o definite and
palpable historical beginnings. The parallel passages, in which the
calling from the womb is mentioned, treat of real persons, of
individuals.--3. According to several interpreters (_Jarchi_, _Kimchi_,
_Abenezra_, _Grotius_, _Steudel_, _Umbreit_, _Hofmann_), the Servant of
the Lord is to be none other than _the Prophet himself_. No argument
has been adduced in favour of this view, except the use of the first
person, ("If here, without introduction and preparation, a discourse
begins with the first [Pg 230] person, it refers most naturally to the
Prophet, who is the author of the Book"),--an argument of very
subordinate significance, and the more so that the person of the
Prophet, everywhere else in the second part of Isaiah, steps so
entirely into the background behind the great objects with which he is
engaged. To follow thus the first appearance may, indeed, be becoming
to a eunuch from Ethiopia, but not a Christian expounder of Scripture.
The contents of the prophecy are decidedly in opposition to this
opinion. Even the circumstance that a single prophet should assume the
name of Israel, ver. 3, appears an intolerable usurpation. _Farther_--
Like all the other prophets, Isaiah was sent to the Jews, and not to
the Gentiles; but at the very outset, _the most distant lands and all
the distant nations_ are here called upon to hearken. The Lord says to
His Servant that the restoration of Israel was too little for Him, that
He should be a light and salvation for all the heathen nations from one
end of the earth to the other; kings and Princes shall fall down before
Him, adoring and worshipping. The Prophet would thus simply have raised
himself to be the Saviour. _Umbreit_ expressly acknowledges this: "He
is to be the holy pillar of clouds and fire which leads the people back
to their native land, after the time of their punishment has expired.
But a still more glorious vocation and destination is in store for the
prophets; they receive the highest, the Messianic destination." The
usurpation of which the Servant of God would have made himself guilty,
appears so much the more clearly, when it is known, that the work of
the Servant of God comprehends even all that also, which is described
in ver. 10-23, viz., the blossoming of the Church of God, her
enlargement by the Gentiles, &c. _It is obvious that, if the
interpretation which refers this prediction to the prophets were the
correct one, the authority of the O