report. Allusion tow, what they had not heard, in the preceding verse.

Verse 2. Graceful form—wh, says Nägelsbach, is like the Latin forma, with the special meaning of beautiful form. Comp. Jer. xi, 16; 1 Sam. xvi, 18. The word is another one of those pregnant Hebrew expressions which mean more than any one English word fully conveys. It implies glory, honor, beauty, and magnificence, all blended into one splendid ideal, which the common version, comeliness, does not fully express. We render by the words ornamental splendor. ▾

Verse 3. m, dishonored, in the sense of being treated with contempt; despised. Forsaken of mankind-Hengstenberg and Nägelsbach taken in an active intransitive sense, as ceasing from among men, or ceasing to be regarded as a man. The Septuagint reads: his form was despised and ¿khet̃ño ̧ пaρà пávτas ȧvoрúñоvç, defective above all men. Symmachus: λáxioтos avôpāv, least of men. Vulgate: novissimum virorum, newest or last of men; or, as Hengstenberg explains, “ most abject of men." This variety shows what uncertainty as to the exact meaning prevails among interpreters. The passive sense, forsaken of men, which we have adopted as the simplest and most obvious, is sanctioned by many of the best critics, as Gesenius, Ewald, Hitzig and Alexander, and finds support in Job xix, 14. Knowing sickness—Thus the Septuagint, Syriac and Vulgate versions give r, which is the passive participle, an active signification. Hence some suppose the true reading to have been originally y, knowing, and such is indeed the reading in eight MSS. But the passive participle is allowed by the best critics to signify acquainted with, and this sense our version gives, though expressed in the active form. The Septuagint has knowing how to bear pahaktav, weakness. Symmachus: yvworós vóow, known by disease. Vulgate scientem infirmitatem, knowing infirmity. There is no need of departing from the usual meaning of the word, sickness; disease. It occurs again in the plural in the next verse, and its root in verse 10. The Messiah was acquainted with sickness in all its forms. See the exposition below. Like one who hides the face from us-That is, like a leper, (Lev. xiii, 45,) or a mourn

er, (2 Sam. xv, 30.)

may be taken as the shortened form

of the Hiphil participle of no, to hide. Four MSS. read

" :

Some take as a noun, and render as the margin of the Eng. version as a hiding of faces. Hence arose the explanation that others hid their faces from him.

may mean ממנו

either from us, or from him. The English version adopts the latter sense, and renders the whole passage: "We hid as it were our faces from him." Hahn, however, understands that Jehovah's face was hidden from him. But in the absence of any new subject expressed, it seems far simpler and more natural to construe with the main subject of the entire verse. We thus preserve a natural order and harmony of thought and sentiment, and have a striking portraiture of the despised and rejected Messiah.

-

T

Verse 4. He bore them-ho. Nearly all versions and interpreters neglect the pronominal suffix in this word, which gives a noticeable emphasis to the thought: Not only did he lift our sicknesses, but our sorrows, he bore them too. The expression, stricken with a penal curse, is all involved and implied in the single word y. The noun is the common term used for the plague of leprosy, considered as a judgment stroke.

Verse 5. Crushed down-. Compare also this word in verse 10. It implies more than bruised of the English and most versions. It involves also the idea of being trampled down and broken to pieces. Compare chap. xix, 10; Job iv, 19; Psa. lxxii, 4; Lam. iii, 34. Came healing-Henderson regards as a noun, but it is better to take it as the Niphal form of 7, used impersonally: it was healed, or, there came

healing.

T:

Verse 6. Mediated in him—a yaon, caused to meet in him. Thus the profound thought of atoning satisfaction, or vicarious mediation, seems most fittingly expressed. The English version, laid on him, is too weak; the Septuagint, The Lord delivered him for our sins, is too general and vague, entirely missing the exact and peculiar expression of the Hebrew. The Vulgate, The Lord placed in him the iniquity of us all, is better, but still is defective. Symmachus is most

exact: κύριος καταντῆσαι ἐποίησεν εἰς αὐτὸν τὴν ἀνομίαν πάντων hur, The Lord made to come into him the iniquity of all of us. The Hiphil of yaş means to cause any thing to meet or strike with violence; and it was in the soul of Jesus that the violent vicarious stroke was felt, and met, and sustained. Let it be observed, also, how prominent is the thought of mediation and intercession conveyed by this word wherever it is used in the Hiphil form. See verse 12, and chap. lix, 16; Jer. xv, 11; Xxxvi, 25; Job xxxvi, 32.

Verse 7. is not properly a lamb, (as rendered in Septuagint, Vulgate, English versions, etc.,) for lambs are not wont to be shorn; but a ewe, a grown female sheep.

