתּרים for מסתּירים is quite possible, we never meet with m astēr for m astı̄r , like hastēr for hastı̄r in the infinitive (Isa 29:15, cf., Deu 26:12). Hence m astēr must be a noun (of the form m arbēts , m arbēq , m ashchēth ); and the words mean either "like the hiding of the face on our part,"or like one who met with this from us, or (what is more natural) like the hiding of the face before his presence (according to Isa 8:17; Isa 50:6; Isa 54:8; Isa 59:2, and many other passages), i.e., like one whose repulsive face it is impossible to endure, so that men turn away their face or cover it with their dress (compare Isa 50:6 with Job 30:10). And lastly, all the predicates are summed up in the expressive word nibhzeh : He was despised, and we did not think Him dear and worthy, but rather "esteemed Him not,"or rather did not estimate Him at all, or as Luther expresses it, "estimated Him at nothing"( c hâshabh , to reckon, value, esteem, as in Isa 13:17; Isa 33:8; Mal 3:16).

The second turn closes here. The preaching concerning His calling and His future was not believed; but the Man of sorrows was greatly despised among us.

Those who formerly mistook and despised the Servant of Jehovah on account of His miserable condition, now confess that His sufferings were altogether of a different character from what they had supposed. "Verily He hath borne our diseases and our pains: He hath laden them upon Himself; but we regarded Him as one stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted." It might appear doubtful whether אכן (the fuller form of א ך ) is affirmative here, as in Isa 40:7; Isa 45:15, or adversative, as in Isa 49:4. The latter meaning grows out of the former, inasmuch as it is the opposite which is strongly affirmed. We have rendered it affirmatively (Jer. vere ), not adversatively ( verum , ut vero ), because Isa 53:4 itself consists of two antithetical halves - a relation which is expressed in the independent pronouns הוּא and אנחנוּ , that answer to one another. The penitents contrast themselves and their false notion with Him and His real achievement. In Matthew (Mat 8:17) the words are rendered freely and faithfully thus: αὐτὸς τὰς ἀσθενείας ἡμῶν ἔλαβε καὶ τὰς νόσους ἐβάστασεν . Even the fact that the relief which Jesus afforded to all kinds of bodily diseases is regarded as a fulfilment of what is here affirmed of the Servant of Jehovah, is an exegetical index worth noticing. In Isa 53:4 it is not really sin that is spoken of, but the evil which is consequent upon human sin, although not always the direct consequence of the sins of individuals (Joh 9:3). But in the fact that He was concerned to relieve this evil in all its forms, whenever it came in His way in the exercise of His calling, the relief implied as a consequence in Isa 53:4 was brought distinctly into view, though not the bearing and lading that are primarily noticed here. Matthew has very aptly rendered נשׂא by ἔλαβε , and סבל by ἐβάστασε . For whilst סבל denotes the toilsome bearing of a burden that has been taken up, נשׂא combines in itself the ideas of tollere and ferre . When construed with the accusative of the sin, it signifies to take the debt of sin upon one's self, and carry it as one's own, i.e., to look at it and feel it as one's own (e.g., Lev 5:1, Lev 5:17), or more frequently to bear the punishment occasioned by sin, i.e., to make expiation for it (Lev 17:16; Lev 20:19-20; Lev 24:15), and in any case in which the person bearing it is not himself the guilty person, to bear sin in a mediatorial capacity, for the purpose of making expiation for it (Lev 10:17). The lxx render this נשׂא both in the Pentateuch and Ezekiel λαβεῖν ἁμαρτίαν , once ἀναφέρειν ; and it is evident that both of these are to be understood in the sense of an expiatory bearing, and not merely of taking away, as has been recently maintained in opposition to the satisfactio vicaria , as we may see clearly enough from Eze 4:4-8, where the עון שׂאת is represented by the prophet in a symbolical action.

