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DIVINITY SCHOOL
TROWBRIDGE LIBRARY

THE SERVANT OF THE LORD

THE
'SERVANT OF THE LORD'

BY
ROBERT H. KENNETT, D.D.
CANON OF ELY AND BEGIUS PROFESSOR OF HEBREW IN THE
TJNIVBESITY OF CAMBRIDGE J FELLOW OF QUEENS* COLLEGE
AUTHOR OF 'IN OUR TONGUES,' ETC

LONDON
EDWARD ARNOLD
1911

TO MY CHILDREN
i\mn ne nat? my run1' nfena mn

PREFACE
The four lectures contained in this volume
were originally delivered as one course of the
lectures arranged for the Clergy in Cambridge
in the Long Vacation of 1909. The subject
itself needs no apology, for few will deny
that those passages of the book of Isaiah
which treat of ' The Servant of the Lord '
are among the most important of the Old
Testament Scriptures. Not only is our whole
conception of prophecy generally affected by
the interpretation of these passages which
we may adopt ; our view of the Atonement
largely depends upon the sense which we
assign to the words : ' He was wounded for
our transgressions.' It is therefore of extreme
importance that we should endeavour to
discover the meaning which these passages
would naturally bear in the age in which they
were composed ; in other words, that we
should study them in the light of the history
of the Church of Israel. This, however, is
a by no means easy task. It requires no
small mental effort to analyse minutely

viii THE SERVANT OF THE LORD
words and phrases which have long been part
of our devotional equipment, and many will
shrink from subjecting that which is associated
in their minds with the holiest mysteries to
anything of the nature of a critical scrutiny.
But inasmuch as our traditional way of
regarding prophecy often completely ignores
phrases which must originally have had some
meaning, and inasmuch as prophecy and that
which is regarded as its fulfilment are not
unfrequently harmonised only by wresting
the plain grammatical sense of Scripture, it
is surely in the highest degree desirable that
we should seek to discover what the plain
grammatical sense may be. No exposition
of prophecy can be satisfactory which does
not do justice to every translatable clause.
This canon of interpretation, however, can
only be applied by determining what is trans
latable, and in this respect the textual
criticism of the Old Testament still leaves
much to be desired. It is remarkable that
whereas nowadays no one of ordinary intelli
gence would dream of upholding the so-called
textus receptus of the New Testament, it is
not yet generally recognised that the textus
receptus of the Old Testament has no greater
claim to our respect. Many people are,
indeed, prepared to recognise the existence of

PREFACE ix
corruption in the Hebrew text where the LXX.
witnesses to an undoubtedly superior reading,
but there are not a few who are loth to admit
any error on any other evidence — thus virtually
maintaining that the Hebrew text was perfect
at the time when the LXX. version was made.
This, however, cannot be admitted by any
one who has been brought up to reverence
grammar. If the clearest, most strongly
marked rules of grammar can be set at nought
— as we must believe, if the Masoretic text
be correct — then exact study of the Old
Testament becomes impossible, and it is idle
to appeal to the teaching of Scripture.
There may, however, be some who, though
they fully recognise the textual difficulties of
the Old Testament, are somewhat shocked
by what they consider the unnecessary
analysis of whole chapters of prophecy into
mere collections of fragments. This, no doubt,
will be especially the case with those who are
unable to study the original Hebrew, and
depend only upon the English versions. But
since there is a tendency in a translation to
soften down abrupt transitions of thought, and
to remove grammatical difficulties, it is
obvious that a version is inadequate to supply
criteria of analysis. I would therefore ask
my readers to remember that my own anaylsis

x THE SERVANT OF THE LORD
is based everywhere on the original Hebrew.
At the same time I would insist upon the
parallel between the books of the Prophets
and the Synoptic Gospels. If it be conceded
that whole sections of the Gospels are com
posed of fragments, what a priori improba
bility is there in the proposition that many
sections of the Prophets are similarly com
posed ? The problems which present them
selves in the study of the Gospels are indeed
very similar to those which occur in the
study of the Prophets. It has been disastrous
to the understanding of the Bible that inves
tigation into the historical meaning of the
Old and New Testaments has so frequently
been carried on ' in watertight compartments.'
If we understand the manner of life and
teaching of ' Jesus of Nazareth which was a
Prophet,' we shall be in a better position to
understand the manner of hfe and teaching of
the Prophets who prepared His way before
Him. There is no chasm between the two
Testaments. The New is the continuation
of the Old.
ROBERT H. KENNETT.
Queens' College, Cambridge,
Feast of the Conversion of 8. Paul, 1911.

CONTENTS

PAGE

LECTURE I .... 1
II  29
„ HI  61
„ IV 95

THE SERVANT OF THE LORD
LECTURE I
Those passages of the book of Isaiah which
speak of the ' Servant of the Lord,5 of which
the greatest and most familiar is Isaiah lii. 13-
liii., are generally regarded as the climax
of Old Testament prophecy. The passage
just mentioned has so many points of contact
with what Christians believe concerning the
Christ who suffered for our sins and rose
again for our justification, that it could not
fail to arrest the attention of Christians.
' It looks,' as Delitzsch has said, ' as if it had
been written beneath the cross upon Golgotha,
and was illuminated by the heavenly bright
ness of the full •'?&'? 3B\'i That in this
passage we have language which may be
applied to Christ, and indeed is ' fulfilled/
that is to say, finds its fullest meaning, in
Him, no one who is a Christian will deny.
1 i.e. 'Sit thou on my right hand' (Ps. ex. 1).
A

2 THE SERVANT OF THE LORD
On the other hand, both the express teaching
of the Old Testament itself x and common-
sense require us to believe that it had an
intelligible meaning when it was first com
posed. The problem, therefore, which hes
before us is to discover some period in the
history of Israel when these words would
have borne a plain meaning, at least to all
spiritually-minded men. If we can deter
mine what they meant to those to whom they
were first uttered, we shall have a clearer
conception of the scope of their meaning as
applied to Christ.
Unfortunately this is by no means an easy
matter. Careful literary criticism of the book
of Isaiah reveals the extraordinary com
plexity of its composition. Throughout the
book, but especially in the last twenty-seven
chapters, passages of entirely different pro
venance and date are placed in juxtaposition.
A careful scrutiny will frequently make it
plain that even in sections which deal with
the same subject we have the work of more
than one author, or at least a combination
1 Thus Deuteronomy xviii. 21 f. makes it clear that a
prophet was expected to speak of things, the verification of
which was within the power of his hearers.

