n defended by the author of: _Ausfuehrliche Erklaerung der saemmtlichen
Weissagungen des A. T._ 1801.

(_e._) The hypothesis which makes the collective body of the prophets
the subject, was first advanced by _Rosenmueller_ in the treatise:
_Leiden und Hoffnungen der Propheten Jehovas_, [Pg 324] in _Gablers
Neuestes theol. Journal_, vol. ii. S. 4, p. 333 ff. From him it came as
a legacy to _De Wette_ (_de morte Jes. Chr. expiatoria_, p. 28 sqq.),
and to _Gesenius_. According to _Schenkel_ (_Studien und Kritiken_ 36)
"the prophetic order was the quiet, hidden blossom, which early storms
broke." According to _Umbreit_ the Servant of God is the collective
body of the prophets, or the prophetic order, which is here plainly
represented as the sacrificial beast (!) taking upon itself the sins of
the people. He finds it "rather strange that the Prophet who, in chap.
lxvi. 3 (of course according to a false interpretation), plainly
rejects sacrifice altogether, should speak of the shedding of the blood
of a man, and, moreover, of a pure, sinless man, in the room of the
guilty." The manner in which _Umbreit_ seeks to gain a transition to
the Messianic interpretation, although not in the sense held by the
Christian Church, has been pointed out by us on a former occasion, in
the remarks on chap. xlii. _Hofmann_ (_Schriftbeweis_, ii. 1 S. 89 ff.)
has got up a mixture composed of these explanations which refer the
prophecy to the people, to the godly, to the prophetic order, and, if
one will, of that also which refers it to the Messiah. He says: "The
people as a people are called to be the servant of God; but they do not
fulfil their vocation as a congregation of the faithful; and it is,
therefore, the work of the prophets to restore that congregation, and
hence also the fulfilment of its vocation.--Prophetism itself is
represented not in its present condition only, when it exists in a
number of messengers and witnesses of Jehovah, in the first instance in
Isaiah himself, but also in the final result, into which the fulfilment
of its vocation will lead, when the Servant of Jehovah unites in His
person the offices of a proclaimer of the impending work of salvation,
and of its Mediator, and, from the shame and suffering attached to His
vocation as a witness, passes over into the glory of the salvation
realised in Him." In order to render such a mixture possible,
everything is tried in order to remove the vicarious character of the
suffe