ghteousness, because He is the Mediator of God, and we
obtain the righteousness of God by His ministry." Besides to chap.
xxxiii. 16, they refer to passages such as Exod. xvii. 15, where Moses
calls the altar "Jehovah my banner;" to Gen. xxxiii. 20, where Jacob
calls it [Hebrew: al alhi iwral]. _Grotius_ follows these expositors,
only that he dilutes the sense still more. The other Christian
expositors, (the Vulgate excludes every other interpretation, even by
its translation: _Dominus justus noster_) on the contrary, contend with
all their might for the opinion, that the Messiah is here called
Jehovah, and hence must be truly God. That which _Dassov_ i. h. 1.
remarks: "Since then the Messiah is called Jehovah, we have firm ground
for inferring, that He is truly God, inasmuch as that name is peculiar
and essential to the true God," is the argument common to all of them.
_Le Moyne_ wrote in defence of this explanation a whole book, which we
have already quoted, but from which little is to be learned. Even
_Calvin_, who elsewhere sometimes erred from an exaggerated dread of
doctrinal prejudice, decidedly adopts it. He remarks: "Those who judge
without prejudice and bitterness, easily see that that name belongs to
Christ, in so far as He is God, just as the name of the Son of David is
assigned to Him in reference to His human nature. To all those who are
just and unprejudiced, it will be clear that Christ is here
distinguished by a twofold attribute; so that the Prophet commends Him
to us, both as regards the glory of His deity, and his true human
nature." By righteousness he, too, understands justification through
the merits of Christ, "for Christ is not righteous for himself, but
received righteousness in order to communicate it to us" (1 Cor. i.
30). We have the following observations to make in reference to this
exposition. 1. The principal mistake in it is this, that it has been
overlooked that the Prophet here expresses the nature of the Messiah
and of His time in the form of a _nomen proprium_. If the words were
thus: "And this is Jehovah our righteousness," we should be fully [Pg
420] entitled to take Jehovah as a personal designation of the Messiah.
But in reference to a name, it is as common, as it is natural, to take
from a whole sentence the principal words only, and to leave it to the
reader or hearer to supply the rest. In the case of all _naming_,
brevity is unavoidable, as is proved by the usual abbreviation