mself, to bring Jacob again to Him, and Israel which is
not gathered, and I am honoured in the eyes of the Lord, and my God was
my strength._ Ver. [Pg 239]6. _And He saith: It is too light a thing
that thou shouldest be my Servant only to raise up the tribes of Jacob,
and to restore the preserved of Israel, and I give thee for a light to
the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my Salvation unto the ends of the
earth._"

The confidence which the Servant of the Lord has placed in Him has not
been put to shame by the result, but rather has been gloriously
justified by Him. He who was, in the first instance, sent to Israel, is
appointed to be the Saviour of the Gentiles, in order to compensate Him
for the unbelief of those to whom His mission was in the first instance
directed. _And now_, _i.e._, since the matter stands thus (Gen. xlv.
8),--since Israel, to whom my mission is, in the first instance,
directed, reject me. _Saith the Lord_--That which the Lord spoke
follows in ver. 6 only, which, on account of the long interruption,
again begins with: "And He saith," equivalent to: I say. He hath
spoken. The declaration of the Lord has reference to the destination of
His Servant to be the Saviour of the Gentiles. This declaration is, in
ver. 5, based upon two reasons:--_first_, the frustration of the
original mission of the Servant of the Lord to the Jews; and
_secondly_, on the intimate relation in which He stands to the Lord,
who cannot withhold from Him the reward which He deserves for His work.
In the New Testament, also, the mission of Christ appears as being at
first directed to the Jews only. The Lord says, in Matt. xv. 24:
[Greek: ouk apestalen ei me eis ta probata ta apololota oikou Israel.]
He says, in Matt. x. 6, to the Apostles, after having forbidden them to
go to the heathens, and to the Samaritans, who were nothing but
disguised heathens: [Greek: poreuesthe de mallon pros ta probata ta
apololota oikou Israel.] Paul and Barnabas say, in Acts xiii. 46:
[Greek: humin en anankaion proton lalethenai ton logon tou Theou.
epeide de apotheisthe auton kai ouk axious krinete heautous tes aioniou
zoes, idou strephometha eis ta ethne.] It is rather an idle question to
ask what would have happened, if the Jews as a nation had accepted the
offered salvation. But so much is certain that here, in the prediction,
as well as in history, the rejection of Christ, on the part of the
Jews, appears to have been a necessary condition of His