2. That view which makes a single individual other than the Messiah the subject of the prophecy, has found, with the Jews, comparatively the fewest defenders. We have already seen, that, besides the explanation which makes the Jewish people the subject, Abarbanel advances still another, which refers it to king Josiah. Rabbi Saadias Haggaon explained the whole section of Jeremiah.
Notwithstanding all these efforts, however, the Rabbins have not succeeded in entirely supplanting the right explanation, and in thus divesting the passage of all that is dangerous to their system. Among the Cabbalistical Jews, it is even still the prevailing one. In numerous cases, it was just this chapter which formed, to proselytes from Judaism, the first foundation of their conviction of the truth of Christianity.
[B. HISTORY OF THE INTERPRETATION WITH THE CHRISTIANS.]
Among Christians, the interpretation has taken nearly the same course as among the Jews. Similar causes have produced similar effects in both cases. By both, the true explanation was relinquished, when the prevailing tendencies had become opposed to its results. And if we descend to particulars, we shall find a great resemblance even between the modes of interpretation proposed by both.
1. Even, a priori, we could not but suppose otherwise than that the Christian Church, as long as she possessed Christ, found Him here also, where He is so clearly and distinctly set before our eyes,--that as long as she in general still acknowledged the authority of Christ, and of the Apostles, she could not but, here too, follow their distinct, often-repeated testimony. And so, indeed, do we find it to be. With the exception of a certain Silesian, called Seidel--who, given up to total unbelief, asserted that the Messiah had never yet come, nor would ever come, (comp. Jac. Martini l. 3, de tribus Elohim, p. 592)--and of Grotius, both of whom supposed Jeremiah to be the subject, no one in the Christian Church has, for seventeen centuries, ventured to call in question the Messianic interpretation. On the contrary, this passage was always considered to be the most distinct and glorious of all the Messianic prophecies. Out of the great mass of testimonies, we shall quote a few. Augustine, De Civitate Dei, i. 18, c. 29, says: "Isaiah has not only reproved the people for their iniquity, and instructed them in righteousness, and foretold to the people calamities impending over them in the Future; but he has also a greater number of predictions, than the other prophets, concerning Christ and the Church, i.e., concerning the King, and the Kingdom established by Him; so that some interpreters would rather call him an Evangelist than a Prophet." In proof of this assertion, he then quotes the passage under consideration, and closes with the words: "Surely that may suffice! There are in those words some things too which require explanation; but I think that things which are so clear should compel even enemies, against their will, to understand them." In a similar manner he expresses himself in: De consensu Evangelistarum l. i. c. 31. Theodoret remarks on this passage (opp. ed. Hal. t. ii. p. 358): "The Prophet represents to us, in this passage, the whole course of His (Christ's) humiliation unto death. Most wonderful is the power of the Holy Spirit. For that which was to take place after many generations. He showed to the holy prophets in such a manner that they did not merely hear Him declare these things, but saw them." In a similar manner, Justin, Irenaeus, Cyril of Alexandria, and Jerome, express themselves. From the Churches of the Reformation, we shall here quote the testimonies of two of their founders only. Zwingle, in Annot. ad h. l. (opp. t. iii. Tur. 1544, fol. 292) says: "That which now follows is so clear a testimony of Christ, that I do not know whether, anywhere in Scripture, there could be found anything more consistent, or that anything could be more distinctly said. For it is quite in vain that the obstinacy and perversity of the Jews have tried it from all sides." Luther remarks on the passage: "And, no doubt, there is not, in all the Old Testament Scriptures, a clearer text or prophecy, both of the suffering and the resurrection of Christ, than in this chapter. Wherefore it is but right that it should be well known to all Christians, yea should be committed to memory, that thereby we may strengthen our faith, and defend it, chiefly against the stiff-necked Jews who deny their only promised Christ, solely on account of the offence of His cross."