THE SERVANT OF THE LORD 3
of passages which did not originally belong
to the same context. Thus, for example, in
Isaiah xlii. 1-7 we have a prophecy relating
to the ' Servant of the Lord ' which a casual
reader might imagine to be homogeneous.
A closer examination, however, will show
that vv. 5-7 did not originally follow upon
vv. 1-4 ; for in vv. 1-4 Jehovah Himself is
the speaker, and speaks of the ' Servant '
in the third person ; in vv. 5-7 Jehovah is
spoken of in the third person as directly
addressing the ' Servant.' This is but one
instance of a phenomenon which is apparent
throughout the latter portion of the book.
It would appear that the final editor was
concerned rather to arrange the fragmentary
prophecies which lay before him in some
sort of order which would make them serve as
Church lessons than to discover their original
connection. But this being the case, it is evident that
the mere position of a section in the book
affords no indication of its date. The student
of Isaiah finds himself somewhat in the
position of an antiquary who is endeavouring
to date the materials of an Elizabethan house
which has been constructed out of the stones

4 THE SERVANT OF THE LORD
of some dismantled abbey. In the wall of
such a house there may occur in juxtaposition
stones which originally occupied widely
different positions in the building that was
used as a quarry. Often there will be no
clue as to the original site of such stones,
but in many cases the character of the hewing
or carving will reveal the date ; and some
times it will be possible to determine the
original use. This illustration is, perhaps,
sufficient to show the injustice of calling such
a process of literary analysis ' destructive
criticism.' One does not destroy a house,
or render it unfit for the purpose for which it
is intended, by the attempt to assign dates to
the materials of which it is composed.
We may then examine the composition of
those passages of the book of Isaiah which
speak of the ' Servant of the Lord,' without
bias as to any particular author or date,
except, of course, that we cannot place them
later than the time at which we are compelled
by the Septuagint translation to believe the
whole book to have been in existence.
It is generally recognised that these passages
are four x in number ; xlii. 1-7, xlix. 1-12,
1 There is, it is true, one other passage which bears some

THE SERVANT OF THE LORD 5
1. 4-9, lii. 13-liii. As I have already stated
they are not homogeneous, though they all
resemblance to the ' Servant ' passages, chap. lxi. 1 ff. , and
which, according to the literal sense of the words, has the
best claim to be called ' Messianic,' inasmuch as the speaker
claims that the Lord has anointed him. In this passage,
however, the speaker appears merely as the herald of a
salvation which will restore happiness to the miserable and
liberty to the prisoners. There is no evidence that he
himself has shared in the sufferings of those whom he com
forts. Since in xlv. 1 Cyrus is called the Lord's ' anointed,'
it is not improbable that this section in its original con
nection was a soliloquy put into his mouth (cf. the language
which is ascribed to Cyrus in Ezra i. 2 ff. ). Inasmuch as
Ben Sira, who probably quotes this passage (Ecclus. xlviii.
24), apparently understood it to be spoken by Isaiah him
self, it is evident that in the recension of the book with
which he was acquainted, as in the present text, there was
nothing to indicate the speaker. But though Ben Sira
might have quoted Micah iii. 8 and other passages in sup
port of his view, it must be admitted that the reference to
the anointing of the speaker, whoever he may be, is against
this interpretation. The anointing of a, prophet, it is true,
is mentioned in 1 Kings xix. 16, and is apparently implied
in Ps. cv. 15 ; but we have no reason to suppose that
prophets were anointed as a rule, unless, perhaps, as in the
case of Elisha who was thus constituted the successor of
Elijah, to fill some definite position. It is difficult to
believe that a post-exilic anointed prophet would be anony
mous. On the whole, therefore, it seems to be the most
probable supposition that words which were originally put
into the mouth of Cyrus, having been severed from their
original context, were preserved as containing a message
of consolation for Israel, and were regarded as the prophet's
own account of his mission. In the last revision of the
book of Isaiah it is probable that this section, since it is
placed after the ' Servant ' passages, was regarded as an
utterance of the Servant himself.

6 THE SERVANT OF THE LORD
exhibit a striking similarity in thought, and
evidently present the same view of the mission
which is fulfilled by the ' Servant.'
Now the first question which naturally
presents itself is this : Was the ' Servant of the
Lord ' a more or less definite conception
existing in Israel through several ages, com
parable to that of the ' Messiah ' or ' The
Prophet,' which we find existing in New
Testament times, or was it a term applied
in this connection only by the writer or
writers of the passages which I have enumer
ated ? In other words ; Ought we to con
sider the term ' Servant of the Lord ' as
virtually a proper name, or merely a name
descriptive of any one who happens to stand
in some special relation to Jehovah ? This
question is best answered by reference to the
usage of the Old Testament. Etymologically
considered, the word ' servant ' ("i?V) merely
denotes one who performs some sort of work,
and, though it may be used of a bondservant,
it does not imply the condition of degradation
which we associate with the word ' slave.' x

L It may be remembered that English-speaking slave
owners used to speak of their slaves as 'servants,' and did
not use the word slave.

THE SERVANT OF THE LORD 7
In an age when parents could sell their
children, and a man might be seized for debt,
and sold, it is obvious that there was no
stigma attached to slavery. It was no more
disgraceful among the Hebrews to be a
' servant, ' even though a bondservant, than it
is among us to be a domestic servant. As
far as his physical comforts went, it is prob
able that the condition of the bondservant
was superior to that of the hireling, who had
to work even harder than the slave to keep
body and soul together, and whose employer
had no special interest in keeping him in
good health. But inasmuch as service of
this kind, even under favourable conditions,
necessarily deprived a man of freedom of
action, it was but natural that the term
' servant ' (1?^) should be used when it was
necessary to denote the ideas which we
associate with slavery. Thus Egypt during
the forced sojourn of the Israelites is
described as a ' place [literally " house "] of
servants ' ; but the bad sense which the
term ' servants ' has here is due to the fact
that the master is a foreign king. An Israehte
would have felt no objection to describe
himself as a servant of his own king ; and,

8 THE SERVANT OF THE LORD
indeed, a king's courtiers and highest ministers
of state are always so described. If then we
apply to the term ' servant ' in the phrase
' Servant of the Lord ' the meaning which it
has elsewhere, it will mean either one who,
whether willingly or otherwise, acknowledges
Jehovah as his supreme ruler, or one who is
employed by Jehovah to accomplish some
work which He will have done. Thus a title
which was naturally applied to such men as
Abraham, Moses, Joshua, Caleb, David,
Eliakim, Isaiah, Zerubbabel, or the looked-
for ' Shoot ' from the cut -down stump of
the dynasty of David, could also be used of
one who, like Nebuchadnezzar, was employed
by Jehovah to accomplish the chastisement
of the stiff-necked nations of Palestine which
He had willed. We must be on our guard
against the too common assumption that
phrases in the Bible have always exactly
the same nuance. Moreover a designation
which may be perfectly suitable in some
particular contingency may be positively
untrue if regarded as possessing an absolutely
general force. Thus a prophet who hoped
that Cyrus would lead the flock of Jehovah
to their old pasturage, the land of Palestine,

THE SERVANT OF THE LORD 9
with reference to this hope described him, not
unnaturally, as ' the shepherd ' of Jehovah.
Similarly in an age which believed that
Hazael had once been anointed by a prophet
of Jehovah to chastise His rebellious
people, it was a natural metaphor by which
Cyrus, who like Hazael was carrying out
Jehovah's purpose, though a purpose of love,
not chastisement, was described as the
' anointed of Jehovah.'
That the term ' servant of Jehovah ' should
be applied most frequently to men like Moses,
the traditional founder of the Law upon
which Jehovah had set the stamp of His
approval, or David, the founder of a dynasty
which by its permanence appeared to be
specially favoured of Jehovah, is only what
we should expect. The very fact that the
term was constantly apphed to both these
men, certainly from the Exile onwards, shows
that there could not have been at the same
time in Israel any common expectation of
a deliverer yet to come who bore as his only
designation the name ' Servant of the Lord.'
It is probable that in every case the meaning
of the term was made apparent by the
context. We must therefore regard the term

