[215] Cut off violently, prematurely, unnaturally.
[217] The verbs, hitherto in the perfect in this verse, now change to the imperfect; a sign that they express the purpose of God. Cf. Dillmann, in loco.
[218] From the travail of his soul shall he see, and by his knowledge be satisfied. Taking בדעתו with ישבע instead of with יצדיק. This reading suggested itself to me some years ago. Since then I have found it only in Prof. Briggs's translation, Messianic Prophecy, p. 359. It is supported by the frequent parallel in which we find seeing and knowing in Hebrew.
[219] Some translate many, i.e., the many to whom he brings righteousness, as if he were a victor with a great host behind him.
[220] Jer. xxiii. 5.
[221] Hitzig (among others) held that it is the prophets who are the speakers of ver. 1, and that the voices of the penitent people come in only with ver. 2 or ver. 3. In that case שמועתינו would mean what we heard from God (שמועה is elsewhere used for the prophetic message) and delivered to the people. This interpretation multiplies the dramatis personæ, but does not materially alter the meaning, of the prophecy. It merely changes part of the penitent people's self-reproach into a reproach cast on them by their prophets. But there is no real reason for introducing the prophets as the speakers of ver. 1.
[222] For the argument that it is Israel who speaks here, see Hoffmann (Schriftbeweis), who was converted from the other view, and Dillmann, 4th ed., in loco. A very ingenious attempt has been made by Giesebrecht (Beiträge zur Jesaia Kritik, 1890, p. 146 ff.), in favour of the interpretation that the heathen are the speakers. His reasons are these: 1. It is the heathen who are spoken of in lii. 13-15, and a change to Israel would be too sudden. Answer: The heathen are not exclusively spoken of in lii. 13-15; but if they were a change in the next verse to Israel would not be more rapid than some already made by the prophet. 2. The words in liii. 1 suit the heathen. They have already received the news of the exaltation of the Servant, which in lii. 15 was promised them. This is the שמועתנו, that is news we have just heard. האמין is a pluperfect of the subjunctive mood: Who could or who would have believed this news of the exaltation we have just heard, and the arm of Jehovah to whom was it revealed! i.e., it was revealed to nobody. Answer: besides the precariousness of taking האמין as a pluperfect subjunctive, this interpretation is opposed to the general effort of the prophecy, which is to expose unbelief before the exaltation, not after it. 3. To get rid of the argument—that, while the speakers own that the Servant bears their sins, it is said the Servant was stricken for the sins of my people, and that therefore the speakers must be the same as "my people":—Giesebrecht would utterly alter the reading of ver. 8 from מפשע עמו ננע למו, for the transgression of my people was the stroke to him to מִפִּשְׁעָם יְנֻנַּע, for their stroke was he smitten.
[223] נשׂא and סבל. In speaking of his country's woes, Jeremiah (x. 19) says: This is sickness, or my sickness, and I must bear it, ואשׂאני זה חלי. Ezekiel (iv. 4) is commanded to lie on his side, and in that symbolic position to bear the iniquity of His people, תשא עונם. One of the Lamentations (v. 7) complains: Our fathers have sinned and are not, and we bear (סבל) their iniquities. In these cases the meaning of both נשא and סבל is simply to feel the weight of, be involved in. The verbs do not convey the sense of carrying off or expiating. But still it had been said of the Servant that in his suffering he would be practical and prosper; so that when we now hear that he bears his people's sins, we are ready to understand that he does not do this for the mere sake of sharing them, but for a practical purpose, which, of course, can only be their removal. There is, therefore, no need to quarrel with the interpretation of ver. 4, that the Servant carries away the suffering with which he is laden. Matthew makes this interpretation (viii. 17) in speaking of Christ's healing. But it is a very interesting fact, and not without light upon the free and plastic way in which the New Testament quotes from the Old, that Matthew has ignored the original and literal meaning of the quotation, which is that the Servant shared the sicknesses of the people: a sense impossible in the case for which the Evangelist uses the words.
[224] But they do not tell us, whether they were totally exempted from suffering by the Servant's pains, or whether they also suffered with him the consequence of their misdeeds. For that question is not now present to their minds. Whether they also suffer or not (and other chapters in the prophecy emphasize the people's bearing of the consequences of their misdeeds), they know that it was not their own, but the Servant's suffering, which was alone the factor in their redemption.