It is so obvious that בצדק must be translated by "in righteousness," that the explanations which disagree with it do not deserve to be even mentioned. The mission of the Servant of God has its root in the divine righteousness, which gives to every one his due,--to the covenant-people, salvation. Even apart from the promise, the appearance of Christ rests on the righteousness of God. For it is in opposition to the nature and character of a people of God to be, for any length of time, in misery, and shut up to one corner of the earth. That which is to be accomplished for Israel by the Servant of God, forms, in the sequel, the first subject of discourse. But even that which He affords to the Gentiles is, at the same time, given to Israel, inasmuch as it is one of their prerogatives that salvation for the Gentiles should go forth from them. As, here, the mission of the Servant of God, so, in chap. xlv. 13, the appearance of the lower deliverer appears as the work of divine righteousness: "I have raised him up in righteousness, and all his ways I will make straight." Similarly also in chap. xli. 2: "Who raised up from the East him whom righteousness calls wherever he goes," i.e., him, all whose steps are determined by God's righteousness, who, in all his undertakings, is guided by it.--The seizing by the hand, the keeping, &c., are the consequence of His being called, and are equivalent to: just because I have called him, therefore will I, &c. Luther remarks: "Namely, for this reason, that Satan and the world, with all their might and wisdom, will resist thy work." In the words: "For the Covenant of the people, and for the Light of the Gentiles," עם and גוים form an antithesis. The absence of the article shows that we ought properly to translate: "For a Covenant of a people, for a Light of Gentiles." It is thus, in the first instance, only said that the Servant of God should be the personal covenant for a people; but what people that should be, cannot admit of a moment's doubt. To Israel, as such, the name of the people pre-eminently belongs. Israel, in preference to all others, is called עם (compare Gesenius' Thesaurus s.v. גוי), because it is only the people of God that is a people in the full sense, connected by an internal unity; the Gentiles are לא עם, non-people, according to Deut. xxxii. 21, because they lack the only real tie of unity. But what is still more decisive is the mention of the Covenant. The covenant can belong to the covenant-people only, ὧν αἱ διαθῆκαι, Rom. ix. 4,--the old, no less than the new one. The covenant with Abraham is an everlasting covenant of absolute exclusiveness, Gen. xvii. 7. The Servant of God is called the personal and embodied Covenant, because in His appearance the covenant made with Israel is to find its full truth; and every thing implied in the very idea of a covenant, all the promises flowing from this idea, are to be in Him, Yea and Amen. The Servant of God is here called the Covenant of Israel, just in the same manner as in Mic. v. 4 (comp. Ephes. ii. 14), it is said of Him: "This (man) is Peace," because in Him, peace, as it were, represents itself personally;--just as in chap. xlix. 6, He is called the Salvation of God, because this salvation becomes personal in Him, the Saviour,--just as in Gen. xvii. 10, 13, circumcision is called a covenant, as being the embodied covenant,--just as in Luke xxii. 20, the cup, the blood of Christ, is called the New Covenant, because in it it has its root. The explanation: Mediator of the covenant, διαθήκης ἔγγυος, is meagre, and weakens the meaning. The circumstance that the Servant of God is, without farther qualification, called the Covenant of the people, shows that He stands in a different relation to the covenant from that of Moses, to whom the name of the Mediator of the covenant does not the less belong than to Him. From Jer. xxxi. 31, we learn which are the blessings and gifts which the Servant of God is to bestow, and by which He represents himself as the personal Covenant. They are concentrated in the closest connection to be established by Him between God and His people: "I will be their God, and they shall be my people." It is only in the New Covenant, described in that passage of Jeremiah, that the Old Covenant attains to its truth. The second destination of the Servant of God, which, according to the context, here comes into special consideration, is, to be the Light of the Gentiles. By the realization of this destination, an important feature in the former was, at the same time, realized. For it formed part of the promises of the covenant with Israel that, from the midst of them, salvation for all the families of the earth should go forth, as our Saviour says: ἡ σωτηρία ἐκ τῶν Ἰουδαίων ἐστίν Light is here, according to the common usus loquendi of Scripture, a figurative designation of salvation. In the parallel passage, chap. xlix. 6, light is at once explained by salvation. The designation proceeds upon the supposition that the Gentiles, not less than Israel, (comp. chap. ix. 1 [2]) shall, until the appearance of the Servant of God, sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,--that they are in misery, although, in some instances, it may be a brilliant misery. The following verse farther carries out and declares what is implied in the promise: "Light of the Gentiles." Parallel is chap. lx. 3: "And the heathen walk in thy (Zion's) light"--they become partakers of the salvation which shines for Zion--"and kings in the brightness which riseth to thee."