Verse 8. Many and various have been the expositions of the different parts of this verse. The Septuagint is quoted in Acts viii, 33, and is there properly rendered in the English version: "In his humiliation his judgment was taken away; and who shall declare his generation? for his life is taken from the earth." But of this translation there are several different interpretations, and its citation by the Evangelist is no evidence that the Septuagint gives the true sense of the Hebrew. Clearly the Septuagint is not an accurate translation of our present Hebrew text. The English version is, He was taken from prison and from judgment; margin, He was taken away by distress and judgment; Lowth translates, By an oppressive judgment he was taken off; Noyes, By oppression and punishment he was taken away; Barnes, From confinement and a judicial sentence he was taken, [to death.] Several of these interpretations are possible, and it seems bootless to argue in extenso in favor of one or against another. The calm and impartial judgment, after repeated examination and comparison of views, will incline to that which appears most faithful to the Hebrew text, and yields the clearest and most natural But it is very possible that the critical taste will decide differently for different minds, and out of several allowable interpretations one will adopt one version, another a different one, according to subjective feelings and habits of thought. With the Vulgate, (de angustia et de judicio sublatus est,) most of the older expositors, and many moderns, we understand the first line of the taking of the Messiah from his suffering and judgment up to the throne of God, as the man

sense.

child of Rev. xii, 5. The coup, judgment, we understand of the mock judicial process through which Jesus was put, and all the suffering it involved. His generation (1) is not his unending life, (Luther, Calvin,) nor his manner of life, (Le Clerc, Lowth,) nor his posterity, (Hengstenberg, Barnes, Nägelsbach,) but his contemporaneous generation, the primary and usual meaning of the word. So Gesenius, Ewald,. Rosenmüller, and Alexander. The last named renders the whole verse thus: "From distress and from judgment he was taken; and in his generation who will think that he was cut off from the land of the living for the transgression of my people, (as) a curse for them?" The words in y mean literally a stroke

יתֵּן

for them. Compare the word ya in verse 4, and our note there. We translate and construe the words here as epexegetical of the two lines immediately preceding. To take is as a singular is scarcely allowable, and the version, a stroke was to. him, or he was stricken, (as English version,) is inexact. Nor does the plural, as we translate it, favor the views of those critics who urge that the suffering servant of Jehovah is not an individual, but the collective body, or people. On the contrary, for them, the many, he is made a curse. Gal. iii, 13. Verse 9. The subject of the verb is not easy to determine. Some understand y, my people, from the preceding verse, and others make the verb indefinite and impersonal, they gave, or there shall be given. But as Jehovah is so uniformly represented through all this chapter as overruling and directing the sufferings and humiliation of his servant, it seems better here to understand Jehovah as the subject of the verb. The sense, then, is, that God gave or assigned him his grave with the wicked, and yet arranged that in his death (that is, while dead) · his body should rest in the grave of a rich man. This he permitted, although there was no crime or falsehood in the sufferer. In accordance with this view, Jehovah is said, at the beginning of the next verse, to be pleased to crush him down and afflict him. We therefore render the 1, and, at the beginning of verse 10, by thus, as best setting forth in English the continuity of thought.

Verse 10. If thou set forth his soul-s is generally taken here as a particle of time, as in the English version, when thou

shalt make, etc. But its common and almost uniform meaning, if, suits the context as well, and better preserves the emotional element in the language. Most interpreters make i the subject of own, if his soul shall make an offering; but such a mode of expression is unusual and awkward. Usage requires that be followed by an object expressed. The sudden change of person is no more difficult to explain here than in chap. lii, 14, 15. After having said, in verse 6, that Jehovah mediated in him our sin, and having commenced this verse with the statement that Jehovah was pleased to crush him down and make him sick, he appropriately turns in direct address to Jehovah, and says with prophetic confidence, If THOU set forth his soul, etc.

Verse 11. In his superior knowledge-This rendering brings out the deep thought of iny better than the weaker expression of the common version, by his knowledge. It is in the profound depth and power of divine wisdom that the Messiah finds wherewith to bring in righteousness to fallen, sinful man.. Sony is a counterpart of in chap. lii, 13. The words the righteous one, my servant, are emphatic, and need to be placed in the order we have put them to exhibit the peculiarity and force of the Hebrew idiom. The verb pay is the future Hiphil of pry, and, followed by, properly means will bring righteousness to. There is a play on the Hebrew words which we have sought to retain in our translation.

Verse 12. Among the mighty ones-This seems to be the real meaning of the passage, and is the rather required by the use of a in 7, in the first member of the parallelism. But the accusative sign in Dy gives some warrant for Lowth's

version:

Therefore will I distribute to him the many for his portion,
And the mighty people shall he share for his spoil.

The literal meaning of nya, Hiphil of ny, to make bare, or naked, is better than the less frequent and doubtful meaning poured out, of the English version. We translate the future Hiphil form ya by ever intercedes. The past tense of the same verb in.verse 6 we translate mediated. There the past tense points rather to the sacrifice "once offered to bear the FOURTH SERIES, VOL. XXXII.-4