10 THE SERVANT OF THE LORD
' servant of the Lord,' in the prophecies before
us, as a mere epithet apphed to one, whether
an individual or the personification of a
nation or section of a nation, who stands in
the same sort of relation to Jehovah as Moses
or David, Isaiah or Zerubbabel ; and we
must discover from the context who it is to
whom this designation is applied in these
passages. Happily this is an easy matter, for in
chap. xlix. 3 the speaker declares that Jehovah
has said to him, ' Thou art my servant ;
Israel, in whom I will be glorified ' ; and even
though we should accept the unnecessary
supposition that Israel is a gloss in this place,
the close parallelism between the passage
before us and chap. xhv. 21-23, in which Israel
is declared to be the Lord's servant in whom
he will glorify Himself, would prove the
correctness of the gloss. But though the
section xlix. 1-6 may be regarded as proving
the identity of the ' Servant ' with Israel,
it proves also that the Israel here contem
plated is not simply the Israehte nation ; for
the 'Servant' declares that he has been created
by Jehovah, not only to be a light to the
Gentiles, but also to restore Israel. It is

THE SERVANT OF THE LORD 11
evident, therefore, that the speaker, though
he has a claim to be considered Israel, is not
the wliole of Israel after the flesh, but one
who corresponds, as Israel after the flesh
does not correspond, to the idea which
Jehovah has had in mind in the call and
election of Israel. It is plain that the writer
of this passage believed that the choice of
Israel was no arbitrary act of favouritism on
the part of Jehovah, but that Israel had been
chosen, as the prophets had been chosen, to
fulfil in some special way Jehovah's -will.
We shall accordingly be in a better position
to understand what is here meant, if we trace
out the development in Israel of the conscious
ness of a national mission in the world.
We may take as the starting point of our
inquiry the earliest prophet of whose teaching
we have definite knowledge. Amos regards
Israel as standing in a unique position with
reference to Jehovah. Jehovah, he maintains,
has ' known ' Israel alone of all the families
of the earth. The reason why Jehovah has
' known ' Israel in this special way is not
clearly stated ; but the prophet seems to
imply that Jehovah has brought Israel into
this unique position of privilege with a view

12 THE SERVANT OF THE LORD
to making it a righteous nation, a servant
profitable in the eyes of his master, whom
indeed his master may treat rather as a son
than as a servant. Amos declares that, on
the one hand, Jehovah has a special claim
on Israel's gratitude, inasmuch as He has
brought the people out of the land of Egypt,
has led them through the wilderness, has
destroyed the Amorites before them, has
given them the land of Canaan, and has also
raised up of their sons for prophets and of
their young men for Nazarites, and that, on
the other hand, He has sought by successive
chastisements, famine, pestilence, and defeat,
to bring them to a better mind. The con
dition of Israel at the time of Amos made it
scarcely possible for the prophet to dwell on
Jehovah's purpose for Israel, but the passages
to which I have referred make it evident
that he himself did ascribe a purpose to
Jehovah. It might perhaps be argued from
Amos iii. 9 ff., that the prophet considered
it the special function of Israel to set an
example to the nations, but the passage is
too rhetorical to base an argument upon it.
Our next witness is the prophet Hosea,
whose idea of Jehovah's choice of Israel,

THE SERVANT OF THE LORD 13
though differently expressed, appears to be
essentially the same as that which, we have
seen, was held by Amos. For Hosea teaches
that Jehovah has chosen Israel as a man
chooses his wife, and that He desires to be
faithfully loved by Israel as a man desires to
be faithfully loved by his wife. He implies
that it is Jehovah's will that Israel should be
in Jehovah's land all that a good wife is in
the home of her husband.
A little later we find Isaiah (i. 24-27) looking
for the purification of his people. The genuine
Isaianic passages of the book, it must be
remembered, probably represent a very small
amount of the teaching actually delivered
by the prophet ; and there is no evidence in
them of any consciousness that Jehovah has
had a special purpose in the choice of Israel.
That such a thought would not, however,
be foreign to Isaiah's way of thinking may
be fairly argued from his teaching on the
subject of the Assyrian. Since Isaiah
regarded the Assyrian as an instrument in
Jehovah's hand to chastise His rebellious
people, and therefore considered that Jehovah
manifested His purpose even in the history
of the heathen, it is but reasonable to suppose

14 THE SERVANT OF THE LORD
that He assigned to Jehovah also a purpose
for Israel.
The teaching of Jeremiah in this respect,
while it resembles to a great extent that of
his predecessors, may perhaps be regarded as
marking a certain advance. For Jeremiah
seems to have perceived the solidarity of
Israel and the surrounding nations in a
somewhat greater degree than previous
prophets. The language of the prophecy
founded on the visit to the potter (chap.
xviii. 7-10) perhaps implies that the prophet
hoped that his teaching might bear fruit
beyond the border of Israel proper. The
same inference may perhaps be drawn from
the description of the prophet's call (chap. i.
10). If this inference be correct, and a
Hebrew prophet really hoped that his teach
ing might influence other nations, it is evident
that we have the germ of a belief in a mission
for Israel, though for a long time to come it
was destined to remain only a germ.
Jeremiah's younger contemporary, Ezekiel,
though he seems to recognise that the other
nations may have true prophets among them
(chap, xxxiii. 2-6), and though he has the
highest sense of the responsibility resting

THE SERVANT OF THE LORD 15
upon all prophets (ib. 6 ff.), gives no indica
tion of any hope that the teaching which
emanates from Israel may influence the
nations. He looks forward indeed to the
time when the nations of the world will
recognise the greatness of Jehovah by reason
of His work for Israel (xxxvi. 35, 36 ; xxxvii.
28), but he looks rather for Jehovah's ven
geance on the nations than for their
conversion. In the book of Deuteronomy, which is
probably to be dated some time during the
generation which ended with the appointment
of Zerubbabel, we find, as in Ezekiel, the
expectation of the destruction of the heathen
(cf. vii. 24), who are here regarded as tho
roughly bad (cf. ix. 5 ; xviii. 9 ff.), but
there are also some slight indications of a
consciousness that Israel may influence the
world (cf. iv. 6 ; xxix. 24 ff.).
A few years later we find the prophet
Haggai expecting that the treasures (the
desirable things) of all nations will be brought
to Jerusalem (ii. 7), but this is to be the
result of a shaking of the nations, i.e. of a
political convulsion of the world, not of the
conversion of the nations.

16 THE SERVANT OF THE LORD
Zechariah also expects that a time will
come when many nations will join themselves
to the Lord (ii. 11 ; viii. 21, 23), if the verses
in question be genuine ; he looks, however,
not for the conversion of Babylon but for
the Lord's vengeance upon it (cf. v. 11 ; vi. 8).
The prophet Malachi, whose date, though
it cannot be determined with certainty, is
probably about the middle of the fifth century
B.C., shows an extraordinary liberality of
thought with reference to the Gentiles (cf. i.
11, 14) ; he does not, however, give any
indication of a belief that Israel is charged
with any mission to the Gentiles.
The memoirs of Nehemiah and the Priestly
Code, which was published probably in 433
B.C., are concerned solely with the relation
of Israel to Jehovah. Here we find no indica
tion of any thought that Israel possesses any
obligations towards the heathen. This is,
indeed, only what we should expect from the
exigencies of the time ; for Nehemiah could
scarcely have dwelt upon Israel's mission to
the Gentiles at the time when he was doing
his utmost to keep his people from all contact
with the Gentiles.
To sum up, therefore, we may say that

