Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2

by Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg

Ver. 5, "And He was pierced for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed."

הוא "He" stands in front, in order emphatically to point out Him who suffered as a substitute, in contrast to those who had really deserved the punishment: "He, on account of our transgressions." There is no reason for deviating:, in the case of חלל, from the original signification "to pierce," and adopting the general signification "to wound;" the LXX. ἐτραυματίσθη. The chastisement of our peace is the chastisement whereby peace is acquired for us. Peace stands as an individualizing designation of salvation; in the world of contentions, peace is one of the highest blessings. Natural man is on all sides surrounded by enemies; δικαιωθέντες ἐκ πίστεως εἰρήνην ἔχομεν πρὸς τὸν θεὸν διὰ τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, Rom. v. 1, and peace with God renders all other enemies innocuous, and at last removes them altogether. The peace is inseparable from the substitution. If the Servant of God has borne our sins, He has thereby, at the same time, acquired peace; for, just as He enters into our guilt, so we now enter into His reward. The justice of God has been satisfied through Him; and thus an open way has been prepared for His bestowing peace and salvation. The chastisement can, according to the context, be only an actual one, only such as consists in the infliction of some evil. It is in misconception and narrowness of view that the explanation of the followers of Menke originated: "The instruction for our peace is with Him." This explanation militates against the whole context, in which not the doctrine but the suffering of the Servant of God is spoken of; against the parallelism with: "By His wounds we are healed;" against the עליו, "upon Him," which, according to a comparison with: "He bore our disease, and took upon Him our pains," must indicate that the punishment lay upon the sufferer like a pressing burden. It is only from aversion to the doctrine of the vicarious satisfaction of Christ, that we can account for the fact, that that doctrine could be so generally received by that theological school. More candid are the rationalistic interpreters. Thus Hitzig remarks: "The chastisement of our peace is not a chastisement which would have been salutary for our morality, nor such as might serve for our salvation, but according to the parallelism, such as has served for our salvation, and has allowed us to come off safe and unhurt." Stier, too, endeavours to explain the "chastisement of our peace," in an artificial way. According to him, there is always implied in מוסר the tendency towards setting right and healing the chastised one himself; but wherever this word occurs, a retributive pain and destruction are never spoken of But, in opposition to this view, there is the fact that מוסר does not by any means rarely occur as signifying the punishments which are inflicted upon stiff-necked obduracy, and which bear a destructive character, and which, therefore, cannot be derived from the principle of correction, but from that of retribution only. Thus, e.g., in Prov. xv. 10: "Bad chastisement shall be to those that forsake the way, and he that hateth chastisement shall die," on which Michaelis remarks: "In antanaclasi ad correptionem amicam et paternum, mortem et mala quaelibet inferens, in ira," Ps. vi. 2. Of destructive punishment, too, the verb is used in Jer. ii. 19. But one does not at all see how the idea of "setting right" should be suitable here; for surely, as regards the Servant of God himself, the absolutely Righteous, the suffering here has the character of chastisement. It is not the mere suffering, but the chastisement, which is upon Him; but that necessarily requires that the punishment should proceed from the principle of retribution, and that the Servant of God stands forth as our Substitute.--נרפא, Preter. Niph., hence "healing has been bestowed upon us;"--רפא with ל, in the signification "to bring healing," occurs also in chap. vi. 10, but nowhere else. The healing is an individualising designation of deliverance from the punishments of sin, called forth by the circumstance that disease occupied so prominent a place among them, and had therefore been so prominently brought forward in what precedes. In harmony with the Apostolic quotation, the expression clearly shows that the punitive sufferings were already lying upon the persons speaking; that by the Substitute they were not by any means delivered from the future evils, but that the punishment, the inseparable companion of sin, already existed, and was taken away by Him.

Ver. 6. "All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord hath made the iniquities of us all to fall upon Him."

