ution
implies that He took them upon Him spontaneously; and this has patience
for its companion. First, the contents of ver. 6 are once more summed
up in the word [Hebrew: ngw], "He was oppressed:" then, this condition
of the Servant [Pg 288] of God is brought into connection with His
_conduct_, which, only in this connection, appears in its full
majesty.--[Hebrew: ngw] is the Preterite in _Niphal_, and not, as
_Beck_ thinks, 1st pers. Fut. _Kal_. For the Future would be here
unusual; the verb has elsewhere the Future in _o_; the suffix is
wanting, and the sense which then arises suits only the untenable
supposition that, in vers. 1-10, the _Gentiles_ are speaking. The
_Niphal_ occurs in 1 Sam. xiii. 6, of Israel oppressed by the
Philistines; and in 1 Sam. xiv. 24, of those borne down by heavy toil
and fatigue. [Hebrew: ngw] and [Hebrew: nenh] "to be humbled,
oppressed, abused," do not, in themselves essentially differ; it is
only on account of the context, and the contrast implied in it, that
the same condition is once more designated by a word which is nearly
synonymous. The words "and He" separate [Hebrew: nenh] from what
precedes, and connect it with what follows. The explanation: "He was
oppressed, but He suffered patiently," has this opposed to it, that the
two _Niphals_, following immediately upon one another, cannot here
stand in a different meaning. The idea of patience would here not be a
collateral, but the main idea, and hence, could not stand without a
stronger designation.--In [Hebrew: iptH], the real Future has taken the
place of the ideal Past; it shows that the preceding Preterites are to
be considered as prophetical, and that, in point of fact, the suffering
of the Servant of God is no less future than His glorification. The
_lamb_ points back to Exod. xii. 3, and designates Christ as the true
paschal lamb. With a reference to the verse under consideration, John
the Baptist calls Christ the Lamb of God, John i. 29; comp. 1 Pet. i.
18, 19; Acts viii. 32-35. But since it is not the vicarious character
of Christ's sufferings which here, in the first instance, comes into
consideration, but His patience under them, the lamb is associated with
the female sheep, and that not in relation to her slayers, but to her
shearers. The last words: "And He does not open His mouth," are not to
be referred to the lamb, as some think, (even the circumstance that the
preceding [Hebrew: rHl] is a feminine noun militates agai