THE SERVANT OF THE LORD 17
though in the Scriptures composed up to,
and including, the time of Nehemiah there
are occasionally seen flashes of a dim conscious
ness that the other nations of the world as well
as Israel are the object of Jehovah's care,
these flashes never develop into a steady
light. During the whole period covered by
the Law, Israel's greatest teachers appear to
have taught that Jehovah had separated
Israel from the other nations of the earth,
not by way of training Israel to be a missionary
to those nations, but in order that there might
be one nation which Jehovah might claim
for His inheritance, His own possession, and
on which He might look with pleasure ; or,
to adopt a metaphor from Isaiah, that Israel
might be to Him a vineyard, carefully
cultivated and free from weeds, in which He
might find the fruit which He desired.
But if the circumstances of Nehemiah's
age made it impossible for him to give his
people a sense of responsibility towards the
Gentiles, he did succeed in teaching what
was equally important to them and ultimately
to the world, viz. the conception of a Church.
In the days of the Kings religion had been
an affair of the nation. Those who did

18 THE SERVANT OF THE LORD
conform to such rehgion as the king willed
could be punished by him as rebels whose
very existence endangered the stability of
the state. Nehemiah came, not indeed with
a new religion, but with a new Law, and a
far more stringent interpretation of law.
He himself realised the magnitude of the
demands which he was making of his people,
and he evidently perceived that it would be
practicaUy impossible to induce all those who
in his days professed and called themselves
Jews to take upon them the burden of this
law. He determined, therefore, to form what
in these days we should call a league of those
who would pledge themselves to be loyal
to the law which he was publishing. A
formal document was drawn up to which
the leaders both of the priesthood and of the
laity affixed their seals. In this way there
arose a conception of a congregation, a Church,
which was not coextensive with the nation.
No doubt this conception lost some of its
force from the fact that, inasmuch as Nehemiah
seems to have made intolerable the position
of those people whom he regarded as unde
sirable, the nation was, at least to a con
siderable degree, limited to those who had

THE SERVANT OF THE LORD 19
become members of the Church. But an idea
that has once taken hold of people's minds is
not easily forgotten though for a time it
may cease to be prominent. Moreover, the
Samaritan schism must have been a reminder
to the Jews that not all those who had claimed
to be Israel could rightly be regarded as
members of the Church, which alone corre
sponded to the true idea of Israel. The
separation of the sheep from the goats, which
Nehemiah had carried into practice, would
remain the ideal of those who classed them
selves among the sheep ; and thus would
arise the conception of a Church within a
Church, the development of which in after
time was to prove the climax of Old Testament
prophecy. Exactly a century elapsed between the
publication of the Law by Nehemiah and
the conquest of Palestine by Alexander the
Great in 332. Of this century the history is
almost an absolute blank. We know, indeed,
that some time between 433 and 408 the
Samaritans, who had originally recognised
Jerusalem as the one legitimate sanctuary,
separated from the Jews and built a rival
temple on Mount Gerizim, of which Manasseh,

20 THE SERVANT OF THE LORD
the grandson of the Jewish High Priest
Eliashib, became High Priest. The schism,
however, appears to have been confined to
the province of Samaria proper. The Jews
dwelling among the heathen in Galilee and
Gilead, who appear to have accepted the
Deuteronomic law in the sixth century, seem
to have continued loyal to Jerusalem. The
only other incidents during this century
(i.e. 433-332) which are known to us are,
(1) the appeals made by the Jews of Elephan
tine for help to rebuild their temple, first
(in 411) to the High Priest John, and then
(in 408) to Bagoas, the Persian Governor of
Judah, and to Delaiah and Shelamiah, the
sons of Sanballat, Governor of Samaria ;
(2) the High Priest John's murder of his
brother Jesus in the Temple, which Bagoas
made a pretext for levying a heavy tribute
on the daily sacrifices ; (3) the transportation
of a detachment of Jews to Hyrcania and
Babylonia during Artaxerxes Ochus's cam
paign against Egypt about 351 B.C. On the
strength of these last two incidents (of which,
however, the former belongs to the time of
Artaxerxes Mnemon, not Artaxerxes Ochus)
a gigantic theory has been built up of a religious

THE SERVANT OF THE LORD 21
persecution of the Jews by Artaxerxes Ochus.
But though there were extensive risings in
Palestine against Ochus, there is nothing to
show that the Jews were involved in these,
nor are we justified in arguing that any rising
in which the Jews took part must of necessity
have had a religious character. There is
nothing specially to connect the Jews who
were transported to the east with Judah, and
the bitter animosity which existed at this
period between the Jews and the Samaritans
makes it unlikely that the Jews made common
cause with their deadly enemies even against
the hated power of Persia.
It is certainly more probable that the period
from 433 to 332 was comparatively uneventful
than that it was a time of storm and stress
which proved to be the birth throes of a new,
and sound, theology. Not that it was without
importance for the religion of Israel ; far
from it. The law which Nehemiah had
pubhshed could not have its perfect work
until it had been assimilated, and the process
of assimilation was necessarily one involving
time. Perhaps I may be aUowed to give a
very homely illustration of what I believe
the apparently barren period from Nehemiah

22 THE SERVANT OF THE LORD
to Alexander to have done for the Jews.
When a freshman comes up to the University
from school, and devotes himself to a new
study, he fives during his first three terms in
a new mental atmosphere. New ideas are
presented to him, and it may well be that he
scarcely perceives the relation of these to
one another, or to the ideas which he has
held in the past. But during the Long
Vacation he wiU, if he is a serious student,
revise and consohdate the work of the previous
year ; he will perceive the real significance
of teaching which he has hitherto accepted
merely as bare fact. If his mental growth
at the University is to be divided into a
number of definite stages, the first milestone,
so to speak, will be not at the end of the third
term, but at the end of the Long Vacation.
In like manner, if I may apply my illustration,
the period between Nehemiah and Alexander
was, as it were, the Long Vacation following
the time of Nehemiah's novel teaching. Out
wardly it might seem barren, but the end of
it was a real landmark in the history of Israel.
I suppose that we are all conscious of a certain
unsuitability in the use of the term Jew to
denote the inhabitants of Judah in the days,

THE SERVANT OF THE LORD 23
say, of Jeremiah. By a Jew we understand
not merely one who is a descendant of those
who were inhabitants of Judah in the days of
the Hebrew Kings, but one who is marked out
as distinct from other members of the Semitic
race by certain characteristics of religion.
If then we are asked to assign a date to the
change by which the Hebrews developed into
what we should call Jews, we may, I think,
fairly well point to the hundred years ending
332 B.C. The people of Judah and Jerusalem,
when Alexander conquered Palestine, may be
fairly accurately described as Jews.
It is probable that the rise of synagogues
may be traced to the period following the
publication of the law in 433. For so complex
a document as the Pentateuch could not be
made the rule of life by uneducated people,
however devout they might be, unless they
received systematic instruction in it. It is
probable that it was in order to give this
systematic instruction that the synagogues
were founded, which were destined to have so
powerful an influence on the subsequent
development of Judaism.
With the coming of Alexander the Great
a new era opened for the Jews. Hitherto

24 THE SERVANT OF THE LORD
they had felt themselves in bondage under
the rigorous rule of Persia. Under foreign
governors such as Bagoas, and under priests
such as John, whose lips did not keep know
ledge, it was but natural that those who were
zealous for the Law which Nehemiah had set
before them should feel themselves to be
living in isolation from a world which lay
altogether in wickedness, and that they
should look with passionate longing for the
time which Malachi had predicted, when
they that feared the Lord should trample
down the wicked under the soles of their feet,
as heavy stall-fed oxen, the heaviest animals
with which Malachi was acquainted, trample
flat that upon which they tread. It would
have been strange if, considering their cir
cumstances, the Jews had not looked for
vengeance on the heathen rather than for
their conversion.
But with the coming of Alexander a happier
state of things was brought about. The
Jews were now no longer at a disadvantage
compared with their heathen neighbours. If
they had not obtained national independence,
they had at any rate obtained a large measure
of pohtical freedom. Moreover, the old

