untenable.

In opposition to the interpretation which refers the prophecy to the
collective body of the Prophets, _Hitzig_ very justly remarks: "The
supposition that, by the Servant of God, the prophetic order is to be
understood, is destitute of all foundation and probability." In
commenting on chap. xlii. we remarked, that there are no analogous
cases at all in favour of such a personification of the prophetic
order. Moreover, the defenders of this view commonly deny, at the same
time, the genuineness of the second part. From this stand-point it
becomes still more evident, how untenable this hypothesis is. A
prophetic order can, least of all, be spoken of during the time of the
Babylonish captivity. With the captivity, Prophetism began to die out.
Jeremiah in Jerusalem, and Ezekiel among the exiled, already stood very
much isolated. Jeremiah, during the last days of the Jewish state,
stands out everywhere as a single individual, opposed to the whole mass
of the false prophets. "There is no more any prophet," is, at the time
of the destruction by the Chaldeans, the lamentation of the author of
Ps. lxxiv. in ver. 9. According to an unanimous tradition (comp. 1
Maccab. ix. 27, iv. 46, xiv. 41, and the passages from the Talmud and
other Jewish writings in _Knibbe's_ history of the Prophets, S. 347
ff., and in _Joh. Smithi Dissert. de Prophetis_, in the Appendix to
_Clericus'_ Commentary on the Prophets, chap. xii.), Haggai, Zechariah,
and Malachi were the last of the prophets, and according to the
historical books and their own prophecies, the only prophets of their
time. How, now, were it possible that the Prophet should speak of a
great corporation of the prophets, who become not only the founders and
rulers of the new state, but who are to enlighten all the other nations
of the earth with the light of the time religion, [Pg 341] and
incorporate them into the church of God? Of all that is characteristic
of the vocation of the prophets, nothing is found here; while, on the
other hand, almost everything which is said of the Servant of God is in
opposition to the vocation and destination of the prophets. That which
here, above everything, comes into consideration is the _vicarious
satisfaction_. Chap. vi., where the Prophet when, after having
administered the prophetic office for several years, he beheld the
Lord, exclaims: "Woe is unto me for I am undone, because I am a man of
unclean lips, and dwell in the midst of a peo