Calvin remarks: "In order the more strongly to impress upon the hearts of men the benefits of Christ's death, the Prophet shews how necessary is that healing which was mentioned before. There is herd an elegant antithesis; for, in ourselves we are scattered, but, in Christ collected; by nature we go astray and are carried headlong to destruction,--in Christ we find the way in which we are led to the gate of salvation; our iniquities cover and oppress us,--but they are transferred to Christ by whom we are unburdened."--All we--in the first instance, members of the covenant-people,--not, however, as contrasted with the rest of mankind, but as partaking in the general human destiny.--We have turned every one to his own way; we walked through life solitary, forsaken, miserable, separated from God and the good Shepherd, and deprived of His pastoral care. According to Hofmann, the going astray designates the liability to punishment, but not the misery of the speakers; and the words also: "We have turned," &c., mean, according to him, that they chose their own ways, but not that they walked sorrowful or miserable. But the ordinary use of the image militates against that view. In Ps. cxix. 176: "I go astray like a lost sheep, seek thy servant," the going astray is a figurative designation of being destitute of salvation. The misery of the condition is indicated by the image of the scattered flock, also in 1 Kings xxii. 17: "I saw all Israel scattered upon the hills as sheep that have not a shepherd." Michaelis pertinently remarks: "Nothing is so miserable as sheep without a shepherd,--a thing which Scripture so often repeats, Num. xxvii. 17," &c. As a commentary upon our passage, Ezek. xxxiv. 4-6 may serve; and according to that passage we shall be compelled to think of their being destitute of the care of a shepherd: "And they are scattered, because there is no Shepherd; and they become meat to all the beasts of the field. My sheep wander on all the mountains, and on every high hill, and over the whole land my sheep are scattered, and there is none that careth for them, or seeketh them." The point of comparison is very distinctly stated in Matt. ix. 36 also: ἰδὼν δὲ τοὺς ὄχλους ἐσπλαγχνίσθη περὶ αὐτῶν, ὅτι ἦσαν ἐσκυλμένοι καὶ ἐῤῥιμένοι ὡσεὶ πρόβατα μὴ ἔχοντα ποιμένα. Without doubt, turning to one's own ways is sinful, comp. chap. lvi. 11; but here it is not so much the aspect of sin, as that of misery, which is noticed. As the chief reason of the sheep's wandering and going astray, the bad condition of the shepherd must be considered, comp. Jer. l. 6: "Perishing sheep were my people; their shepherds led them astray," John x. 8: πάντες ὅσοι πρὸ ἐμοῦ ἦλθον, κλέπται εἰσὶ καὶ λῃσταί--פגע with ב signifies "to hit;" hence Hiphil, "to cause to hit." The iniquities of the whole community hit the Servant of God in their punishments; but according to the biblical view, their punishments can come upon Him only as such, only by His coming forward as a substitute for sinners, and not because He suffers for the guilt of others to which He remained a stranger. By this throwing the guilt upon the Servant of God, the condition of being without a shepherd is done away with, the flock is gathered from its scattered condition. The wall of separation which was raised by its guilt, and which separated it from God, the fountain of salvation, is now removed by His substitution, and the words: "The Lord is my Shepherd," now become a truth, comp. John x. 4.

Ver. 7. "He was oppressed, and when He was plagued, He does not open His mouth, like a lamb which is brought to the slaughter, and as a sheep which is dumb before her shearers, and He does not open his mouth."

In these words, we have a description of the manner in which the Servant of God bore such sufferings. It flows necessarily from the circumstance, that it was a vicarious suffering. The substitution implies that He took them upon Him spontaneously; and this has patience for its companion. First, the contents of ver. 6 are once more summed up in the word נגש, "He was oppressed:" then, this condition of the Servant of God is brought into connection with His conduct, which, only in this connection, appears in its full majesty.--נגש is the Preterite in Niphal, and not, as Beck thinks, 1st pers. Fut. Kal. For the Future would be here unusual; the verb has elsewhere the Future in o; the suffix is wanting, and the sense which then arises suits only the untenable supposition that, in vers. 1-10, the Gentiles are speaking. The Niphal occurs in 1 Sam. xiii. 6, of Israel oppressed by the Philistines; and in 1 Sam. xiv. 24, of those borne down by heavy toil and fatigue. נגש and נענה "to be humbled, oppressed, abused," do not, in themselves essentially differ; it is only on account of the context, and the contrast implied in it, that the same condition is once more designated by a word which is nearly synonymous. The words "and He" separate נענה from what precedes, and connect it with what follows. The explanation: "He was oppressed, but He suffered patiently," has this opposed to it, that the two Niphals, following immediately upon one another, cannot here stand in a different meaning. The idea of patience would here not be a collateral, but the main idea, and hence, could not stand without a stronger designation.--In יפתח, the real Future has taken the place of the ideal Past; it shows that the preceding Preterites are to be considered as prophetical, and that, in point of fact, the suffering of the Servant of God is no less future than His glorification. The lamb points back to Exod. xii. 3, and designates Christ as the true paschal lamb. With a reference to the verse under consideration, John the Baptist calls Christ the Lamb of God, John i. 29; comp. 1 Pet. i. 18, 19; Acts viii. 32-35. But since it is not the vicarious character of Christ's sufferings which here, in the first instance, comes into consideration, but His patience under them, the lamb is associated with the female sheep, and that not in relation to her slayers, but to her shearers. The last words: "And He does not open His mouth," are not to be referred to the lamb, as some think, (even the circumstance that the preceding רחל is a feminine noun militates against this view), but, like the first: "He does not open His mouth," to the Servant of God. It is an expressive repetition, and one which is intended to direct attention to this feature; comp. the close of ver. 3; Gen. xlix. 4: Judges v. 16. The fulfilment is shown by 1 Pet. ii. 23: ὃς λοιδορούμενος οὐκ ἀντελοιδόρει, πάσχων οὐκ ἠπείλει, παρεδίδου δὲ τῷ κρίνοντι δικαίως; and likewise Matt. xxvii. 12-14: καὶ ἐν τῷ κατηγορεῖσθαι αὐτὸν ὑπὸ τῶν ἀρχιερέων καὶ πρεσβυτέρων οὐὲν ἀπεκρίνατο. Τότε λέγει αὐτῷ ὁ Πιλᾶτος· οὐκ ἀκούεις πόσασου καταμαρτυροῦσιν; καὶ οὐκ ἀπεκρίθη αὐτῷ πρὸς οὐδὲν ἓν ῥῆμα, ὥστε θαυμάζειν τὸν ἡγεμόνα λίαν. Comp. xxvi. 62; Mark xv. 5; Luke xxiii. 9; John xix. 9.