THE SERVANT OF THE LORD 25
barriers had been broken. The world was
opened up as it had never been before, and
there was no external hindrance to the Jew
who wished to take his part in the great
development of commerce which Alexander's
unification of the world had made possible.
But many of those who for a century had
been ' shut up under the law ' would be
likely to look askance at commercial enter
prise which would bring Jews into closer
contact with the detested Gentiles. To such
people it would doubtless seem that the Holy
Land was the only spot in which a Jew might
lawfully make his home, and that if, for the
present, life there was hard, in due course
Jehovah would shake the nations so that
their wealth should become the property of
Israel. It is this temper which we see illus
trated in the character of Jonah, as he is
described in the great allegory of that name.
Jonah, who is a type of the Jewish nation,
recognises no obligations towards the Gentiles ;
he would rather avoid all contact with them.
He shrinks from the suggestion that the
Gentiles may listen to the preaching of
repentance. He has no desire to see them
repentant, for he feels that their past sins

26 THE SERVANT OF THE LORD
have been so enormous that they have no
claim to share with the Jews in Jehovah's
love. The conversion of the heathen will,
he feels, put the Gentiles on an equality with
the Jews, an equality for which he has no
desire. He looks for the vindication of
Israel not through the performance by Israel
of the mission for which the nation has been
called, but through the destruction of the
Gentiles. If, as is probable, the book of Jonah belongs
to the time of Alexander the Great, and is
a rebuke of the exclusive spirit of Judaism,
and an appeal to the Jews to recognise the
Gentiles as objects with them of Jehovah's
care and love, we are able to date sufficiently
accurately the beginning of a consciousness
of a mission in the chosen people. We cannot
of course date an intellectual movement as
we can date some definite historical event.
Even if we knew with absolute certainty the
year in which the book of Jonah was written,
it would not prove that the author was the
first or the only Jew who possessed a con
sciousness that his nation had responsibilities
towards other nations. Indeed if his teach
ing had found no response, it would probably

THE SERVANT OF THE LORD 27
have perished utterly. But we are justified
in saying that the circumstances of the time
of Alexander the Great made it possible for
Israel to have a wider, more libera outlook
than, humanly speaking, was possible in the
days of Persian rule, or at any earlier period.
Inasmuch as the book of Jonah appears to
have been, for some time, part of the Canon
in the days of Ben Sira, i.e. c. 200 to 180 B.C.,
it may therefore be presumed to have been in
existence, at any rate, in the middle of the
third century B.C., so that the terminus ad quern
for the date of its composition must fall at
all events within the generation following the
death of Alexander. But since the book would
appear to have been written in a time of
peace, it is probable that the terminus ad
quern is not later than the death of Alexander.
That the third century B.C., notwithstanding
that upon the whole the lot of the Jews under
the Ptolemies was far superior to what it had
been under the Persians, was not a period
favourable for the development among the
Jews of a liberal sentiment towards the
Gentiles is made probable from the use, which
we find in some of the Psalms, of the name
Rahab to denote Egypt. In Job ix. 13,

28 THE SERVANT OF THE LORD
xxvi. 12, Rahab appears to be the name of
the dragon power of the abyss, the Tiamat
of the Babylonian Creation story. That the
power of darkness should be taken as a
symbol of the power of the Gentile world
opposed to the people of God was natural
enough ; and when Egypt was the Gentile
power to which the Jews were compelled to
pay tribute, tribute that was collected by
such people as the sons of Tobias, it is not
to be wondered at, if Egypt seemed to the
Jews to be the embodiment of all that was
opposed to their God, and that they apphed
to it the name of Bahab. But though the
idea of Israel's obhgation to the Gentile
world had received a rough check, it was not
destroyed, and was destined in happier times
to develop and grow to the good of the world.

LECTURE II
It would naturally be of the greatest help to
us in the study of those passages of the book
of Isaiah which refer to the ' Servant of the
Lord,' if we might assume the arrangement
of the prophecies in the book to correspond
with the order of their composition. Unfor
tunately this is impossible ; for chapters,
which at first sight might be regarded as
homogeneous, are frequently found on a
closer examination to consist of fragments
having no logical connection with one another,
the dates of which can only be determined
by discovering the historical circumstances
to which they are suitable. But although,
if we find that every word in a prophecy of
some length suits the known circumstances
of some definite period and is unsuitable
in any other, we may reasonably infer that
it was composed at that period, in the case
of fragments we are frequently compelled to
admit that the circumstances of more than

30 THE SERVANT OF THE LORD
one period would account for their com
position. Let us suppose, for example, that we
have a number of denunciations of idolatry ;
it is certainly reasonable to assign their com
position to a time when the Jews were
pecuharly hable to temptations to idolatry.
Let us suppose, however, that we are acquainted
with two quite distinct periods in each of
which this temptation existed ; obviously
in a book which covers both these periods,
it is possible, if we cannot depend on chrono
logical order, to assign such denunciations of
idolatry to either period or to both, and in
the case of each one of these prophecies we
have no means of deciding with absolute
certainty which is the correct period. Nor
will a strong similarity between two passages
necessarily prove that they are from the same
hand ; for the second may be an imitation
of the first, composed at quite a different
date. Moreover, in the case of imitation the
mere position of a passage in a book which is
not arranged in chronological order will be
insufficient in itself to show whether the
passage in question is the original or the
imitation. It will thus be seen that the
higher critiQism of the prophets resembles

THE SERVANT OF THE LORD 31
the higher criticism of the Synoptic Gospels ;
with these additional difficulties, that in the
case of a prophetical book we have to deal
with one book instead of three more or less
parallel, and that, instead of having to sort
out documents belonging, at any rate, to one
generation, we have to disentangle fragments
the dates of which may be centuries apart.
One criterion in critical analysis of the
prophets is, indeed, to be found in the metrical
form in which many prophecies are written.
But though the student must always take
this into consideration, it will frequently
fail him just where it is most necessary.
Thus there are some passages, where the
parallelism of certain clauses makes it practi
cally certain that we are dealing with com
positions which originally possessed a poetical
form, which, however, in the existing condition
of the text, it is impossible to reduce with
certainty to any exact rhythmical scheme.
In some cases this is doubtless due to mutila
tion of the text ; but in others it may well be
that the poetical form, in which a prophecy
was composed and circulated orally, had
already been lost, when the prophecy was
first committed to writing, and in such a case

32 THE SERVANT OF THE LORD
it is obviously vain to attempt to correct the
text on the basis of metre.
In the main, therefore, we are dependent
upon the subject-matter of a section for its
date ; " and consequently, where there is no
definite historical allusion, we have nothing
to go by but the ideas about God and His
relation to His people, the relation of Israel
to the Gentiles, and the like. Obviously
under such circumstances it is impossible to
fix a date for a given section with anything
more than a certain degree of probability ;
for it does not follow because a certain idea
was prominent at some particular time, that
no one had ever thought of it before.
Inasmuch, however, as it is desirable for a
clear understanding of those passages which
deal with the Servant of the Lord, to know
approximately the date at which they were
composed, I will examine as briefly as possible
the dates of the ' Servant ' passages of the
book of Isaiah, and of those sections which
are associated with them.
Since most people will admit that in the
chapters xl.-hii. there are some passages which
refer to Cyrus, and were presumably written
in his time, while some people will assign

