The Servant of God, with whose person the Prophet had. by way of preparation, already made us acquainted in the first book of the second part, in chap. xlii., is here, at the beginning of the second book, at once introduced as speaking, surprising, as it were, the readers. In ver. 1-3, we have the destination and high calling which the Lord assigned to His Servant; in ver. 4, the contrast and contradiction of the result of this mission; the covenant-people, to whom it is, in the first instance, directed, reward with ingratitude His faithful work. In ver. 5 and 6, we are told what God does in order to maintain the dignity of His Servant; as a compensation for obstinate, rebellious Israel, He gives Him the Gentiles for an inheritance. From ver. 7 the Prophet takes the word. In ver. 7 the original contempt which, according to the preceding verses, the Servant of God meets with, especially in Israel, is contrasted with the respectful worship of nations and kings which is to follow after it. Ver. 8 and 9 describe how the Servant of God proves himself to be the embodied covenant of the people, and form the transition to a general description of the enjoyment of salvation, which, in the Messianic times, shall be bestowed upon the Congregation of the Lord. This description goes on to chap. l. 3, and then, in chap. l. 4 ff., the person of the Servant of the Lord is anew brought before us.
The Messianic explanation of our passage is already met with in the New Testament. It is with reference to it that Simeon, in Luke ii. 30, 31, designates the Saviour as the σωτήριον of God, which He had prepared before the face of all people (comp. ver. 6 of our passage: "That thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth"), as the φῶς εἰς ἀποκάλυψιν ἐθνῶν καὶ δόξαν λαοῦ σου Ἰσραήλ; comp. again ver. 6, according to which the Servant of God is to be at the same time, the light of the Gentiles, to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel. Ver. 1: "The Lord hath called me from the womb, from the bowels of my mother hath He made mention of my name," is alluded to in Luke ii. 21: Καὶ ἐκλήθη τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ Ἰησοῦς, τὸ κληθὲν ὑπὸ τοῦ ἀγγέλου πρὸ τοῦ συλληφθῆναι αὐτὸν ἐν τῇ κοιλίᾳ (comp. i. 31: συλλήψῃ ἐν γαστρὶ καὶ τέξῃ υἱόν καὶ καλέσεις τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ Ἰησοῦν) as is sufficiently evident from ἐν τῇ κοιλίᾳ sc. matris, which exactly answers to the מבטן in the passage before us. In Acts xiii. 46, 47, Paul and Barnabas prove, from the passage under review, the destination of Christ to be the Saviour of the Gentiles, and their right to offer to them the salvation despised and rejected by the Jews: ἰδοὺ στρεφόμεθα εἰς τὰ ἔθνη· οὕτω γὰρ ἐντέταλται ἡμῖν ὁ Κύριος· τέθεικά σε εἰς φῶς ἐθνῶν τοῦ εἶναί σε εἰς σωτηρίαν ἕως ἐσχάτου τῆς γῆς In the destination which, in Isaiah, the Lord assigns to Christ, Paul and Barnabas recognize an indirect command for his disciples, a rule for their conduct. In 2 Cor. vi. 1, 2, ver. 8 is quoted, and referred to the Messianic time.
It is obvious that the Jews could not be favourable to the Messianic interpretation; but the Christian Church has held fast by it for nearly 1800 years. Even such interpreters as Theodoret and Clericus, who are everywhere rather disposed to explain away real Messianic references, than to find the Messiah where He is not presented, consider the Messianic interpretation to be, in this place, beyond all doubt. The former says: "This was said with a view to the Lord Christ, who is the seed of Abraham, through whom the nations received the promise." And when, in our century, men returned to the faith, the Messianic interpretation also returned. If the Church has Christ at all, it is impossible that she should fail to find Him here.
Gesenius, and those who have followed him, appeal to the circumstance, that the Messiah could not well be introduced as speaking, and, least of all, in such a manner, without any introduction and preparation. But it is difficult to see how this argument can be advanced by those who themselves assume that a mere personification, the collective body of the prophets, or, as Beck expresses it, the Prophet κατ’ ἐξοχήν as a general substantial individual, or even the people, can be introduced as speaking. The introduction of persons is a necessary result of the dramatic character of prophetic Speech, comp., e.g., chap. xiv., where now the king of Babylon, then the inhabitants of the Sheol, and again Jehovah, are introduced as speaking. The person who is here introduced as speaking is already known from chap. xlii., where he is spoken of. The prophecy before us stands to that prophecy in the very same relation as does Ps. ii. 7-9, where the Anointed One suddenly appears as speaking, to the preceding verses, where He was spoken of The Messiah is here so distinctly described, as to His nature and character, that it is impossible not to recognise Him. Who but He should be the Covenant of the people, the Light of the Gentiles, the Saviour for all the ends of the earth? The point which was here concerned was not, first to introduce Him to the knowledge of the people. His image existed there already in sharp outlines, even from and since Gen. xlix. 10, where the Peaceful One meets us, in whom Judah attains to the full height of his destination, and to whom the people adhere. The circumstance that it is just here that the Messiah appears as speaking, forms the most appropriate introduction to the second book, in which He is the principal figure.--It is by a false literal interpretation only that ver. 8, 9 have been advanced in opposition to the Messianic interpretation.