--The supporters of that opinion, which understands Israel by the Servant of God, are in no small difficulty regarding this verse, and cannot even agree as to the means of escape from that difficulty. Several assume that עם is used collectively, and refer it to the Gentile nations. But opposed to this explanation is the evident antithesis of עם and גוים; and it is entirely overthrown by the parallel passage in chap. xlix. Scripture knows nothing of a covenant with the Gentiles. According to the view of the Old, as well as of the New Testament, the Gentiles are received into the communion of the covenant with Israel. Others (Hitzig, Ewald) explain: "covenant-people, i.e., a mediatorial, connecting people, a bond of union between God and the nations." But the passage, chap. xlix. 8, is most decidedly opposed to this. Farther--The parallelism with אור גוים shows that ברית עם is the status constructus. But fœdus alicujus, is, according to the remark of Gesenius, fœdus cum aliquo sancitum. Thus in Lev. xxvi. 45, the covenant of the ancestors is the covenant entered into with the ancestors; Deut. iv. 31; Lev. xxvi. 42 (the covenant of Jacob, the covenant of Isaac, &c.) According to Knobel: "the true theocrats are to become a covenant of the people, the restorers of the Israelitish Theocracy, they themselves having connection and unity by faithfully holding fast by Jehovah, and by representing His cause." This explanation, also, is opposed to the usus loquendi, according to which "covenant of the people" can have the sense only of "covenant with the people," not a covenant among the people. And, farther, the parallel passage in chap. xlix. 8 is opposed to this interpretation also, inasmuch as, in that passage, the Servant of the Lord is called ברית עם, not on account of what He is in himself, but on account of the influence which He exercises upon others, upon the whole of the people: "That thou mayest raise up the land, distribute desolate heritages, that thou mayest say to the prisoners: Go forth," &c. In that passage the land, the desolate heritages, the prisoners, &c., evidently correspond to the people. Finally--A covenant is a relation between two parties standing opposite one another. "The word is used,"
says Gesenius, "of a covenant formed between nations, between private persons, e.g., David and Jonathan, between Jehovah and the people of Israel." But here no parties are mentioned to be united by the covenant.
Ver. 7. "That thou mayest open blind eyes, bring out them that are bound from the prison, and from the house of confinement them that sit in darkness."
On account of the connection with the "for the Light of the Gentiles," which would stand too much isolated, if, in the words immediately following, Israel alone were again the subject of discourse, the activity of God here mentioned refers, in the first instance, to the Gentiles; and the words: "them that sit in darkness," moreover, evidently point back to "for the Light of the Gentiles." But from chap. xlix. 9, and also from ver. 16 of the chapter before us, where the blindness of Israel is mentioned, it appears that Israel too must not be excluded. Hence, we shall say: It is here more particularly described how the Servant of God proves himself as the Covenant of the people and the Light of the Gentiles, how He puts an end to the misery under which both equally groan. It will be better to understand blindness, in connection with imprisonment, sitting in darkness, as a designation of the need of salvation, than as a designation of spiritual blindness, of the want of the light of knowledge. That is also suggested by the preceding: "for the Light of the Gentiles," which, according to the common usus loquendi, and according to chap. ix. 1 (2) is not to be referred to the spiritual illumination especially, but to the bestowal of salvation. To this view we are likewise led by a comparison of ver. 16: "And I will lead the blind by a way that they knew not, I will lead them in paths that they have not known, I will change the darkness before them into light, the crooked things into straightness." The blind in this verse are those who do not know what to do, and how to help themselves, those who cannot find the way of salvation, the miserable; they are to be led by the Lord on the ways of salvation, which are unknown to them. In a similar sense and connection, the blind are, elsewhere also, spoken of, comp. Remarks on Ps. cxlv. 8.--On the words: "Bring out them that are bound from the prison," Knobel remarks: "The citizens of Judah were, to a great extent, imprisoned; the Prophet hopes for their deliverance by the theocratic portion of the people." A strange hope! By this coarsely literal interpretation, the connection with "for the Light of the Gentiles" is broken up; and this is the less admissible that the words at the close of the verse: "those that sit in darkness," so clearly refer to it. Imprisonment is a figurative designation of the miserable condition, not less than, the darkness, which, on account of the light contrasted with it, and on account of chap. ix. 1 (2), cannot be understood otherwise than figuratively. Under the image of men bound in dark prisons, the miserable and afflicted appear also in Ps. cvii. 10-16; Job xxxvi. 8, where the words, "bound in fetters," are explained by the parallel "holden in the cords of misery." When David, in Ps. cxlii. 8, prays: "Bring my soul out of the prison," he himself explains this in Ps. cxliii. 11 by the parallel: "Thou wilt bring my soul out of trouble;" comp. also Ps. xxv. 17: "O bring thou me out of my distresses." If we here understand the prison literally, we might, with the same propriety in other passages, also, e.g., in Ps. lxvi. 11, understand literally the net, the snare, the trap.
