Ver. 8. "Thus saith the Lord: In the time of favour have I heard thee, and in the day of salvation have I helped thee; and I will preserve thee, and give thee for the Covenant of the people, that thou mayest raise up the land, divide desolate heritages. Ver. 9. That thou mayest say to the prisoners: Go forth; to them that are in darkness: Come to light; they shall feed in the ways, and on all bare hills shall be their pasture."
The time of favour may be either the time when God shows His delight in, and favour to His Servant, and, in Him, to the Church, q. d., of delight in thee, mercy for thee,--in which case chap. lx. 10 would be parallel: "In my wrath I smote thee, and in my favour have I had mercy on thee;" or, "in the time of favour," may be equivalent to: "at the agreeable, acceptable time" (LXX., which Paul follows in 2 Cor. vi. 1, 2, καιρῷ δεκτῷ, Vulg. tempore placito); in contrast to a preceding unacceptable time, in which the Lord seemed to have forsaken His Servant, in which it appeared as if He had laboured in vain, and spent His strength for nought and vanity. Acceptable is the time to all parties, not only to the Servant of God, but also to those who are to be redeemed through Him; and not less to God, to whom it is a joy to pour out upon His Servant the rivers of His salvation. The Preterites in ver. 8 must be viewed as prophetic Preterites. Concerning "Covenant of the people," compare remarks on chap. xlii. 6. The idea of the people is more closely defined and qualified by ver. 6 and 7. The souls who have been cut off from their people, because they have broken the covenant of the Lord, and despised His Servant, are justly passed by. But since עם can here be understood of the better portion of the people only, of the invisible Church in the midst of the visible, the Servant of God cannot be the better portion of the people.--In the words: "That thou mayest raise up the land, divide desolate heritages," the bestowal of salvation is described under the image of the restoration of a devastated country. In ver. 9, the misery of the Congregation of God is described under the image of pining away in a dark prison; comp. remarks on chap. xlii. 7. With the second half of the verse, there begins a more general description of the glorious salvation which the Lord will giant to His people; and the person of the Mediator steps into the back-ground, in order afterwards to come forth more prominently. The ways and bare hills have come into consideration as places which, in themselves, are completely barren, and which the wonderful grace of God can alone cause to bud and flourish.
[CHAPTER L. 4-11.]
The Servant of God here also appears as speaking. In ver. 4, He intimates His vocation: God has bestowed upon Him the gift of comforting those who are weary and heavy laden. He then at once turns to His real subject,--the sufferings which, in fulfilment of this vocation he has to endure. The Lord has inwardly manifested to Him that, in the exercise of His office. He shall experience severe trials; and willingly has He borne all these sufferings, all the ignominy and shame, ver. 5, 6. With this willingness and fortitude He is inspired by His firm confidence in the Lord, who, he certainly knows, will help Him and destroy His enemies, ver. 7-9. The conclusion, in ver. 10 and 11, forms the prophetic announcement of the different fates of the two opposing parties among the people. At the foundation of this lies the foresight of heavy afflictions which, after the appearance of the Servant of God, will be laid upon the covenant-people. That portion of the people who are devoted to the Servant of God, are told to hope in the midst of the misery, and may hope; their sorrows shall be turned into joy. But the ungodly who, without regarding the Lord, and without hearkening to His Servant, would help themselves, will bring destruction upon themselves by their self-willed doings, and shall be visited by the avenging hand of the Servant of God.
An intimation of the lowliness of Christ at His first appearance occurs as early as in chap. xi. 1. In chap. xlii. 4, the words: "He shall not fail nor run away," intimate that the Servant of God has to struggle with great obstacles and difficulties in the exercise of His calling. According to chap. xlix. 4, He will labour in vain among the great mass of the covenant-people, and spend his strength for nought and vanity. In ver. 7, it is expressly intimated that severe sufferings shall be inflicted upon Him by the people. That which was there alluded to, is here carried out and expanded. But the suffering of the Servant of God is here described from that aspect only which is common to Christ with His members. It is first in chap. liii. that its vicarious power is pointed out. The Servant of God comes here before us in His deepest humiliation. Even in the description of His vocation in ver. 4, the most unassuming aspect, the prophetic office only, is brought forward. It is only quite at the close that a gentle intimation is given of the glory concealed behind the lowliness: He there appears as the judge of those who have rejected Him.
