[ [1]] The same thing occurs also in the parallel passages, chap. xlix. 9, on which Gesenius was constrained to remark: "As the deliverance was still impending, the Preterites cannot well be understood in any other way than as Futures."
[III. THE ARGUMENTS IN FAVOUR OF THE MESSIANIC INTERPRETATION.]
Even the fact that this is among the Jews the original interpretation, which was given up from their evil disposition only, makes us favourably inclined towards it. The authority of tradition is here of so much the greater consequence, the more that the Messianic interpretation was opposed to the disposition of the people. How deeply rooted was this interpretation, appears even from the declaration of John the Baptist, John i. 29: ἴδε ὁ ἀμνὸς τοῦ θεοῦ ὁ αἴρων τῆν ἁμαρτίαν τοῦ κόσμου. There cannot be any doubt that, in this declaration, he points to the prophecy under consideration, inasmuch as this passage is the first in Holy Scripture in which the sin-bearing lamb is spoken of in a spiritual sense. Bengel, following the example of Erasmus, remarks, in reference to the article before ἀμνὸς: "The article looks back to the prophecy which was given concerning Him under this figure, in Is. liii. 7." As regards θεοῦ, compare ver. 10: "It pleased the Lord painfully to crush Him," and ver. 2: "Before Him;" as regards ὁ αἴρων, &c. comp. ver. 4, rendered by the LXX.: οὗ̂τος τὰς ἁμαρτίας ἡμω̂ν φέρει; comp. ver. 11.
An external argument of still greater weight is the testimony of the New Testament. Above all, it is the declarations of our Lord himself which here come into consideration. In Luke xxii. 37, He says that the prophecies concerning Him were drawing near their perfect fulfilment (τὰ περὶ ἐμοῦ τέλος ἔχει), comp. Matt. xxvi. 51, and that therefore the declaration: "And He was reckoned among the transgressors" must be fulfilled in Him. In Mark ix. 12, the Lord asks: πῶς γέγραπται ἐπὶ τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου, ἵνα πολλὰ πάθῃ καὶ ἐξουδενηθῇ, with a reference to "from man," and "from the sons of man" in lii. 14,--to "He had no form nor comeliness" in ver. 2,--to "despised," נבזה, which, by Symmachus and Theodotian is rendered by ἐξουδενωμένος, in ver. 3. In the Gospel of John, the Lord emphatically and repeatedly points out, that the words: "When His soul hath given restitution," are written concerning Him; compare remarks on ver. 10. After these distinct quotations and references, we shall be obliged to think chiefly of our passage, in Luke xxiv. 25-27, 44-46 also. The opponents themselves grant that, if in any passage of the Old Testament the doctrine of a suffering and atoning Messiah is contained, it is in the passage under review. The circumstance also, that the disciples of the Lord refer, on every occasion, and with such confidence, the passage to the Lord, likewise proves that Christ especially interpreted it of His sufferings and exaltation. Of Matt. viii. 17, and Mark xv. 28, we have already spoken. John, in chap. xii. 37, 38, and Paul in Rom. x. 16, find a fulfilment of chap. liii. 1 in the unbelief of the Jews. In Acts viii. 28-35, Philip, on the question of the eunuch from Ethiopia, as to whom the prophecy referred, explained it of Christ. After the example of De Wette, Gesenius lays special stress on the circumstance, that the passage was never quoted in reference to the atoning death of Christ. But Peter, when speaking of the vicarious satisfaction of Christ, makes a literal use of the principal passages of the prophecy under consideration, 1 Pet. ii. 21-25; and it is, in general, quite the usual way of the New Testament to support its statements by our passage, whensoever the discourse falls upon this subject; comp. e.g., besides the texts quoted at ver. 10, Mark ix. 12; Rom. iv. 25; 1 Cor. xv. 3; 2 Cor. v. 21; 1 John iii. 5; Pet. i. 19; Rev. v. 6, xiii. 8. Even Gesenius himself acknowledges elsewhere, that we have here the text for the whole Apostolic preaching on the atoning death of Jesus. "Most Hebrew readers"--so he says, Th. iii. S. 191--"who were so familiar with the ideas of sacrifice and substitution, could not by any means understand the passage in any other way; and there is no doubt that the whole apostolic notion of the atoning death of Christ is chiefly based upon this passage." The circumstance, that the reference to this passage appears commonly only in the form of an allusion, and not of express quotation, proves only so much the more clearly, that its reference to the atoning death of Christ was a point absolutely settled in the ancient Church.
In favour of the Messianic interpretation are not only the passages from the second part, chap. xlii., &c., but also, from the first part, the passage chap. xi. 1, which so remarkably agrees with chap. liii. 2, that both must be referred to the same subject.
To these external reasons, the internal must be added. The Christian Church--the best judge--has at all times recognised in this prophecy the faithful and wonderfully accurate image of her Lord and Saviour in His atoning sufferings and the glory following upon them, in His innocence and righteousness, in His meekness and silent patience (the New Testament, in speaking of them, frequently points back to our passage), and in the burial with a rich man, ver. 9. The most characteristic feature is the atoning character of the suffering of the Servant of God, and of the shedding of His blood. Several interpreters have endeavoured to explain away this feature which they dislike. Kimchi says: "One must not imagine that the case really stands thus, that in Israel the captivity actually bears the sins and diseases of the heathens (for that would be opposed to the justice of God), but that the Gentiles at that time, when seeing the glorious deliverance of Israel, would thus judge concerning it." A futile evasion! It is not the Gentiles who speak in chap. liii. 1–10, but the believing Church. Every sincere reader will at once feel, that it is not the foolish fancies of others which the Prophet communicates in these verses, but the divine truth made known to him. The doctrine of the substitution, the Prophet, moreover, states in his own name, by saying, "He shall sprinkle many nations;" and so likewise in the name of God, in chap. liii. 11, 12. According to Martini, De Wette, and others, the expressions are to be understood figuratively, and the contents and substance to be this only, that those severe calamities which that divine minister would have to sustain would be useful and salutary to His compatriots. But the fact that the same doctrine constantly returns under the most varied expressions, is decidedly in favour of the literal interpretation. Thus, it is said in chap. lii. 15, that the Servant of God should sprinkle many nations; in liii. 4, that He bore our diseases and took upon Him our pains; in ver. 5, that He was pierced for our transgressions; in ver. 8, that He bore the punishment which the people ought to have borne; in ver. 10, that He offered his soul as a sin-offering; in ver. 11, that by His righteousness many should be justified; in ver. 12, that He bore the sins of many, and poured out His soul unto death, and that He could make intercession for transgressors, because He was numbered with them. To this it may still be added that in chap. lii. 15 (יזה), liii. 10 (אשם), and ver. 12: "He bears the sins of many," (compare Levit. xvi. 21, 22; Michaelis: "Ut typice hircus pro Israëlitis") the Servant of God appears as the antitype of the Old Testament sin-offerings in which, as has been proved (compare my pamphlet: Die Opfer der heil. Schrift, S. 12 ff.), the idea of substitution in the doctrine of the Old Testament finds its foundation. There cannot be the least doubt, that the Prophet could not express himself more clearly, strongly, and distinctly, if his intention was to state the doctrine of substitution; and those who undertake to explain it away, would not, by so doing, leave any thing firm and certain in Scripture. Rosenmüller (Gabler's Journal, ii. S. 365), Gesenius, Hitzig have indeed candidly confessed that the passage contained the doctrine of vicarious satisfaction, after Alshech had, among the Jews, given the honour to truth.