The LXX. already understood Israel by the Servant of the Lord. They translate in ver. 1: Ἰακὼβ, ὁ παῖς μου, ἀντιλήψομαι αὐτοῦ, Ἰσραήλ, ὁ, ἐκλεκτός μου, προσεδέξατο αὐτὸν ἡ ψυχή μου. Among the Jewish interpreters, Jarchi follows this explanation, but with this modification, that, by the Servant of the Lord, he understands the collective body of the righteous in Israel. In modern times, this view is defended by Hitzig. It appeals especially to the circumstance that, in a series of other passages of the second part, Israel, too, is designated by the Servant of God, viz. in chap. xli. 8: "And thou Israel, my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, seed of Abraham my friend," ver. 9: "Thou whom I have taken from the ends of the earth, and called thee from its sides, and said unto thee: Thou art my servant, I have chosen thee, and not cast thee away," chap. xlii. 19, xliii. 10, xliv. 1, 2: "And now hear, O Jacob my servant, and Israel whom I have chosen. Thus saith the Lord that made thee, formed thee from the womb and helpeth thee: Fear not, O Jacob, my servant, and thou Jeshurun, whom I have chosen;" chap. xliv. 21, xlv. 4, xlviii. 20; "Say ye, the Lord hath redeemed His servant Jacob." In the face of this fact, we shall not be permitted to refer to "the general signification of the expression, and its manifold use." For, generally, it is of very rare occurrence that Israel is personified as the Son of God (in Ps. cv. 6, it is not Israel, as Köster supposes, but Abraham who is called Servant of God; Jer. xxx. 10, xlvi. 27; Ezek. xxxvii. 25 are, in all probability, dependent upon the second part of Isaiah, by which this designation first obtained a footing), and never occurs in such accumulation as here. For this very reason, we cannot well think of an accident; and if there was an intention, we can seek it only in the circumstance that there exists a close reference to those prophecies which, ex professo, have to do with the Servant of God. To this we are led by another circumstance, also. While those passages in which Israel or Jacob is spoken of as the servant of God, occur in great numbers in the first book of the second part of Isaiah, they disappear altogether in the second book, which is the proper seat of the detail prophecies of the Servant of God in question, who, in the first book was, by way of anticipation only, mentioned in chap. xlii. After chap. xlviii. 20, where the words: "The Lord hath redeemed His servant Jacob," occur with evident intention, once more at the close of the first book, Jacob, the servant of God, is, in general, no more spoken of, but the Plural is used only of the Israelites as the servants of God in chap. lxiii. 17: "For thy servants' sake, the tribes of thine inheritance;" lxv. 8, 9-13, lxvi. 14,--passages which make it only the more evident that the Prophet purposely avoids bringing forward Jacob as the ideal person of the Servant of the Lord. Finally--The idea of chance is entirely excluded by chap. xlix. 3, where the Messiah is called Israel.