Ver. 8: "I the Lord, that is my name, and my honour I will not give to another, nor my glory to idols. Ver. 9. The former (things), behold, they came to pass, and new (things) do I declare; before they spring forth, I cause you to hear."
We have here the solemn close and exhortation. At the close of chap. xli. it had been pointed out, how the prediction of the Conqueror from the East serves for the glory of Jehovah, who thereby proves himself to be the only true God. Here the zeal of God for His glory is indicated as the reason which has brought forth the prediction of the Servant of God and His glorious work,--a prediction which cannot be accounted for from natural causes. It is thus the object of the prophecy which is here, in the first instance, stated. It is intended to manifest the true God as such, as a God who is zealously bent on His glory. But the same attribute of God which called forth the prophecy, calls forth also the events prophesied, viz., the appearance of the Servant of God, and the victory over the idols accomplished thereby, the bringing forth of the law of God over the whole earth through Him, and the full realization of the covenant with Israel. The thought is this:--that a God who does not manifest and prove himself as such, who is contented with the honour granted to Him without His interference, cannot be a God; that the true God must of necessity be filled with the desire of absolute, exclusive dominion, and cannot but manifest and prove this desire. From this thought, the prophecy and that which it promises flow with a like necessity.--According to Stier, ראשנות, "the former (things)" means "the redemption of the exiled by Cyrus," which in chaps. xli. xlviii. forms the historico-typical foreground, whose coming is here anticipated by the Prophet. But the parallel passages, chaps. xli. 22, xliii. 9, xlviii. 3, are conclusive against this view; for, according to these passages, it is only the former already fulfilled predictions of the Prophet and his colleagues, from the beginnings of the people, which can be designated by "the former (things)." By "the new (things)" therefore, is to be understood the aggregate of the events which are predicted in the second part, to which belongs the prophecy of the Servant of God which immediately precedes, and which the Prophet has here as pre-eminently in view (Michaelis: et nova, imprimis de Messia), as, in the parallel passage chap. xli. 22, the announcement of the conqueror from the East. Both of these verses seem to round off our prophecy, by indicating that such disclosures regarding the Future are not by any means intended to serve for the gratification of idle curiosity, but to advance the same object to which the events prophesied are also subservient, viz., the promotion of God's glory. The modern view of Prophetism is irreconcileable with the verses under consideration, which evidently shew, that the prophets themselves were filled with a different consciousness of their mission and position And in like manner it follows from them, that there is no reason to put, by means of a forced interpretation, the prophecy within the horizon of the Prophet's time, seeing that the Prophet himself shows himself to be thoroughly penetrated by its altogether supernatural character.
[ [1]] This embarrassment becomes still more obvious in the explanation of Vatke, who understands by the Servant of God, "the harmless ideal abstract of the people;" and that of Beck, who understands thereby "the notion of the people."
[ [2]] The Hebrew word is משפט, which means "judgment," "right," "law." Dr. Hengstenberg has translated it by Recht, which is, as nearly as possible, expressed by the English word "right," (jus,) as including "law" and "statutes."--Tr.