But in the case before us, where it is not the sins, but "our diseases"( חלינוּ is a defective plural, as the singular would be written חלינוּ ) and "our pains"that are the object, this mediatorial sense remains essentially the same. The meaning is not merely that the Servant of God entered into the fellowship of our sufferings, but that He took upon Himself the sufferings which we had to bear and deserved to bear, and therefore not only took them away (as Mat 8:17 might make it appear), but bore them in His own person, that He might deliver us from them. But when one person takes upon himself suffering which another would have had to bear, and therefore not only endures it with him, but in his stead, this is called substitution or representation - an idea which, however unintelligible to the understanding, belongs to the actual substance of the common consciousness of man, and the realities of the divine government of the world as brought within the range of our experience, and one which has continued even down to the present time to have much greater vigour in the Jewish nation, where it has found it true expression in sacrifice and the kindred institutions, than in any other, at least so far as its nationality has not been entirely annulled.

(Note: See my Jesus and Hillel , pp. 26, 27.)

Here again it is Israel, which, having been at length better instructed, and now bearing witness against itself, laments its former blindness to the mediatorially vicarious character of the deep agonies, both of soul and body, that were endured by the great Sufferer. They looked upon them as the punishment of His own sins, and indeed - inasmuch as, like the friends of Job, they measured the sin of the Sufferer by the sufferings that He endured - of peculiarly great sins. They saw in Him נגוּע , "one stricken," i.e., afflicted with a hateful, shocking disease (Gen 12:17; 1Sa 6:9) - such, for example, as leprosy, which was called נגע κατ ̓ ἐξ (2Ki 15:5, A. ἀφήμενον , S. ἐν ἁφῆ ὄντα = leprosum , Th. μ εμαστιγωμένον , cf., μ άστιγες , Mar 3:10, scourges, i.e., bad attacks); also אלהים מכּה , " one smitten of God "(from nâkhâh , root נך , נג ; see Comm. on Job , at Job 30:8), and מענּה bowed down (by God), i.e., afflicted with sufferings. The name Jehovah would have been out of place here, where the evident intention is to point to the all-determining divine power generally, whose vengeance appeared to have fallen upon this particular sufferer. The construction m ukkēh 'Elōhı̄m signifies, like the Arabic muqâtal rabbuh , one who has been defeated in conflict with God his Lord (see Comm. on Job , at Job 15:28); and 'Elōhı̄m has the syntactic position between the two adjectives, which it necessarily must have in order to be logically connected with them both.

In Isa 53:5, והוּא , as contrasted with ואנחנוּ , continues the true state of the case as contrasted with their false judgment. "Whereas He was pierced for our sins, bruised for our iniquities: the punishment was laid upon Him for our peace; and through His stripes we were healed." The question is, whether Isa 53:5 describes what He was during His life, or what He was in His death. The words decide in favour of the latter. For although c hâlâl is applied to a person mortally wounded but not yet dead (Jer 51:52; Psa 69:27), and c hâlal to a heart wounded to death (Psa 109:22); the pure passives used here, which denote a calamity inflicted by violence from without, more especially m ^e chōlâl , which is not the participle polal of c hı̄l (made to twist one's self with pain), but the participle poal of c hâl (pierced, transfossus , the passive of m ^e chōlēl , Isa 51:9), and the substantive clauses, which express a fact that has become complete in all its circumstances, can hardly be understood in any other way than as denoting, that "the servant of God"floated before the mind of the speaker in all the sufferings of death, just as was the case with Zechariah in Zec 12:10. There were no stronger expressions to be found in the language, to denote a violent and painful death. As min , with the passive, does not answer to the Greek ὑπό , but to ἀπό , the meaning is not that it was our sins and iniquities that had pierced Him through like swords, and crushed Him like heavy burdens, but that He was pierced and crushed on account of our sins and iniquities. It was not His own sins and iniquities, but ours , which He had taken upon Himself, that He might make atonement for them in our stead, that were the cause of His having to suffer so cruel and painful a death.