The arbitrariness of the non-Messianic interpretation manifests itself in this also, that its supporters can, up to this day, not agree as to the subject of the prophecy. 1. According to several interpreters--Hitzig, last of all--the Servant of God is to be Israel, and the idea this, that Israel would, at some future period, be the teacher of the Gentiles, and would spread the true religion on earth. It is apparently only that this interpretation receives some countenance from ver. 3, where the Servant of the Lord is called Israel. For this name does not there stand as an ordinary nomen proprium, but as an honorary name, to designate the high dignity and destination of the Servant of God. As this name had passed over from an individual to a people, so it may again be transferred from the people to that person in whom the people attain their destination, in which, up to that time, they had failed But decisive against this explanation, which makes the whole people the subject, is ver. 5, according to which the Servant of God is destined to lead back to the Lord, Jacob and Israel (in the ordinary sense), who then must be different from Him; ver. 6, according to which He is to raise up the tribes of Jacob; ver. 8, 9, according to which He is to be the Covenant of the people, to deliver the prisoners, &c. (Knobel remarks on this verse: "Nothing is clearer than that the Servant of God is not identical with the mass of the people, but is something different.") Supposing even that the people, destined to be the teachers of the Gentiles, appear here as speaking, it is difficult to see how, in ver. 4, they could say that hitherto they had laboured in vain in their vocation, and seen no fruits, since hitherto the people had made no attempt at all at the conversion of the Gentiles. 2. Maurer, Knobel, and others, endeavour to explain it of the better portion of the people. But conclusive against this interpretation is ver. 6, according to which the Servant of God has the destination of restoring the preserved of Israel, and hence must be distinct from the better portion; ver. 8, according to which He is given for a Covenant of the people, from which, according to ver. 4 and 6, the ungodly are excluded; so that the idea of the people is identical with that of the better portion. In general, the contrasting of the better portion of the people with the whole people, Jacob and Israel, the centre and substance of which was formed just by the ἐκλογή, can scarcely be thought of, and is without any analogy. Nor is the mention of the womb. and bowels of the mother, in ver. 1, reconcileable with a merely imaginary person, and that, moreover, a person of a character so indistinct and indefinite,--a character which has no definite and palpable historical beginnings. The parallel passages, in which the calling from the womb is mentioned, treat of real persons, of individuals.--3. According to several interpreters (Jarchi, Kimchi, Abenezra, Grotius, Steudel, Umbreit, Hofmann), the Servant of the Lord is to be none other than the Prophet himself. No argument has been adduced in favour of this view, except the use of the first person, ("If here, without introduction and preparation, a discourse begins with the first person, it refers most naturally to the Prophet, who is the author of the Book"),--an argument of very subordinate significance, and the more so that the person of the Prophet, everywhere else in the second part of Isaiah, steps so entirely into the background behind the great objects with which he is engaged. To follow thus the first appearance may, indeed, be becoming to a eunuch from Ethiopia, but not a Christian expounder of Scripture. The contents of the prophecy are decidedly in opposition to this opinion. Even the circumstance that a single prophet should assume the name of Israel, ver. 3, appears an intolerable usurpation. Farther--Like all the other prophets, Isaiah was sent to the Jews, and not to the Gentiles; but at the very outset, the most distant lands and all the distant nations are here called upon to hearken. The Lord says to His Servant that the restoration of Israel was too little for Him, that He should be a light and salvation for all the heathen nations from one end of the earth to the other; kings and Princes shall fall down before Him, adoring and worshipping. The Prophet would thus simply have raised himself to be the Saviour. Umbreit expressly acknowledges this: "He is to be the holy pillar of clouds and fire which leads the people back to their native land, after the time of their punishment has expired. But a still more glorious vocation and destination is in store for the prophets; they receive the highest, the Messianic destination." The usurpation of which the Servant of God would have made himself guilty, appears so much the more clearly, when it is known, that the work of the Servant of God comprehends even all that also, which is described in ver. 10-23, viz., the blossoming of the Church of God, her enlargement by the Gentiles, &c. It is obvious that, if the interpretation which refers this prediction to the prophets were the correct one, the authority of the Old Testament prophecy would be gone; the authority of the Lord himself would be endangered, inasmuch as He always recognizes, in these prophets, organs of divine inspiration and power. A vain attempt is made at mitigating this usurpation, by imperceptibly substituting the collective body of the prophets for the single prophet. This view thus leads to, and interferes with another which we shall immediately examine. But if we would not give up the sole argument by which this exposition is supported, viz., the use of the first person, everything must, in the first instance, apply to and be fulfilled in Isaiah; and the other prophets can come into consideration only as continuators of his work and ministry. He is entitled to use the first person in that case only, when he is a perfect manifestation of prophetism.