From these facts, however, we are not entitled to infer that, in the prophetic announcement, Israel is simply spoken of as the servant of God; but on the contrary the context must be viewed in a different and nicer way. This is evident from the circumstance that, while in the passages chaps. xli. 7, xlviii. 20, Israel and Jacob are intentionally spoken of as the servant of God, or, at least, Israel is so distinctly pointed out that it cannot be at all misunderstood, such an express pointing to Israel is (with the sole exception of chap. xlix. 3), as intentionally, avoided in the prophetic announcement of the Servant of God. The phrase "My servant Jacob," which, in the former passages is the rule, never occurs in the latter. This circumstance clearly indicates that, besides the agreement, there exists a difference. The facts, however, which point out the agreement, receive ample justice by the supposition that the Prophet considers Christ as the concentration and essence of Israel, that he expects from Him the realization of the task which was given to Israel, but had not been fulfilled by them, and just thereby, also, the realization of the promises given to Israel. But, besides other reasons, the fact that the whole description of the Servant of God stands in direct contradiction to what the Prophet elsewhere says of Israel, proves that Israel is not meant in opposition to the Messiah,--the body without the head. It is especially chap. xlii. 19 which here comes into consideration: "Who is so blind as my servant, or so blind as my messenger whom I send?" Israel is here called servant of the Lord, because it had been called by Him to preserve the true religion on earth. Parallel is the appellation: "My messenger whom I send." Israel, as the messenger of God, was to deliver His commands to the Gentiles. The Prophet sharpens the reproof, in that he always contrasts what the people were, and what they ought to have been, according to the destination given to them by the Lord. The servant of the Lord, who, in order to execute His commissions, must have a sharp eye, is blind; His messenger is deaf and cannot hear what He says to him. The immense contrast between idea and reality which is here pointed out, implies, since the idea must necessarily be realized, that it shall receive another bearer; that in place of the messenger, who has become blind and deaf, there should come the true Messenger who first opens the eyes of Israel, and then those of the Gentiles,--that the destination of Israel, which the members are unfit to realize, should be realized by the head. We are not at liberty to say that the servant who had become blind and deaf shall be converted, shall put off the old man and put on the new man, and shall then accomplish the great things which, in the prophecies of the Servant of God, are assigned to him. For the conversion,--on which everything depends, and apart from which the announcement of the Prophet would be an empty fancy--is, in all these prophecies, not mentioned by a single word. On the contrary, the Servant of God is everywhere, from His very origin, brought before us as the absolutely just. No more glaring contrast can really be imagined than that which exists between that which the Prophet says of the ordinary Israel (whose outward state, as it is described in chap. xlii. 22: "This is a people robbed and spoiled, they are all of them snared in holes, and hid in prison-houses," is only a faithful image of the internal condition), and the Son of God in whom His soul delighteth, who in exuberant love seeks that which is lost, whose overflowing righteousness justifies many, and who, as a substitute, can suffer for others. It is in Christ only, that Israel attains to its destination, both in a moral point of view, and as regards the Divine preservation and glorification. To this it may still be added, that neither here, nor in the parallel passages is עבד יהוה ever connected with a Plural, but always with the Singular only; while elsewhere, in the case of collective nouns and ideal persons, the real plurality not uncommonly shines forth from behind the unity; and in those passages, especially, where Israel appears personified as a unity, the use of the Singular is interchanged with that of the Plural. Comp., e.g., chap. xli. 8: "And thou Israel, my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, seed (posterity) of Abraham, my friend," chap. xliii. 10: "Ye are my witnesses. saith the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen." But a circumstance, which alone would be sufficient for the proof, is the fact, that in chap. xli. 6, (comp. chap. xlix. 5, 6) the Servant of the Lord is plainly distinguished from the people. How can the Lord say of the people, that He will give it for a covenant of the people, that in it He will cause the covenant with the people to attain to its truth? The fact, that this passage opposes an insurmountable barrier to the explanation which makes the people the subject, sufficiently appears from the circumstance, that the expositors saw themselves obliged to set aside its natural sense by a forced, unphilological explanation. Finally,--In understanding the people by the Servant of God, the prophecies of the Servant of God are brought into irreconcileable contradiction with all other prophecies, with the first part of Isaiah, and even with the second part, inasmuch as things would then be prophesied of the people which, everywhere else, are constantly assigned to the Messiah. This is quite openly expressed by