The ultimate cause is not mentioned; but עליו שׁלומנוּ מוּסר which follows points to it. His suffering was a m ūsâr , which is an indirect affirmation that it was God who had inflicted it upon Him, for who else could the yōsēr ( m ^e yassēr ) be? We have rendered m ūsâr "punishment;"and there was no other word in the language for this idea; for though נקם and פּקדּה (to which Hofmann refers) have indeed the idea of punishment associated with them, the former signifies ἐκδίκησις , the latter ἐπίσκεψις , whereas m ūsâr not only denotes παιδεία , as the chastisement of love (Pro 3:11), but also as the infliction of punishment (= τιμωρία κόλασις , Pro 7:22; Jer 30:14), just as David, when he prayed that God might not punish him in His anger and hot displeasure (Psa 6:2), could not find a more suitable expression for punishment, regarded as the execution of judgment, than יסּר ( הוכיח ). The word itself, which follows the form of m ūsâd (Isa 28:16), signifies primarily being chastised (from yâsar = vâsar , constringere , coercere ), and included from the very outset the idea of practical chastisement, which then passed over into that of admonition in words, of warning by example, and of chastity as a moral quality. In the case before us, in which the reference is to a sufferer, and to a m ūsâr resting upon him, this can only mean actual chastisement. If the expression had been עליו מוּסרנוּ , it would merely mean that God had caused Him, who had taken upon Himself our sins and iniquities and thus made Himself representatively or vicariously guilty, to endure the chastisement which those sins deserved. but it is שׁלומנוּ מוּסר . The connection of the words is the same as that of חיּים תּוכחת in Pro 15:31. As the latter signifies "reproof leading to life,"so the former signifies "the chastisement which leads to our peace."It is true that the suffix belongs to the one idea, that that has grown up through this combination of the words, like b^e rı̄th sh^e lōmı̄ , "my peace-covenant"(Isa 54:10); but what else could our "peace-chastisement"be, than the chastisement that brings us peace, or puts us into a state of salvation? This is the idea involved in Stier's rendering, "restoring chastisement,"and Hofmann's, "the chastisement wholesome for us."The difference in the exposition simply lies in the view entertained of the m ūsâr , in which neither of these commentators will allow that there is any idea of a visitation of justice here. But according to our interpretation, the genitive שׁלומנו , which defines the m ūsâr so far as its object and results are concerned, clearly shows that this manifestation of the justice of God, this satisfaction procured by His holiness, had His love for its foundation and end. It was our peace, or, what is more in accordance with the full idea of the word, our general well-being, our blessedness, which these sufferings arrived at and secured (the synonyms of shâlōm are tōbh and y^e shū‛âh , Isa 52:7). In what follows, "and by His stripes ( c hăbhūrâh = c habbūrâh , Isa 1:6) we have been healed,"shâlōm is defined as a condition of salvation brought about by healing. " Venustissimum ὀξύμωρον ,"exclaims Vitringa here. He means the same as Jerome when he says, suo vulnere vulnera nostra curavit . The stripes and weals that were inflicted upon Him have made us sound and well (the lxx keeps the collective singular, and renders it very aptly τῷ μώλωπι αὐτοῦ ; cf., 1Pe 2:24). We were sick unto death because of our sins; but He, the sinless one, took upon Himself a suffering unto death, which was, as it were, the concentration and essence of the woes that we had deserved; and this voluntary endurance, this submission to the justice of the Holy One, in accordance with the counsels of divine love, became the source of our healing.