--4. According to Gesenius, the Servant of the Lord is to be the collective body of the prophets, the prophetic order. In opposition to this view, Stier remarks: "We maintain that, according to history, there did not at that time (the time of the exile, in which Gesenius places this prophecy) exist any prophetic order, or any distinguished blossom of it; that hence it was impossible for any reasonable man to entertain this hope, when viewed in this way, without looking farther and higher." Ver. 1 is decisive against a mere personification. The name of Israel, too, in ver. 3, is very little applicable to the whole prophetic order. This is sufficiently evident from the fact that Gesenius, in his Commentary, declared this word to be spurious; and it was at a later period only, when he had become bolder, that he endeavoured to adapt it to his self-chosen subject. Nowhere in the Old Testament do the prophets appear like the Servant of God here--as the Covenant of the people, ver. 8, as the Light of the Gentiles, ver. 6.
Ver. 1. "Listen, O isles, unto me, and hearken ye people from far; the Lord hath called me from the womb, from the bowels of my mother hath He made mention of my name."
As the stand-point which the Messiah occupies in the vision of the Prophet, we have to conceive of the time, at which He had already entered upon His office, and had already experienced many proofs of the Jews' unbelief and hardness of heart,--an event of the Future, the foresight of which was, even in a human point of view, very readily suggested to the Prophet after the painful experience acquired during his own long ministry; comp. chap. vi. For the fruitlessness of His ministry among the mass of the covenant-people, ver. 4, as well as the great contempt which the Servant of God found among them, ver. 7, are represented as having already taken place; while the enlightenment of the Gentiles, the worship of the kings, &c., which are to be expected by Him, are represented as being still future. In the same manner, in chap. liii., the humiliation of the Servant of God appears as past; the glorification, as future, the reason why the isles are addressed (comp. remarks on chap. xlii. 4) appears in ver. 6 only, at the close of the discourse of the Servant of God, for all that precedes serves as a preparation. In that verse, the Servant of the Lord announces that the Lord had appointed Him to be the Light of the Gentiles; that He should be His salvation unto the ends of the earth. It is very significant that the second book at once begins with an address to the Gentiles, inasmuch us, thus, we are here introduced into the sphere of a redemption which does not refer to a single nation, like that with which the first book is engaged, but to the ends of the earth. At the close of the first book, in chap. xlviii. 20, it was said: "Declare ye, tell this, utter it even to the end of the earth, say ye: The Lord hath redeemed his servant Jacob." The fact that the redemption, in the first instance peculiar to Jacob, is to be proclaimed to all the nations of the earth, leads us to expect that these nations, too, have their portion in the Lord; that at some future period they are to hear a message which concerns them still more particularly. This expectation is realized here, at the opening of the second book. The fact that the Gentiles are to listen here, as those who have a personal interest in the message, is proved by the circumstance, that the words: "Unto the ends of the earth," in ver. 6 of the chapter before us, point back to the same words in chap. xlviii. 20.--The Lord had called me from the womb. It is sufficient to go thus far back in order to repress or refute the idea of His having himself usurped His office, and to furnish a foundation for the expectation that God would powerfully uphold and protect His Servant in the office which He himself had assigned to Him. Calvin remarks on these words: "They do not indicate the commencement of the time of His vocation, as if God had, only from the womb, called Him; but it is just as if it were said: Before I came forth from the womb, God had decreed that I was to undertake this office. In the same manner Paul also says that he had been separated from his mother's womb, although he was chosen before the foundation of the world." To be called from the womb is, in itself, nothing extraordinary; it is common to all the servants of the Lord. Jeremiah ascribes it to himself in chap. i. 5: "Before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee;" and in harmony with this passage in Jeremiah--not with that before us--Paul says in Gal. i. 15: ὁ θεὸς ὁ ἀφορίσας (corresponding to: I have sanctified thee) με ἐκ κοιλίας μητρός μου. But we have here merely the introduction to what follows, where the calling, to which the Servant of God had been destined from the womb appears as quite unique.--From the bowels of my mother hath He made mention of my name. The name is here not an ordinary proper name, but a name descriptive of the nature,--one by which His office and vocation are designated. This making mention was, in the case of Christ, not a thing concealed; the prophecy before us received its palpable confirmation and fulfilment; inasmuch as, in reference to it, Joseph received, even before His birth, the command to call Him Jesus, Saviour: τέξεται δὲ υἱὸν καὶ καλέσεις τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ Ἰησοῦν· αὐτὸς γὰρ σώσει τὸν λαὸν αὐτοῦ ἀπὸ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν αὐτῶν, Matth. i. 21, after the same command had previously come to Mary, Luke i. 31; comp. ii. 21, where, as we have already remarked, there is a distinct reference to the passage before us.