Köster: "The Servant of Jehovah is the Jewish people; viewed, however, by the Prophet in such a manner as to combine in itself the attributes of both, the prophets and the Messiah." Prophetism would have dug its own grave if its organs had, in a manner so inconsiderate, contradicted each other as regards the highest hopes of the people. The national conviction of the inspiration of the prophets, which formed the foundation of their activity and efficiency, could, in that case, not have arisen at all. The same arguments decide partly also against a modification of this explanation which evidently has proceeded from embarrassment only,[1] against those who, by the Servant of God, understand the better portion of Israel,--such as Maurer, Ewald, Oehler (Ueber den Knecht Gottes, Tübinger Zeitschrift, 1840. The latter differs from the other supporters of this view in this, that, according to him, the notion of the ideal Israel which, he thinks, prevails in chap. xlii. and xlix., is, in chap. liii., raised to the view of an individual--the Messiah), Knobel ("The theocratic substance of the people, to which especially the prophets and priests belonged.") By this modification, the explanation which makes the people the subject, loses its only apparent foundation, inasmuch as it can no more appeal to those passages in which Israel is spoken of as the Servant of the Lord; for it is obvious that, in these, not merely the pious portion of the people is spoken of. At the very outset, in ver. 19, the whole of the people are undeniably designated by the Servant of the Lord. It is they only who are blind and deaf in a spiritual point of view. The whole people, and not a portion of them, are in the condition of servitude, ver. 22. In ver. 24, Jacob and Israel are expressly mentioned. The whole people, and not merely the pious portion, are objects of the Lord's election (chap. xli. 8, xliv. 1, 2); the whole people are to be redeemed from Babylon, chap. xlviii. 20. The hypothesis of the pious portion of the people can as little account for the unexceptional use of the singular, as the hypothesis of the whole people; like it, it isolates the prophecies of the Servant of God, and brings them into contradiction with all the other prophecies, which assign to Christ the same things that are here assigned to the Servant of God. But what is especially in opposition to this hypothesis is ver. 3, where the Servant of God is designated as the Saviour of the poor and afflicted, which, in the first instance, are no other than the better portion of the people; as well as other reasons, which we shall bring out in commenting upon chap. liii. by which section the hypothesis is altogether overthrown.
According to De Wette (de morte expiat. p. 26) and Gesenius, the subject of the prophecy is the collective body of the prophets. Substantially, Umbreit too (Der Knecht Gottes, Hamburg 1840) adheres to this interpretation. He rejects the explanation which refers it to Christ in the sense of the Christian Church, and on p. 13 he completely assents to Gesenius, by remarking that he could not find in the prophets any supernatural, distinct predictions of future events. The Prophet, according to him, formed to himself, by his own authority, an "ideal of a Messiah," the abstraction of what he saw before his eyes in the people, especially in the better portion of them, but chiefly in the order of the prophets, and then persuaded himself that this self-invented image would, at some future period, come into existence as a real person. "The highest ideal of the prophetic order, viewed as teaching, is represented in the unity of a person." "We find the prophets as a collective body in the עבד, but chiefly, the prophets who, in future only, on the regained paternal soil, are, in some person, to reach the highest perfection."
This hypothesis of the collective body of the prophets violently severs the prophecy before us, and the parallel passages from those passages of the second part in which Israel is spoken of as the Servant of God. It is quite impossible to point out anywhere in the Old Testament, and especially in the second part of Isaiah, an analogous personification of the order of the prophets as the Servant of God. The reference to chap. xliv. 26: "That establisheth the word of His servant, and performeth the counsel of His messengers; that saith of Jerusalem: She shall be inhabited, and of the cities of Judah: They shall be built, and I will raise up the walls thereof," is, in this respect, altogether out of place, inasmuch as the servant of the Lord, in that verse, is not the collective band of the prophets, but Isaiah himself, just as in chap. xxiii. The parallelism between the servant of the Lord and His messengers is not a synonymous, but a synthetic one, just as, afterwards, Jerusalem and the cities of Judah are placed beside one another. The parallel passages clearly intimate that, by the servant of the Lord, Isaiah only is to be understood. Throughout, the Prophet refers exclusively to his own prophecies, as regards the impending salvation of Israel (the prophecies of others he mentions, everywhere else, always in reference to the past only); and it cannot be imagined that, in this single passage only, he should have designated himself as one among the many. If we consider those parallel passages, we must assume that the messengers also are represented chiefly by our Prophet; that he is their mouth and organ, just as, in Rev. i. 1, and xxii. 6, the servants of God and the prophets are represented by John.