Thus does the whole body of the restored Israel confess with penitence, that it has so long mistaken Him whom Jehovah, as is now distinctly affirmed, had made a curse for their good, when they had gone astray to their own ruin. "All we like sheep went astray; we had turned every one to his own way; and Jehovah caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him." It is the state of exile, upon which the penitent Israel is here looking back; but exile as being, in the prophet's view, the final state of punishment before the final deliverance. Israel in its exile resembled a scattered flock without a shepherd; it had lost the way of Jehovah (Isa 63:17), and every one had turned to his own way, in utter selfishness and estrangement from God (Isa 56:11). But whereas Israel thus heaped up guilt upon guilt, the Servant of Jehovah was He upon whom Jehovah Himself caused the punishment of their guilt to fall, that He might make atonement for it through His own suffering. Many of the more modern expositors endeavour to set aside the paena vicaria here, by giving to הפגּיע a meaning which it never has. Thus Stier renders it, "Jehovah caused the iniquity of all to strike or break upon Him."Others, again, give a meaning to the statement which is directly at variance with the words themselves. Thus Hahn renders it: Jehovah took the guilt of the whole into His service, causing Him to die a violent death through their crime. Hofmann very properly rejects both explanations, and holds fast to the fact that בּ הפגּיע , regarded as a causative of בּ פּגע , signifies "to cause anything to strike or fall upon a person,"which is the rendering adopted by Symmachus: κύριος καταντήσαι ἐποίησεν εἰς αὐτὸν τὴν ἀνομίαν πάντων ἡμῶν . "Just as the blood of a murdered man comes upon the murderer, when the bloody deed committed comes back upon him in the form of blood-guiltiness inflicting vengeance; so does sin come upon, overtake (Psa 40:13), or meet with the sinner. It went forth from him as his own act; it returns with destructive effect, as a fact by which he is condemned. But in this case God does not suffer those who have sinned to be overtaken by the sin they have committed; but it falls upon His servant, the righteous One."These are Hofmann's words. But if the sin turns back upon the sinner in the shape of punishment, why should the sin of all men, which the Servant of God has taken upon Himself as His own, overtake Him in the form of an evil, which, even it if be a punishment, is not punishment inflicted upon Him? For this is just the characteristic of Hofmann's doctrine of the atonement, that it altogether eliminates from the atoning work the reconciliation of the purposes of love with the demands of righteousness. Now it is indeed perfectly true, that the Servant of God cannot become the object of punishment, either as a servant of God or as an atoning Saviour; for as servant of God He is the beloved of God, and as atoning Saviour He undertakes a work which is well pleasing to God, and ordained in God's eternal counsel. So that the wrath which pours out upon Him is not meant for Him as the righteous One who voluntarily offers up Himself but indirectly it relates to Him, so far as He has vicariously identified Himself with sinners, who are deserving of wrath. How could He have made expiation for sin, if He had simply subjected Himself to its cosmical effects, and not directly subjected Himself to that wrath which is the invariable divine correlative of human sin? And what other reason could there be for God's not rescuing Him from this the bitterest cup of death, than the ethical impossibility of acknowledging the atonement as really made, without having left the representative of the guilty, who had presented Himself to Him as though guilty Himself, to taste of the punishment which they had deserved? It is true that vicarious expiation and paena vicaria are not coincident ideas. The punishment is but one element in the expiation, and it derives a peculiar character from the fact that one innocent person voluntarily submits to it in His own person. It does not stand in a thoroughly external relation of identity to that deserved by the many who are guilty; but the latter cannot be set aside without the atoning individual enduring an intensive equivalent to it, and that in such a manner, that this endurance is no less a self-cancelling of wrath on the part of God, than an absorption of wrath on the part of the Mediator; and in this central point of the atoning work, the voluntarily forgiving love of God and the voluntarily self-sacrificing love of the Mediator meet together, like hands stretched out grasp one another from the midst of a dark cloud. Hermann Schultz also maintains that the suffering, which was the consequence of sin and therefore punishment to the guilty, is borne by the Redeemer as suffering, without being punishment. But in this way the true mystery is wiped out of the heart of the atoning work; and this explanation is also at variance with the expression "the chastisement of our peace"in Isa 53:5 , and the equally distinct statement in Isa 53:6 , "He hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all."It was the sin of all Israel, as the palindromically repeated kullânū emphatically declares, which pressed upon Him with such force when His atoning work was about to be decided, but עון is used to denote not only the transgression itself, but also the guilt incurred thereby, and the punishment to which it gives rise. All this great multitude of sins, and mass of guilt, and weight of punishment, came upon the Servant of Jehovah according to the appointment of the God of salvation, who is gracious in holiness. The third turn ends here. It was our sins that He bore, and for our salvation that God caused Him to suffer on our account.