It was reserved to the last quarter of the last century to be the first to reject the Messianic interpretation. At a time when Naturalism exercised its sway, it could no longer be retained.[1] For, if this passage contains a Messianic prophecy at all, its contents offer so striking an agreement with the history of Christ, that its origin cannot at all be accounted for in the natural way. Expedients were, therefore, sought for; and these were so much the more easily found, that the Jews had, in this matter, already opened up the way. All that was necessary, was only to appropriate their arguments and counter-arguments, and to invest them with the semblance of solidity by means of a learned apparatus.
The non-Messianic interpretation among Christians, like those among the Jews, may be divided into two main classes: 1. Those which are founded upon the supposition that a collective body is the subject of the prophecy; and 2, those which, by the Servant of God, understand any other single individual except the Messiah. The first class, again, falls into several sub-divisions: (a.), those interpretations which refer the prophecy to the whole Jewish people; (b.), those which refer it to the Jewish people in the abstract; (c.), those which refer it to the pious portion of the Jewish people; (d.), those which refer it to the order of the priests; (e.), those which refer it to the order of the prophets.
1. (a.) Comparatively the greatest number of non-Messianic interpreters make the whole Jewish people the subject of the prophecy. This hypothesis is adopted, among others, by Doederlein, (in the preface and annotations, in the third edition of Isaiah, but in such a manner that he still wavers betwixt this and the Messianic interpretation, which formerly he had defended with great zeal); by Schuster (in a special treatise, Göttingen 1794); by Stephani (Gedanken über die Entstehung u. Ausbildung der Idee von inem Messias, Nürnberg 1787); by the author of the letters on Isaiah liii., in the 6th vol. of Eichhorn's Bibliothek; by Eichhorn (in his exposition of the Prophets); by Rosenmüller (in the second edition of his Commentary, leaving to others the interpretation which referred the prophecy to the prophetic order, although he himself had first recommended it), and many others. The last who defend it are Hitzig, Hendewerk, and Köster (de Serv. Jeh. Kiel, 38). Substantially, it has remained the same as we have seen it among the Jews. The only difference is, that these expositors understand, by the sufferings of the Servant of God, the sufferings of the Jewish people in the Babylonish captivity; while the Jewish interpreters understand thereby the sufferings of the Jewish people in their present exile. They, too, suppose that, from vers. 1 to 10, the Gentile nations are introduced as speaking, and make the penitent confession that they have formed an erroneous opinion of Israel, and now see that its suffering's are not the punishment of its own sins, but that it had suffered as a substitute for their sins.
(b.) The hypothesis which makes the Jewish people in the abstract--in antithesis to its single members--the subject of this prophecy, was discovered by Eckermann, theol. Beiträge, Bd. i. H. i. S. 192 ff. According to Ewald, the prophecy refers to "Israel according to its true idea." According to Bleek, the Servant of God is a "designation of the whole people, but not of the people in its actual reality, but as it existed in the imagination of the author,--the ideal of the people."
(c.) The hypothesis, that the pious portion of the Jewish people--in contrast to the ungodly--are the subject, has been defended especially by Paulus (Memorabilien, Bd. 3, S. 175-192, and Clavis on Isaiah). His view was adopted by Ammon (Christologie, S. 108 ff.). The principal features of this view are the following:--It was not on account of their own sins that the godly portion of the nation were punished and carried into captivity along with the ungodly, but on account of the ungodly who, however, by apostatising from the religion of Jehovah, knew how to obtain a better fate. The ungodly drew from it the inference that the hope of the godly, that Jehovah would come to their help, had been in vain. But when the captivity came to an end, and the godly returned, they saw that they had been mistaken, and that the hope of the godly was well founded. They, therefore, full of repentance, deeply lament that they had not long ago repented of their sins. This view is adopted also by Von Cölln in his Biblische Theologie; by Thenius in Wiener's Zeitschrift, ii. 1; by Maurer and Knobel. The latter says: "Those who were zealous adherents of the Theocracy had a difficult position among their own people, and had to suffer most from foreign tyrants." The true worshippers of Jehovah were given up to mockery and scorn, to persecution and the grossest abuse, and were in a miserable and horrible condition, unworthy of men and almost inhuman. The punishments for sin had to be endured chiefly by those who did not deserve them. Thus the view easily arose that the godly suffered in substitution for the whole people.