The third subdivision of the principal portion, vers. 8-10, describes the reward of the Servant of God, by expanding the words: "Kings shall shut their mouths on account of Him," in chap. lii. 15, and "He shall be exalted," in ver. 13.

Ver. 8. "From oppression and from judgment He was taken, and His generation who can think it out; for He was cut of out of the land of the living for the transgression of my people, whose the punishment."

God--such is the sense--takes Him to himself from heavy oppression, and He who apparently was destroyed without leaving a trace, receives an infinitely numerous generation (compare John xii. 32: κᾀγὼ ἑὰν ὑψωθῶ ἐκ τῆς γῆς πάντας ἑλκύσω πρὸς ἐμαυτόν), as a deserved reward for having, by His violent death, atoned for the sins of His people, delivered them from destruction, and acquired them for His property.--עצר "oppression," as Ps. cvii. 39, properly, according to the signification of the verb: "Shutting up," "restraining," "hindering." From what goes before, where the evils from which the Servant of God is here delivered are described more in detail, it appears that here we have not to think of a prison properly so called; for there, it is not a prison, but abuse and oppression which are spoken of.--משפט is commonly referred to the judgment which the enemies of the Servant of God passed upon Him, The premised עצר then furnishes the distinct qualification of the judgment, shows that that which, in a formal point of view, presents itself as a judicial proceeding, is, in point of fact, heavy oppression. But, at the same time, משפט serves as a limitation for עצר. We learn from it that the hatred of the enemies moved within the limits of judicial proceedings,--just as it happened in the history of Christ. But behind the human judgment, the divine is concealed, Jer. i. 16; Ezek. v. 8; Ps. cxliii. 2. This is shown by what precedes, where the suffering of the Servant of God is so emphatically and repeatedly designated as the punishment of sin inflicted upon Him by God.--לקח with מן "to be taken away from;" according to Stier: "taken away from suffering, being delivered from it by God's having taken Him to himself, to the land of eternal bliss." This view, according to which the words refer to the glorification of the Servant of God, has been adopted by the Church. It is adopted by the Vulgate: "De angustia et judicio sublatus est;" by Jerome, who says on this passage: "From tribulation and judgment He ascended, as a conqueror, to the Father;" and by Michaelis who thus interprets it: "He was taken away, and received at the right hand of the Majesty." By several interpretations, the words are still referred to the state of humiliation of the Servant of God: "Through oppression and judgment He was dragged to execution." But the Prophet has already, in ver. 3, finished the description of the mere sufferings of the Servant of God--vers. 4-7 exhibit the cause of His sufferings and His conduct under them; לקח cannot, by itself, signify "to be dragged to execution"--in that case, as in Prov. xxiv. 11, "to death" would have been added; מן must be taken in the signification, "from," "out of," as in the subsequent מארץ, compare 2 Kings iii. 9, where לקח with מן signifies "to take from." In the passage under consideration, as well as in those two passages which refer to the ascension of Elijah, there is a distinct allusion to Gen. v. 24, where it is said of Enoch: "And he was no more, for God had taken him."--And His generation who can think it out? דור, properly "circle," is not only the communion of those who are connected by co-existence, but also of those who are connected by disposition, be it good or bad.^[6] Thus, the generation of the children of God in Ps. lxxiii. 15; the generation of the righteous, Ps. xiv. 5; the generation of the upright, in Ps. cxii. 2. Here, the generation of the Servant of God is the communion of those who are animated by His Spirit, filled with His life. This company will, after His death, increase to an infinite greatness. שוח and שיח "to meditate," is commonly connected with ב of the object, but occurs also with the simple Accusative, in the signification "to meditate upon something," in Ps. cxlv. 5. There is, as it appears, an allusion to the promise to Abraham, Gen. xiii. 16: "And I make thy seed as the dust of the earth, so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered,"--a promise which received its complete fulfilment just by the Servant of God. The explanation which we have given was adopted by the LXX.: τὴν γενέαν αὐτοῦ τίς διηγήσεται. Next to it, comes the explanation: "Who can think out His posterity;" but against this, it is conclusive that דור never occurs in the signification "posterity." The parallel passage in ver. 10: "He shall