In the Messianic explanation of this Section, the Lord himself has gone before His Church. We read in Luke xviii. 31, 32, παραλαβὼν δὲ τοὺς δώδεκα εἶπε πρὸς αὐτούς· ἰδοὺ ἀναβαίνομεν εἰς Ἰεροσόλυμα καὶ τελεσθήσεται πάντα τὰ γεγραμμένα διὰ τῶν προφητῶν τῷ υἱῷ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου· παραδοθήσεται γὰρ τοῖς ἔθνεσι καὶ ἐμπαιχθήσεται καὶ ὑβρισθήσεται καὶ ἐμπτυσθήσεται καὶ μαστιγώσαντες ἀποκτενοῦσιν αὐτόν. There cannot be any doubt that the Lord here distinctly refers to ver. 6 of the prophecy under consideration. There is, at all events, no other passage in the whole of the Old Testament, except that before us, in which there is any mention made of being spat upon. But in other respects, too, the reference is visible: "I gave my back to the smiters (μαστιγώσαντες, LXX. εἰς μαστιγας), and my cheeks to those plucking (ἐμπαιχθήσεται--the plucking of the beard, an act of degrading wantonness), my face I hid not from shame (ὑβρισθήσεται) and spitting." Bengel draws attention to the fact of how highly Christ, in the passage quoted, placed the prophecy of the Old Testament: "Jesus most highly valued that which was written. The word of God which is contained in Scripture is the rule for all which is to happen, even for that which is to happen in eternal life." If, in respect of the high estimation of prophecy, our age were to follow in the steps of Jesus, it would also most readily agree with Him as regards the subject of the prophecy before us. This alone is the cause of the aberration from Him, that people confined and shut up the prophet within the horizon of his time, and then imagined that he could not know anything of the suffering of Christ. It was altogether different in the ancient Christian Church. In it, the Messianic interpretation prevailed throughout; and Grotius, who in a lower sense would refer the prophecy to Isaiah, and, in a higher sense only, to Christ, met with general opposition, even on the part of Clericus.
In favour of the Messianic explanation there is the remarkable agreement existing between prophecy and fulfilment, comp. Matt. xxvi. 67, 68: Τότε ἐνέπτυσαν εἰς τὸ πρόσωπον άὐτοῦ
καὶ ἐκολάφισαν αὐτόν, Οἱ δὲ ἐῤῥάπισαν λέγοντες· προφήτευσον ἡμῖν, χριστέ, τίς ἐστιν ὁ παίσας σε; xxvii. 30: καὶ ἐμπτύσαντες εἰς αὐτὸν ἔλαβον τὸν κάλαμον καὶ ἔτυπτον εἰς τὴν κεφαλὴν αὐτοῦ,--an agreement, the significance and importance of which are only enhanced by the circumstance that one of the most individualizing features of the prophecy, viz., the plucking off of the beard, is not met with in the history of Christ; for it is just thereby that this agreement is proved to be a free and spontaneous one. Farther--The exactness with which, in ver. 10 and 11, the destinies of Israel, after the rejection of Christ, are drawn; and the destruction which the mass of the people, who did not believe in the Servant of God, prepared for themselves, by their attempts to help themselves by their own strength, by enkindling the flame of war, whilst those who fear the Lord and listen to the voice of Hs Servant, obtain salvation. Farther--Ver. 11, where the Servant of God ascribes to himself the judgment upon the unbelieving mass of the people: "From my hand is this to you," in harmony with Matt. xxvi. 64 and other passages, where the Son of Man appears as executing judgment upon Jerusalem. Finally--The parallel passages.
Most of the modern interpreters assume that the Prophet himself, Isaiah, or Pseudo-Isaiah, is the subject of the prophecy. Jerome mentions that this explanation was the prevailing one among the Jews of his time. The explanation which refers it to the better portion of the people, found only one defender, viz., Paulus. The explanation which refers it to the whole of the Jewish people, or to the collective body of the prophets, has been entirely abandoned, although it is maintained in reference to the parallel passages.
Since it is undeniable that this Section is related to the other prophecies which treat of the Servant of God,--and hence an identity of subject is necessarily required--those who, in the Section under consideration, are compelled to give up their former hypothesis, themselves bear witness against the correctness of it, at the same time, also against the soundness of their explanation of the passage before us. For an explanation which compels to the severance of what is necessarily connected, cannot be right and true. It is only then that Exegesis has attained its object, when it has arrived at a subject in whom all those features, which occur in the single prophecies which are connected with each other, are found at the same time. Knobel, in saying: "This small unconnected Section, is the only one in the whole collection, in which the Prophet speaks of himself only, and represents his suffering's and hopes," has thereby himself pronounced judgment upon his own interpretation of this Section, and at the same time, of the other prophecies of the Servant of God.