uture period,
be the teacher of the Gentiles, and would spread the true religion on
earth. It is apparently only that this interpretation receives some
countenance from ver. 3, where the Servant of the Lord is called
Israel. For this name does not there stand as an ordinary _nomen
proprium_, but as an honorary name, to designate the high dignity and
destination of the Servant of God. As this name had passed over from
[Pg 229] an individual to a people, so it may again be transferred from
the people to that person in whom the people attain their destination,
in which, up to that time, they had failed But decisive against this
explanation, which makes the whole people the subject, is ver. 5,
according to which the Servant of God is destined to lead back to the
Lord, Jacob and Israel (in the ordinary sense), who then must be
different from Him; ver. 6, according to which He is to raise up the
tribes of Jacob; ver. 8, 9, according to which He is to be the Covenant
of the people, to deliver the prisoners, &c. (_Knobel_ remarks on this
verse: "Nothing is clearer than that the Servant of God is not
identical with the mass of the people, but is something different.")
Supposing even that the people, destined to be the teachers of the
Gentiles, appear here as speaking, it is difficult to see how, in ver.
4, they could say that hitherto they had laboured in vain in their
vocation, and seen no fruits, since hitherto the people had made no
attempt at all at the conversion of the Gentiles. 2. _Maurer_,
_Knobel_, and others, endeavour to explain it of _the better portion of
the people_. But conclusive against this interpretation is ver. 6,
according to which the Servant of God has the destination of restoring
the preserved of Israel, and hence must be distinct from the better
portion; ver. 8, according to which He is given for a Covenant of the
people, from which, according to ver. 4 and 6, the ungodly are
excluded; so that the idea of the people is identical with that of the
better portion. In general, the contrasting of the better portion of
the people with the whole people, Jacob and Israel, the centre and
substance of which was formed just by the [Greek: ekloge], can scarcely
be thought of, and is without any analogy. Nor is the mention of the
_womb_. and _bowels of the mother_, in ver. 1, reconcileable with a
merely imaginary person, and that, moreover, a person of a character so
indistinct and indefinite,--a character which has n