THE SERVANT OF THE LORD 33
to this date by far the greater part of this
section, it will be well for me to specify those
passages which I myself am disposed to assign
to a later date, and to give my reason for
so doing.
In chap. xli. 8-20 we have a section which
certainly has no direct connection with the
preceding context. It is of particular interest
for our purpose, for in it Jehovah is repre
sented as saying, ' But thou, Israel, my servant
Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of
Abraham who loved me,1 thou whom I have
taken hold of from the ends of the earth, and
called thee from the corners thereof.' If this
passage really belongs to the time of Cyrus,
it is the earliest passage outside the Pentateuch
(except Ezek. xxxiii. 24, where Abraham is
mentioned as an example of blessing) in which
Abraham is mentioned as the ancestor of
Israel ; for Micah vii. 20 is almost certainly
post-exilic ; and the words ' who redeemed
Abraham ' in Isaiah xxix. 22 are probably
an interpolation, but it is difficult, if not
impossible, to account for some of its phrases
on the assumption of this date. What, for
1 ^iia no* the irreverent 'my friend' of the English
version. C

34 THE SERVANT OF THE LORD
example, is meant by the statement that
Jehovah has taken Israel from the ends of
the earth ? The language can scarcely refer
to the caU of Abraham from Ur of the Chaldees ;
for, though in Isaiah v. 26 the Assyrians are
said to be summoned from the ' end of the
earth,' a description which would be applic
able to the land of the Assyrians in the time
of Isaiah, when the Jews had not yet come
into contact with them, would scarcely be
suitable to Babylonia, when that country was
as familiar to the Jews as it was in the time
of Cyrus ; certainly it is hard to suppose
that a Jew living in Babylonia would have
described it as ' the ends of the earth.'
Moreover, due weight must be given to the
fact that here we have the plural, not ' end '
but ' ends.' The expression would be equally
inapplicable to the Exodus from Egypt :
it would, however, be perfectly suitable if
applied to a return from the Dispersion.
In vv. 11, 12 it is imphed that there are a
number of adversaries opposed to Israel, not
simply the Chaldaean king ; i.e. the situation
seems to be the same as we find in some of
the latest sections of the prophetical books
and in the Psalms. Though the language of

THE SERVANT OF THE LORD 35
v. 14 may have been used by an exilic
prophet, yet the expression ' worm ' as
applied to Israel, imphes that the Jews are
treated with a contempt of which we have
no evidence in the exile, and the language
resembles that of Ps. xxii. 6, Job xxv. 6 ;
i.e. the atmosphere seems to be that of some
of the Psalms. Verse 15, though it may have
been suggested by a combination of Micah
iv. 13 with Isaiah xl. 4, has a somewhat
different nuance from the latter passage ;
for whereas in xl. 4 the mountains are merely
types of obstacles which are to be removed,
here the language suggests rather that they
are types of heathen opponents who are to
be crushed ; i.e. we have here a note of
vengeance which is absent in chap. xl. The
statement of v. 17, that ' the poor and needy
are seeking water, and there is none,' does not
seem particularly suitable to the exiles ;
and the present tense ' are seeking ' is opposed
to the supposition that we have a picture of
the returning exiles suffering from lack of
water on their journey home. There is no
indication that the trees which are to be
planted in the wilderness are to protect Israel
on the return to Palestine ; and the words

36 THE SERVANT OF THE LORD
may well refer to the transformation of the
waterless land, i.e. the land of the heathen
(cf. Pss. lxviii. 6, lxiii. 1), into a garden by
the preaching of the religion of Jehovah.
Chapter xhi. 1-7 is closely allied with the
other poems on Jehovah's ' Servant,' and
must be considered in connection with them.
It is commonly supposed that the rest of the
chapter, at any rate in the main, belongs to
the time of Cyrus, but it is at least possible
to assign it to a later date. Thus the language
of v. 10 recalls that of the Psalms, especially
those Psalms which there is good reason to
consider late (cf. Pss. xxxiii. 3, xl. 3, xcvi. 1,
xcviii. 1, cxliv. 9, cxlix. 1, and also, if we may
accept the plausible correction ' Let the sea
roar ' for ' Ye that go down to the sea,' Ps.
xcvi. 11, xcviii. 7). The reference to Kedar
may be explained at a period much later
than that of the exile (cf. chap. lx. 7, Ps. cxx.
5), and if Sela be a reference to the land of
Edom, we may compare Ps. lx. 9, Ps. lxxxiii.
6. In vv. 13-15 Jehovah's vengeance is
depicted in language which contrasts forcibly
with the calm hopefulness of chap. xl. There
only the obstacles to Israel's return were to be
removed, but here it seems to be implied that

THE SERVANT OF THE LORD 37
Jehovah in His vengeance will devastate the
lands of Israel's foes. The blind who are
led by Jehovah in v. 16 are not necessarily
the Babylonian exiles, nor are the idolaters
who are mentioned in v. 17 necessarily the
Babylonian idolaters ; the more natural
interpretation being that the Israelites who
listen to Jehovah's word are favourably
contrasted with those Israehtes who have
turned to idolatry. The rest of the chapter,
from v. 18 to the end, has been so modified
from its original form that it is difficult, if
not impossible, to decide what the first
author wrote. Certainly the chaotic jumble
of persons which we find at present cannot
be primitive. It is not impossible that v. 19
is a gloss upon v. 18, but it is certainly not
easy to account for the insertion of such a
gloss. For the phrase ' my servant ' will
upon this supposition be quoted from other
'Servant' passages such as xlii. 1, lii. 13;
and since in these the ' Servant ' is mentioned
with all honour, it is difficult to see why a
glossator should have applied this honourable
title to the nation in a passage where it is
declared to be blind and deaf. Verses 18-21
may be a collection of mutilated fragments

38 THE SERVANT OF THE LORD
arranged together by an editor in consequence
of their containing, or seeming to contain,
certain points of contact. Verse 1 8 may origin
ally have implied no rebuke, but may have
been an announcement to the blind and deaf
that now they may see and hear ; cf . xxxv. 5.
Verse 19, which appears to form a stanza or
couplet, is evidently very corrupt, and its
present form is probably due to the efforts
of a scribe, or perhaps of more than one
scribe, to correct it. Unfortunately, it is
impossible to decide who is the speaker, for,
though the phrase ' my messenger ' would
imply that it is Jehovah, the mention of
' the Lord's Servant ' in the latter part of
the verse is incompatible with this. Similarly
in v. 20 it is impossible to decide whether
the verbs were originally plural or singu
lar, third person or second. Perhaps, since
the words ' servant ' (or ' servants ') and
' messengers ' occur in parallelism in xliv. 26,
where the reference is apparently to the
prophets who foretold deliverance from
captivity, this passage (xlii. 19) is based upon
that reference by one who regarded the whole
nation of Israel as called to be ' servants and
messengers.' If this is the case, v. 19 must

