own nation. Hence he was not satisfied with the view
of Ezekiel. The latter had applied the popular saying, "The fathers have
eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge,"(1176) to
refute the belief that an individual was punished for the sins of his
fathers; but he failed to extend this doctrine to the whole nation.
Whatever sins were committed by the generation who were exiled, their
children ought not to suffer for them "in double measure."(1177) Moreover,
the realm of love has a higher law than atonement through retribution.
Love brings its sacrifice without asking why. By willing sacrifice of self
it serves its higher purpose. He who struggles and suffers silently for
the good and true is _God's servant_, who cannot perish. He attains a
higher glory, transcending the fate of mortality. This is the new
revelation that came to the seer, as he pondered on the destiny of Israel
in exile, illumining for him that dark enigma of his people's tragic
history.

The problem of suffering, especially that of the servant of God, or the
pious, occupied the Jewish mind ever since the days of Jeremiah and
especially during the exile. The author of the book of Job elaborated this
into a great theodicy, speaking of Job also as the "servant of the
Lord."(1178) Whatever pattern our exilic seer employed, beside the
chapters about the Servant of the Lord,(1179) whatever tragic fate of some
great contemporary the plaintive song in the fifty-second and fifty-third
chapters referred to (some point to Jeremiah, others to Zerubabel),(1180)
or whether the poet had in mind only the tragic fate of Israel, as many
modern exegetes think; in any case he conceived the unique and pathetic
picture of Israel as the suffering Servant of the Lord, who is at last to
be exalted:(1181)

"Behold, My servant shall prosper, he shall be exalted and lifted up, and
shall be very high. According as many were appalled at thee--so marred was
his visage unlike that of a man, and his form unlike that of the sons of
men--so shall he startle many nations; kings shall shut their mouths
because of him; for that which had not been told them they shall see, and
that which they had not heard shall they perceive. Who would have believed
our report? And to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he
shot up right forth as a sapling, and as a root out of a dry ground; he
had no form nor comeliness, that we should look upon him, nor beauty that
we shoul