nt of view, that which is offered up? By the
hypothesis that, _in a rhetorical way of speaking, that is here
assigned to the soul as an action which, in point of fact, is done upon
it._ All that is necessary is to translate: "If His soul puts or gives
a trespass-offering;" for, "to put," stands here, as it does so
frequently, in the sense of "to give," compare Ezek. xx. 28, where it
is used in this sense in reference to sacrifice. But, in point of fact,
this is equivalent to: "If it is made a trespass-offering," or, "If He,
the Servant of God, offers it as a trespass-offering." It is analogous
to this when, in Job xiv. 22, the soul of the deceased laments; and a
cognate mode of representation prevails in Rev. vi. 9, where, to the
souls of the slain, life is assigned for the sole purpose of their
giving utterance to that which was the result of the thought regarding
them, in combination with the circumstances of the time. To a certain
degree analogous is also chap. lx. 7, where it is said of the
sacrificial animals: "They ascend, for my pleasure, mine altar." The
fact that it is in reality the soul which is offered up, is confirmed
also by the remarkable reference to the passage before us in the
discourses of our Lord. Our Lord says in John x. 12: [Greek: ego eimi
ho poimen ho kalos. ho poimen ho kalos ten chuchen hautou tithesin
huper ton probaton.] Ver. 15: [Greek: kai ten chuchen mou tithemi huper
ton probaton.] Vers. 17, 18: [Greek: dia touto ho pater me agapa, hoti
ego tithemi ten psuchen mou hina palin labo auten. Oudeis airei auten
ap'emou, all'ego tithemi auten ap'emautou. exousian echo theinai
auten, kai exousian echo palin labein auten.] In John xv. 13: [Greek:
meizona tautes agapen oudeis echei hina tis ten psuchen autou the huper
philon hautou.] The expression: "To put one's soul for some one," does
not, independently and by itself, occur anywhere else in the New
Testament; in John xiii. 37, 38, Peter takes the word out of the mouth
of the Saviour, and in 1 John iii. 16, it is used in reference to those
declarations of our Lord. The expression is nowhere met with in any
profane writers, nor in the Hellenistic _usus loquendi_. The following
reasons prove that it refers to the Old Testament, and especially to
the passage under consideration. 1. Its Hebraizing character. _De
Wette_ and _Luecke_ erroneously take [Greek: theinai] in the sense of
laying down; but that is too negative. It is evident that the Hebraism