see seed," or "posterity," holds good even for our view; for since the posterity is a spiritual one, it is substantially identical with generation here. But it may, a priori, be expected that the same thing shall be designated from various aspects. If "generation" be taken in the signification "posterity," then the words: "He shall see seed" would be a mere repetition. The appropriateness of the sense which, according to our explanation, comes out, will become especially evident, if we consider that, in vers. 8-10, we have the carrying out of that which, in the sketch, was said of the respectful homage of the many nations and kings. A whole host of explanations assigns to דור significations which cannot be vindicated. Thus, the translation of Luther: "Who shall disclose the length of His life?" that of Hitzig: His destiny; that of Beck: His importance and influence in the history of the world; that of Knobel: His dwelling place, i.e., His grave, who considered? The signification, "dwelling place," does not at all belong to דור. In Isaiah xxxviii. 12, דור are the cotemporaries from whom the dying man is taken away, and who are withdrawn from him: "My generation is taken away, and removed from me like a shepherd's tent"--dying Hezekiah there laments. Inadmissible, likewise, is the explanation: "Who of His cotemporaries will consider, or considered, it" for את, the sign of the Accusative, cannot stand before the Nomin. Absol. In Nehem. ix. 34, this use is by no means certain, and, at all events, we cannot draw any inference from the language of Nehemiah as to that of Isaiah. The Ellipses: "the true cause of His death," "the importance and fruit of His death," "the salvation lying behind it" (Stier), are very hard, and the sense which is purchased by such sacrifices is rather a common-place one, little suitable to this context, and to the relation to chap. lii. 15.--"For He was cut off from the land of the living, for the transgression of my people, whose the punishment." The reason is here stated why the Servant of God receives so glorious a reward; why, after He has been removed to God, a generation so infinitely great is granted to Him. He has deserved this reward by His having suffered for the sins of His people, as their substitute. The first clause must not be separated from the second: "for the transgression," &c. For it is not the circumstance, that the Servant of God suffered a violent death at all, but that for the sin of His people He took it upon Him, which is the ground of His glorification. נגזר "to be cut off" never occurs of a quiet, natural death; not even in the passage, quoted in support of this use of the word, viz., Psa. lxxxviii. 6; Lam. iii. 54, but always of a violent, premature death. The cognate נגרז also has, in Psa. xxxi. 23, the signification of extermination. למו, poetical form for להם, refers to the collective עם. Before it, the relative pronoun is to be understood: for the sin of my people, whose the punishment, q.d., whose property the punishment was, to whom it belonged. Stier prefers to adopt the most violent interpretation rather than to conform and yield to this so simple sense, which, as he says, could be entertained only by that obsolete theory of substitution where one saves the other from suffering. Several interpreters take the suffix in למו as a Singular: "on account of the transgression of my people, punishment was to Him." And passages, indeed, are not wanting where the supposition that מו designates the Singular, has some appearance of probability; but, upon a closer examination, this appearance everywhere vanishes.^[7] Moreover, as we have already remarked, it is, on account of the sense, inadmissible to separate the two clauses.--By עמי "my people," the hypothesis of the non-Messianic interpreters is set aside, that in vers. 1-10 the Gentiles are speaking. It is a single people to which the speakers belong, the covenant-people, for whose benefit the atonement and substitution of the Servant of God were, in the first instance, intended (comp. σώσει τὸν λαὸν αὑτοῦ ἀπὸ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν αὐτῶν, Matth. i. 21) yea, were, to a certain degree, exclusively intended, inasmuch as the believing Gentiles were received into it as adopted children. It is a forced expedient to say: every single individual of the Gentiles, or of their princes, says that the Servant of God has suffered for the sin of His people, hence also for His own. And just as inadmissible is the supposition that a representative of the heathen world is speaking; the whole heathen world cannot be designated as a people.

Ver. 9. "And they gave Him His grave with the wicked, and with a rich in His death, because He had done no violence, neither was any deceit in His mouth."