the personal covenant for a people; but _what_
people that should be, cannot admit of a moment's doubt. To Israel, as
such, the name of the _people_ pre-eminently belongs. Israel, in
preference to all others, is called [Hebrew: eM] (compare _Gesenius'_
[Pg 221] Thesaurus _s.v._ [Hebrew: gvi]), because it is only the people
of God that is a people in the full sense, connected by an internal
unity; the Gentiles are [Hebrew: la eM], _non-people_, according to
Deut. xxxii. 21, because they lack the only real tie of unity. But what
is still more decisive is the mention of the _Covenant_. The covenant
can belong to the covenant-people only, [Greek: hon hai diathekai],
Rom. ix. 4,--the old, no less than the new one. The covenant with
Abraham is an everlasting covenant of absolute exclusiveness, Gen.
xvii. 7. The Servant of God is called the personal and embodied
Covenant, because in His appearance the covenant made with Israel is to
find its full truth; and every thing implied in the very idea of a
covenant, all the promises flowing from this idea, are to be in Him,
Yea and Amen. The Servant of God is here called the Covenant of Israel,
just in the same manner as in Mic. v. 4 (comp. Ephes. ii. 14), it is
said of Him: "This (man) is Peace," because in Him, peace, as it were,
represents itself personally;--just as in chap. xlix. 6, He is called
the _Salvation_ of God, because this salvation becomes personal in Him,
the Saviour,--just as in Gen. xvii. 10, 13, circumcision is called a
covenant, as being the embodied covenant,--just as in Luke xxii. 20,
the cup, the blood of Christ, is called the New Covenant, because in it
it has its root. The explanation: Mediator of the covenant, [Greek:
diathekes enguos], is meagre, and weakens the meaning. The circumstance
that the Servant of God is, without farther qualification, called the
Covenant of the people, shows that He stands in a different relation to
the covenant from that of Moses, to whom the name of the _Mediator_ of
the covenant does not the less belong than to Him. From Jer. xxxi. 31,
we learn which are the blessings and gifts which the Servant of God is
to bestow, and by which He represents himself as the personal Covenant.
They are concentrated in the closest connection to be established by
Him between God and His people: "I will be their God, and they shall be
my people." It is only in the New Covenant, described in that passage
of Jeremiah, that the Old Covenant attains to