Farther--It cannot be denied that a certain amount of truth lies at the foundation of the explanation which makes the prophetic order the subject. The Messiah appears in our prophecy pre-eminently as the Prophet, in harmony and connection with Deut. xviii. (comp. Vol. i., p. 107); and the substratum of the description forms chiefly the prophetic order, while, in the prophecies of the first part, it is chiefly the regal office which appears, and, in chap. liii., the priestly. But the mistake (as Umbreit himself partly saw) is, that this explanation changes the person into a personification, instead of recognizing that the idea, which hitherto was only imperfectly realised by the prophetic order, demands a future perfect realisation in an individual, so that we could not but expect such an one even if there did not exist any Messianic prophecy at all. Every prophet who, in human weakness, performed his office, was a guarantee of the future appearance of the Prophet, as surely as God never does by halves what, according to His nature, and as proved by the existence of the imperfect, He must do. But the fact that, here, we have not before us a mere personification of the prophetic order, nor, as little, according to the opinion of Umbreit, a single individual by whom, in future, the idea of the prophetic order was to be most perfectly realised, is evident from the circumstance that the Servant of God does not, by any means, represent himself as being only the Prophet. The contrast between Cyrus and the Servant of God, which G. Müller advances: "Evidently, the former is a conqueror; the latter, a meek teacher," is one-sided; for the Servant of God appears, at the same time, as a powerful ruler, just as Christ, in chap. lv. 4, is at the same time designated as a Witness, and as Prince and Lawgiver of the nations. To the mere teacher not even ver. 3 is applicable, if the parallel passages are compared, but far less ver. 4: "The isles shall wait for His law." Nor does a mere teacher come up to the embodied covenant with Israel in ver. 6, nor to the light, i.e., Salvation and Saviour of the Gentiles. By mere teaching, salvation cannot be wrought out. Ver. 7 also does not apply to the mere teacher.
The collective body of the prophets, or the ideal prophet, is altogether out of place in chap. liii.; for there the Servant of God does not appear as a Prophet, but as a High Priest and Redeemer. This hypothesis meets with farther difficulties by the mention of Israel in chap. xlix. 3. Farther--It cannot well be conceived how the Prophet who, according to these expositors, lived about the end of the exile, could expect such glorious things of the prophetic order, as that from it even a preliminary and partial realization of his hopes should proceed. At that time the prophetic order was already dying out; and a prophetic order among the exiled cannot well be spoken of Finally--That which is here ascribed to the Servant of God--the grand influence upon the heathen world--is not of such a character, as that the prophets could be considered as even the precursors and companions in the work of the Prophet. Neither prophecy nor history assigns to the prophets any share in this work. This hypothesis severe the second part from its connection with the whole remaining Old Testament, according to which it is by Christ alone that the reception of the Gentiles into the Kingdom of God shall be effected. And in this second part itself, it stands likewise in contradiction to chap. lv. 3, 4.
Ver. 1. "Behold my Servant whom I uphold, mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my Spirit upon Him, He shall bring forth right[2] to the Gentiles."
