these words that they fitly appear here as the close of this discussion. Comment upon them is unnecessary. The author says to his readers, "If when ye do well and suffer, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God. For hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow his steps: who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously: who his own self bare our sins in his body upon the tree, that we, having died unto sins, might live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye are healed. For ye' were going astray like sheep; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls." III. APPENDIX ON SECOND ISAIAH. 1. Several recent authors incline to the opinion that there are three main authors of Isaiah xl.-lxvi. Second Isaiah wrote chapters xl.-lv., except the sections named below, and lived toward the close of the exile. Later than this the "Servant of Jahveh fragments" were written and based upon 2 Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Job. These are found in xlii. 1-4; xlix. 1-6; 1. 4-9; and lii. 13-liii. 12. To 3 Isaiah belong chapters lvi.-lxvi. These three books were put together at a very late date by an editor who made changes in chapters xliv., xlvi., xlviii., and 1. 10 fol., bringing them into closer harmony with 3 Isaiah. Smend has recently (1893) come to the support of Duhm in the main details of this analysis. Certainly the so-called "Servant of Jahveh fragments" hang to gether, and are much more pronounced in their universalism than the other parts of Isaiah. 2. From Isa. lii. 13 to liii. 12 we seem to have a dialogue, in which Jahveh, the prophets, and the people are the speakers. In lii. 13-15 Jahveh calls attention to his servant who is to be exalted and lifted up. In liii. 1-3 the prophets complain that the people have not listened to them; they have not accepted the work of the servant in their behalf. In liii. 4-6 the people admit that the servant has really been smitten for them, and that they are healed with his stripes. Then Jahveh replies in liii. 7-9 that, though they have in a measure recognized his mission, they have not appreciated him. They have made his grave with the wicked and the transgressors. In the remaining verses, 10-12, the author, or Jahveh speaking through him, sums up the results. The servant was made a sin offering. And because he died willingly for his people he shall redeem his people, and have a portion with the great. Smend thinks the servant was an individual, not the whole people, a sick and persecuted prophet, in fact, "like Jeremiah, but more than he." With the view that the servant was sick agree Duhm and many Jewish and Christian scholars on the most natural rendering of liii. 3. (See Revised Version margin.) Instead of "rich," in verse 9, most scholars now think we should read "transgressors," a change of a single letter in the Hebrew text. Verse 10 is very perplexing on any hypothesis. Duhm says it is not metrical, as is the rest of the chapter, and accordingly does violence to the text. He cuts out the word asham, so that the servant is no longer a guilt-offering, though he does, according to Duhm, suffer vicariously for his people.1 3. The Jews were not able to understand this chapter. Rashi says that "this prophet speaks constantly of the whole people as one man." But the great majority of the later Jews saw here the example of a suffering righteous man merely, and after the time of Christ, if not before, a reference to the Messiah. The Babylonian Talmud calls the Messiah a leprous or sick one, on the authority of Isaiah liii. The following selections from the Targum Jonathan, an Aramaic translation of the Bible, show how the later Jews understood the passage. The Targum begins in lii. 13, "Behold my servant Messiah." But by twists and turns the Messiah's sufferings are gotten rid of. The strongest passage is "He will become despised" (liii. 3). Verse 4. "Then for our sins will he pray, and our iniquities will, for his sake, be forgiven, although we were accounted stricken, smitten from before the Lord and afflicted." Verse 6. "All we like sheep had been scattered, we had each wandered off on his own way; but it was the Lord's good pleasure to forgive the sins of all of us for his sake. 7. He prayed and he was answered, and ere even he had opened his mouth he was accepted: the mighty of the peoples he will deliver up like a sheep to the slaughter and like a lamb dumb before her shearers; there shall be none before him opening his 1 Duhm asserts, in fact, that the Hebrew of liii. 10 is absolutely untranslatable. It is worthy of note also that the speaker in 10 is hardly the same as the speaker in II, 12. mouth or saying a word. 8. Out of chastisement and punishment he will bring our captives near. . . . .. 9. He will deliver the wicked into Gehinnom, and those that are rich in possessions into the death of utter destruction. 10. But it is the Lord's good pleasure to try and to purify the remnant of his people, so as to cleanse their souls from sin: these shall look on the kingdom of their Messiah, their sons and their daughters shall be multiplied, they shall prolong their days and those who perform the law of the Lord shall prosper in his good pleasure. II. By his wisdom he will hold the guiltless free from guilt, in order to bring many unto subjection to the law; and for their sins he will intercede. 12. Then will I divide for him the spoil of many peoples, and the possessions of strong cities shall he divide as prey, because he delivered up his soul to death, and made the rebellious subject to the law." |