THE SERVANT OF THE LORD 39
be considered to be independent of the other
' Servant ' passages. Since, however, the
text may be reconstructed in several different
ways, it is quite impossible to give any very
definite interpretation. We can only say
that the verse was apparently written by some
one whose conception of ' the Servant of
Jehovah ' was quite different from that of
the writers to whom we must assign xhi. 1-7,
xlix. 1-12, 1. 4-10, hi. 13-liii. It is equally
difficult to decide about the original connection
of xlii. 21. If it is a pious reflection by an
editor, it must be confessed that the working
of his mind as he arranged this passage is
not very obvious. If the first word of v. 22
is correct, it must refer back to a previous
mention of Israel or Jacob, such as may
originally have stood in v. 19, which, more
over, seems to be implied by v. 24. Here for
the first person ' we have sinned ' the third
person should probably be read. These
latter verses may be the work of a prophet
at the close of the exile (cf . Zechariah i. 4) ;
but the insistence on Israel's sin, and the
statement that the people are robbed and
spoiled, snared in holes and hid in prison
houses, a prey and a spoil, is scarcely suitable

40 THE SERVANT OF THE LORD
to the circumstances at the close of the exile,
and seems to require an historical background
similar rather to that which is indicated in
Ps. xliv.
Chapter xliii. is usually assigned to the
time of Cyrus, and some portions, for example
v. 14, can scarcely refer to any other period.
At the same time, it must be admitted that
there are some phrases which would be equally
suitable at a later date. In ' the waters '
and ' the rivers ' in v. 2 there is not necessarily
any reference to the rivers through which
Israel must pass on its way home from Babylon,
as is shown by the mention of the fire and
flame in the latter part of the verse. The
expression is a proverbial one as in Ps. lxvi. 12.
The mention of Egypt, Ethiopia, and Seba is
plausibly explained by the expected conquest
of these countries by Cyrus (for the thought
cf. Ezekiel xxix. 19, 20) ; but v. 5 f. seems
more suitable to a return from the Dispersion
than from the Babylonian Exile. The
chapter is almost certainly not homogeneous ;
there is no reason for supposing that v. 8
originally followed v. 7. Again in vv. 22-28
we have a section which has no connection
with the preceding context, and of which the

THE SERVANT OF THE LORD 41
exact meaning is by no means clear. As the
text stands, Jehovah seems to be complaining
that Israel has been weary of serving Him.
and has not troubled to offer sacrifices to Him,
and we seem to have a rebuke similar to that
contained in Malachi i. 6 ff. Some com
mentators, however, would emend the text
to make it mean that Jehovah has not
required Israel to bring sacrifices (because
Israel is not in Jerusalem), and that Israel
is therefore called upon to undergo no labour
in connection with the service of Jehovah,
while, on the other hand, Israel has wearied
Jehovah with its sins. Inasmuch as we do
not know the source of this section, it is
impossible to decide with certainty as to its
original meaning. It is not impossible that
it presupposes the same situation as Ps. 1.
It is commonly supposed that xliv. 1 ff. is
from the same hand which composed xliii.
27, 28. It is, however, remarkable that
in v. 27 we have the statement that Israel's
' first father ' (viz. Jacob) sinned, and that
the subsequent history of the nation has been
in accordance with the beginning, while in
the very next verse Jacob is declared to be
Jehovah's servant whom He will bless.

42 THE SERVANT OF THE LORD
Chapter xliv. is commonly regarded as
belonging to the time of Cyrus, except that
several recent commentators regard the
section against idolatry, vv. 9-20, as a late
insertion. It is, however, questionable
whether vv. 1-8, 21-23 are from the hand
which wrote xliv. 24-xlv. 8. True, if we
argue merely from the occurrence of certain
phrases and from the general style, we can
hardly refuse to admit the identity of author
ship ; for we have the phrase, ' Jacob my
servant, and Israel whom I have chosen '
in xliv. 1 (cf. 2, 21), while in xlv. 4 we read,
' For Jacob my servant's sake, and Israel my
chosen ' ; moreover, in xliv. 2, 24 we have
the phrase, ' That formed thee from the womb.'
Yet apart from these resemblances in style
which may be partly the result of imitation,
partly due to editorial expansion,1 it cannot
be maintained that there is any great prob
ability that xliv. 1-8, 21-23 were composed
1 Thus it is by no means certain that the words in v.
24, ' thy redeemer and he that formed thee from the womb,'
were originally part of this section. In fact vv. 24, 25
cohere very badly with v. 26 ; for though the transition
from the first person to the third is natural where general
truths are being stated, as in vv. 24, 25, it is unsuitable in
26, 27. Jehovah would not be represented as saying of
Himself that He is one who saith to Cyrus !

THE SERVANT OF THE LORD 43
in the time of Cyrus, at any rate by a Baby
lonian Jew. If the word ' Jeshurun ' is correct
in v. 2, it is probable that we have a reference
to the book of Deuteronomy (xxxii. 15,
xxxiii. 5, 26), a probability which is strength
ened by the use of the word ' Rock ' in v. 8
(cf. Deut. xxxii. 18). Whatever views be
held as to the date of Deuteronomy, few people
will be disposed to date chapters xxxiii. and
xxxiv. earlier than the exile, and it is difficult
to suppose that a Babylonian Jew would
quote a Palestinian document at this early
date. There is nothing in the imagery of
v. 3 which is particularly suitable to Baby
lonia, and v. 5 seems to be a reference to the
conversion of the Gentiles, a thought which
certainly did not come into prominence till
later than the time of Cyrus. Verse 23, if it
was written in Babylonia, must have been
written by a man whose view of nature was
based on his Palestinian recollections.
In xlv. 1-7 we have a section which we may
confidently assign to the time of Cyrus, and
which is important for our purpose, inasmuch
as it contains the words, ' For Jacob my
servant's sake, and Israel my chosen.' It
is not, however, easy to determine how much

44 THE SERVANT OF THE LORD
more of the chapter should be assigned to
this date. Verse 8 might have been written at
this time, or later. The section vv. 9-13,
though printed by the Revisers as one para
graph cannot be homogeneous, or, if homo
geneous, cannot be complete. There is no
antecedent to the pronoun in v. 13, which
appears to be a misplaced fragment of a
prophecy concerning Cyrus.
In xlv. 14 the reference to Egypt, Ethiopia,
and Seba, though it may have been suggested
by xliii. 3, has an entirely different meaning
from that in the former passage. There
Egypt, Ethiopia, and Seba were given to
Cyrus as compensation for Israel (in much
the same way that Ezekiel had promised
Nebuchadnezzar Egypt as a compensation
for that king's disappointment concerning
Tyre) ; here the wealth of Egypt, Ethiopia,
and the Sabeans is to belong to Israel, and they
themselves are to be subject to Israel, and
the thought is similar to that which we find
in Ps. lxxii. As a matter of fact, a close
examination of the short section vv. 14-17 will
show how extraordinarily complex it is. It is
verydoubtf ul whether any of the verses of which
it is composed originally stood in juxtaposition.