Every pious man is called, in general, "servant of the Lord," comp. Job i. 8; Ps. xix. 12, 14; but ordinarily, the designation is, in a special sense, applied to those whom God makes use of for the execution of His purposes, to whom He entrusts the administration of His affaire, and whom He equips for the promotion of His glory. David, who, according to Acts xiii. 36, had in his generation served the counsel of God, calls himself in his prayer in 2 Sam. vii., not fewer than ten times, the servant of God, (Vol. i, p. 135, 136); and the same designation he gives to himself in the inscriptions of Ps. xviii. and xxxvi. The Prophets are called servants of God in 2 Kings xiii. 3; Jer. xxvi. 5. In the highest and most perfect degree, that designation belongs to Christ, who, in the most perfect manner, carried out the decrees of God, and to whom all former servants and instruments of the Lord in His kingdom, pointed as types. But the designation has not merely a reference to the subjective element of obedience, but points, at the same time, to the dignity of him who is thus designated. It is a high honour to be received by God among the number of His servants, who enjoy the providence and protection of their mighty and rich Lord. That this aspect--the dignity--comes here chiefly into consideration, in the case of Him who is the Servant of God κατ᾽ ἐζοχήν, and in whom, therefore, this dignity must reach its highest degree, so that the designation, My Servant, borders very closely upon that of My Son, (comp. Matth. iii. 17, xvii. 5);--that this aspect comes here chiefly into consideration is probable even from the circumstance that, in those passages of the second part which treat of Israel as the servant of God, it is just this aspect which is pre-eminently regarded. Thus it is in chap. xli. 8: "And thou Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham, my friend." To be the servant of God appears here as an honour, as the privilege which was bestowed upon Israel in preference to the Gentiles. On ver. 9: "Thou, whom I have taken from the ends of the earth, and from her borders called thee, and said unto thee: Thou art my servant, I have chosen thee and not cast thee away," Luther remarks: "The name, 'my servant,' contains the highest consolation, both when we look to Him who speaks, viz.. He who has created everything, and also to him who is addressed, viz., afflicted and forsaken man." In chap. xliv. 1, 2: "And now hear, O Jacob, my servant, and Israel whom I have chosen; thus saith the Lord that made thee, and formed thee from the womb, who will help thee: Fear not, O Jacob, my servant, and Jeshurun, whom I have chosen," all the designations of God and Israel serve only for an introduction to the exhortation: "Fear not," by laying open the necessity which exists for the promise in ver. 3, which, without such ca foundation, would be baseless. The context and the parallelism with "whom I have chosen" show that the designation, "servant of God" in these verses has no reference to a duty imposed, but to a privilege, a relation which is the pledge of divine aid to Israel. Jeshurun stands as a kind of nomen proprium, and is not parallel to עבדי, but to Jacob. In chap. xliv. 21: "Remember this, O Jacob, and Israel, for thou art my servant, I have formed thee for a servant to me, Israel, thou shalt not be forgotten of me," the אלה "this" refers to the folly of idolatry exhibited in the preceding verses. The duty that Israel should remember this, is founded upon the fact, that he is the servant of the Lord, called by Him to a glorious dignity, to high prerogatives, of which he must not rob himself by apostatizing from Him. It is He who has bestowed upon him this dignity, and He will soon show by deeds, that He cannot forget him, if only his heart does not forget his God. In a similar manner, in chap. xlv. 4, the protecting providence and love of God are looked to. The aspect of the duty and of the service which Israel has to perform to his Lord, is specially pointed out in a single passage only, in chap. xlii. 19; all the other passages place the dignity in the foreground. That, in the designation. Servant of God, in the passage before us, prominence is also given to the dignity, is confirmed by the addition of "whom I uphold," which presents itself as an immediate consequence of the relation of a servant of God, and by the parallel: "mine elect in whom my soul delighteth."