Ver. 2. "And He hath made my mouth like a sharp sword, in the shadow of His hand hath He hid me, and He hath made me a sharpened arrow, in His quiver hath He hid me."
According to the common interpretation, the words: "He hath made my mouth like a sharp sword. He hath made me a sharpened arrow," are to express only such a gift of powerful, impressive speech as is common to all the servants of God, to all the prophets. But the two subjoined clauses are opposed to that interpretation. The second and fourth clauses state the reason of the first and third, and point to the source from which that emanates which is stated in them. There cannot be any doubt but that in the second and fourth clauses, the Servant of God indicates that He stands under the protection of divine omnipotence, so that the expression: "Whom I uphold," in chap. xlii. 1, is parallel. The shadow is the ordinary figure of protection. The figure of the sword is dropped in the second clause, and hence the objection, that a drawn sword does not require any protection, is out of place. This will appear from a comparison of chap. li. 16: "And I put my words in thy mouth, and I cover thee with the shadow of mine hand," where the sword is not mentioned at all, and the shadow belongs simply to the person. The quiver which keeps the arrow is likewise a natural image of divine protection. The two accessory clauses do not suit, if the first and third clauses are referred to the rhetorical endowment of the Servant of God; that does not flow from the source of the protecting omnipotence of God. These accessory clauses rather suggest the idea that, by the comparison of the mouth with the sharp sword, of the whole person with the sharpened arrow, there is indicated the absolutely conquering power which, under the protection of omnipotence, adheres to the word and person of the Servant of God, so that He will easily put down everything which opposes,--equivalent to: He has endowed me with His omnipotence, so that my word produces destructive effects, and puts down all opposition, just as does His word; so that there would be a parallel in chap. xi. 4, where the word of the Servant of God likewise appears as being borne by omnipotence: "He smiteth the earth with the rod of His mouth, and with the breath of His lips He slayeth the wicked." To the same result we are led also by a comparison of chap. li. 16, where the word of the Lord, which is put into the mouth of the Servant of God, is so living and powerful, so borne by omnipotence, that thereby the heavens are planted, and the foundations of the earth are laid. But of special importance are those passages of Revelation which refer to the verse under consideration. In chap. i. 16, the sharp two-edged sword does not by any means represent the power of the discourse piercing the heart for salvation; but rather the destructive power of the word which is borne by omnipotence. It designates the almighty punitive power of Christ directed against his enemies. "By the circumstance, that the sword goes out of the mouth of Christ, that destructive power is attributed to His mere word, He appears as partaking of divine omnipotence. For it belongs to God to slay by the words of His mouth, Hos. vi. 5." The same applies to chap. ii. 16. On Rev. xix. 15: "And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it He should smite the nations," we remarked: "the sharp sword is not that of a teaching king, but that of omnipotence which speaks and it is done, and slayeth by the breath of the lips. How Christ casts down His enemies by the word of His mouth is seen, in a prophetical instance, John xviii. 6; Acts ix. 4, 5." With the sword, Christ appears even where He does not mean to destroy, but to bring salvation; for, even in those who are to be blessed, hostile powers are to be overcome. The image, however, is here, in the fundamental passage, occasioned by the comparison of the Servant of God with the conqueror from the East, whose sword, according to chap. xli. 2, the Lord makes as dust, and his bow as the driven stubble. Where the mere word serves as a sword, the effect must be much more powerful. The conquering power throwing down every opposing power, which, in the first clause, is assigned to the mouth, is, in the third clause ("And He hath made me a sharpened arrow"), attributed to the whole person. He, of whom it was already said in Ps. xlv. 6: "Thine arrows are sharp, people fall under thee, they enter into the heart of the king's enemies," is himself to be esteemed as a sharp arrow.