--תמך "to take," "to seize," "to hold," when followed by ב, always signifies to lay hold of, to hold fast, to support. With the words: "Behold my servant whom I uphold," corresponds what the Lord says in John viii. 29: ὁ πέμψας με μετ’ ἐμοῦ ἐστιν· οὐκ ἀφῆκέ με μόνον ὁ Πατὴρ, ὅτι ἐγὼ τὰ ἀρεστὰ αὐτῷ ποιῶ πάντοτε; comp. John iii. 2; Acts x. 38. The Preterite נתתי is employed, because the communication of the Spirit is the condition of his bringing forth right, just as, in ver. 6, the calling is the ground of the preservation. In the whole of the description of the Servant of God, the Future prevails throughout; the Praeteritum propheticum is employed only, where something is to be designated, which, relatively, is antecedent; compare the words: "And the Spirit of the Lord rests upon Him," in chap. xi. 2; lxi. 1; Matt. iii. 16; John iii. 34. The three passages in Isaiah which speak of the communication of the Spirit to Christ are inseparably connected with one another, and, on the whole Old Testament territory, there is no passage exactly parallel to them. The Hiphel of יצא must not be explained by "to announce," as some interpreters do; for in this signification it nowhere occurs; and according to what follows, and the parallel passages, the Servant of God does not by any means establish right by the mere announcement, but by His holy disposition. But as little can we explain הוציא by "to lead out," in contrast to the circumstance that, under the Old Testament, right was limited to a single nation. For in the parallel passage, chap. li. 4: "Hearken unto me, my people, and give ear unto me, O my congregation, for law shalt proceed from me, and I will set my right for the light of the nations," יצא does not mean to go out, but to go forth, i.e., to proceed. In the same way, in Hab. i. 4: "And not does right go forth for ever," i.e., it never comes forth, is never established, comp. Vol. i., p. 442, 443. Hence הוציא here can mean only "to bring to light," "to bring forth." משפט is, by several interpreters, taken in the signification, "religion;" but it is just ver. 4, by which they support their view, which shows that the ordinary signification "right," must be retained here. For in that verse, right stands in parallelism with law, by which right is established; comp. chap. li. 4. Before God's Kingdom was, by the Servant of God, extended to the Gentile nations, there existed among them, notwithstanding all the excellence of outward legal arrangements, a condition without right in the higher sense. Right, in its essence, has its root in God, as may be seen from the Ten Commandments, which everywhere go back to God, and in all of which Luther, in his exposition of the ten commandments, rightly repeats: "We shall fear and love God." Where, therefore, the living God is not known, there can be no right. The commandment: "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself," e.g., has any meaning only where the eye is open for the divine image which the neighbour bears, and for the redemption of which he is a fellow-partaker. The commandment: "Honour thy father and thy mother" will go to the heart only where the divine paternity is known, of which all earthly paternity is only an image. In Deut. iv. 5-8, Israel's happiness is praised, in that they alone, among all the nations, are in possession of God's laws and commandments. Those privileges of Israel are, by the Servant of God, to be extended to the Gentiles who, because they are destitute of right, are, in Deut. xxxii. 21, called a foolish nation. In Ps. cxlvii. 19, 20, it is said: "He showeth His word unto Jacob, His statutes and laws unto Israel. He has not dealt so with any nation, and law they do not know." This passage touches very closely upon that before us; like it, it denies right to the Gentiles in general. "The Gentiles, being without God in the world, do not know any right at all. For that which they call so, is only the shadow of that which really deserves this name, is only a dark mixture of right and wrong." As regards the first table of the Ten Commandments, they grope entirely in the dark; and with respect to the second table, it is only here and there that they see a faint glimpse of light.--A consequence of the bringing forth of right to the Gentiles is the ceasing of war, as it is described in chap. ii. 4. When right has obtained dominion, it cannot tolerate war beside it; where there is true right, there is also peace. The benefit which, in the first instance, is conferred upon the Gentiles, is enjoyed by Israel also: The intention of comforting and encouraging Israel clearly appears in the parallel passage, chap. li. 4. For the right which obtains dominion among the Gentiles, is Israel's pride and ornament, so that, along with their God and His right, they obtain also the dominion over the Gentile world, by which they were hitherto kept in bondage; and whensoever and wheresoever the divine right obtains dominion, the violent oppression must cease, under which the people of God had been groaning up to that time. The Servant of God, however, who brings forth right to the Gentiles, forms the contrast to the worldly conqueror, of whom it was said in chap. xli. 25: "He cometh upon princes as mortar, and, just as the potter treadeth the clay."--The words: "He shall bring forth right," purposely return again in ver. 3; and equally intentionally, the words: "He shall found right on the earth," in ver. 4, refer to them. "We have thus"--Stier pertinently remarks--"in ver. 1, the sum and substance, even to its aim. But it is immediately brought more distinctly to view, what will be the spirit and character, the mode of operation, by which this aim is to be brought about."
Ver. 2; "He shall not cry nor lift up, nor cause His voice to be heard in the street."