THE SERVANT OF THE LORD 45
Similarly in the section xlv. 18-25 : the
impression which we naturally derive from
v. 19, is that we have a lesson addressed to
Israel, not (as we must suppose if v. 20 be in
its right context) that Jehovah's dealings
with Jacob are mentioned simply to encourage
the heathen to come to Him. Verses 24, 25,
which mention Jehovah in the third person,
cannot be part of a speech in which Jehovah
speaks in the first person.
Chapter xlvi. may perhaps in the main
refer to the time of Cyrus, though it has not
come down to us in its original form, and it
may be the work of more than one author.
Verse 3 has been placed by an editor, who was
perhaps himself the author of it, after v. 2,
simply because it contains the words Q'rapyfJ
and D,Nb3n) while the preceding section has
Kfep niDiDy D^riKtw ; and similarly the section
6-7, which has itself suffered some mutilation,
is placed after v. 4 because it contains the
roots bzo and nsm which are found in v. 4.
This method of arrangement, according to
the use of similar phrases, is also found in the
Psalter. Chapter xlvi. 9-11 probably belongs to the
time of Cyrus, though the text of v. 11 is not

46 THE SERVANT OF THE LORD
above suspicion ; vv. 12, 13 may well be later.
Of the date of chapter xlvii there can happily
be no doubt, as it is a poem celebrating the
downfall of the Chaldaean empire. We are
not, however, obliged to assign its composition
to the same prophet as chapter xl. 1 ff., unless
we are convinced that Israel, the nation of
prophets, only produced one prophet at that
crisis. Chapter xlviii. is composed of fragments :
vv. 1 and 2 apparently are part of a denuncia
tion of Jews who are unworthy of their
privileges ; but even here there must be a
hiatus, for in form verse 2 gives the reason for
the statement in verse 1 that the people swear
falsely, and this is obviously impossible ;
people do not swear falsely because they are
called after the Holy City. Verse 3 is a frag
ment of, or a quotation from, the words of the
prophet of the Babylonian exile, who is
commonly called the ' Deutero-Isaiah ' ;
vv. 4, 5 are addressed to Israel in the singular ;
v. 6 is corrupt, but is perhaps from the same
source as v. 3, and so probably is v. 7, except
the last clause which reminds us of v. 5 ;
v. 8 seems to be a continuation of the rebuke
in 4, 5, and likewise v. 9 ; v. 10 is part of a

THE SERVANT OF THE LORD 47
declaration by Jehovah that He has smelted
Israel in the furnace of affliction, and must
therefore belong to a time when the faithful
had been made evident by a time of affliction ;
v. 11 is a statement by Jehovah that He will
vindicate His name, which would be suitable
in various contexts ; w. 12-15, though not
free from corruptions, evidently refer to the
time of Cyrus ; v. 16 is a mutilated fragment
in the beginning of which Jehovah is the
speaker, and in the latter part the prophet ;
w. 17-19 are apparently a lament over
Israel's disobedience belonging apparently to
the age of the glorification of the Law ;
v. 20 seems to be an exhortation to the Jews
to flee by stealth from Babylon before the
city be overwhelmed ; v. 21, which has no
immediate connection with the preceding
verse, is apparently part of an exhortation
to Israel to remember how Jehovah led His
people, and provided for them in the wilder
ness ; v. 22 seems to be a reflection on v. 19,
which is taken from lvii. 21.
In chapter xlix. 1-6 we have a poem in
which Jehovah's ' Servant ' describes his call
and destiny, and in vv. 7-12 we have a section
(if indeed it be homogeneous), based upon

48 THE SERVANT OF THE LORD
various passages in this book (e.g. xh. 18,
li. 7, 12, hii. 3, xl. 1, 3, 4, xh. 17. Verses
14-26 is a section, mutilated in places, and
perhaps not homogeneous, describing the
restoration of Jerusalem, and the return of
the Jews from the dispersion, who are to be
carried back in triumph to their home by the
Gentiles who have ceased to oppress them.
Probably no portion of this section is as early
as the exile ; for v. 17 imphes that those who
have destroyed Jerusalem are at present in
Jerusalem. The idea of v. 20 is perhaps taken
from Zech. ii. 4. Verse 26 reminds us of
Zechariah ix. 15.
Chapter 1. 1-3 has affinities with many late
passages, and is itself probably late.
Chapter 1. 4-9 is a soliloquy of the ' Servant '
describing his sufferings and looking forward
to his triumph, verses 10, 11 being an appendix.
In chapter li. 1-6 we have a couple of frag
ment (viz. 1-3, 4-6). The lateness of the first
is clear from v. 3, where there is a distinct
reference to Isaiah xl. by a prophet who
thought that that prophecy had now been
fulfilled. The fact that it had already in
his time been understood figuratively, and not
of the return of the exiles from Babylon

THE SERVANT OF THE LORD 49
through the wilderness is plain, for we have
a desert (araba) assigned to Sion ! Verses 4-6
are either based upon xlvi. 12 or are from
the same hand. Verses 7, 8 contain a some
what similar appeal. It is noticeable that
the appeal is not addressed to Israel as a
whole, but to ' those who know righteousness.'
Verses 9, 10 recall the language of Ps. lxxiv ;
v. 11 has been added by an editor or scribe
from xxxv. 10, where it coheres better with
the context. The word ' redeemed ' was the
cue which caused the addition. Verses 13-15
are an appeal to Israel to keep faith in
Jehovah at a time of persecution, therefore
not in the time of Cyrus. In vv. 17-23,
Jerusalem, which is represented as stupefied
with her afflictions, is bidden to arouse herself
from her stupor, inasmuch as Jehovah is giving
to those who have afflicted her the cup which
she has drunk.
Chapter lii. 1, 2 are a declaration addressed
to Zion, perhaps by the same writer as li. 17,
but apparently at a somewhat later date, that
the time of humiliation is over, and that there
shall no more enter again into the holy city
the ' uncircumcised and the unclean.' Verse 3
has no immediate connection with the pre-
D

50 THE SERVANT OF THE LORD
ceding or following context : for the thought
cf . Ps. xliv. 12. Verse 4 is fragmentary and the
exact reference is uncertain. Verse 5 declares
that Jehovah's people have been taken away
from Him by heathen. The thought is not
that of the exile, but of a later period. In
vv. 7-10 we have a prophecy of comfort
evidently based upon Isaiah xl., but con
taining a thought which is not found there,
but is prominent in the Psalms, viz. that
Jehovah is King. Verses 11, 12 are apparently
an adaptation of an exhortation resembling
that in xlviii. 20 to the exigencies of a later
time. It is, however, impossible to speak
with certainty, for the verse is not in its
original context, since there is no antecedent to
the pronoun ' her ' in v. 11. Verse 12 would
seem to be appended later. The language is
based upon the story of the Exodus and
conquest of Canaan.
It is therefore clear that we have in the
chapters which I have thus briefly analysed
a collection of fragments arranged with very
little regard to their original connection.
Of these the nucleus would appear to be the
prophecies of one, or possibly more than one,
prophet of the time of Cyrus, which from

THE SERVANT OF THE LORD 51
their great beauty, and from the brilliancy
of their faith powerfully impressed later
prophets. Ii, however, the foregoing analysis
is in the main correct, there is a difference of
tone between the original prophecies and
those which at a later date were founded
upon them. The former are almost unmixed
consolation and encouragement ; the latter
exhibit a full recognition of the fact that the
troubles which have come upon Israel are the
result of Israel's sin.
Of the nucleus of this coUection of pro
phecies, the analysis of which we have con
sidered, the most important portion for our
purpose is the section Isaiah xlv. 1-7 ; for
here, not only in a passage which mentions
Cyrus, but in a verse which can scarcely be
addressed to any one else, we find the phrase,
' For Jacob my servant's sake, and Israel
my chosen ' ; and we may therefore conclude
with tolerable certainty that, at a 'date not
later than 538 B.C., a prophet spoke of his
nation as being in some sort the ' servant '
and the ' chosen ' of Jehovah. We naturally
ask, therefore, what ideas he connected with
these words. Is there here ,any thought of
a mission for Israel ?

52 THE SERVANT OF THE LORD
Now it may be stated as a characteristic of
Hebrew style generaUy, that we never find
expressed by means of an adjective or adjec
tival clause an idea which is not necessary for
the understanding of the main sentence. If,
therefore, the words ' chosen ' and ' servant '
imphed a choice in order to fulfil some special
mission, we should expect to find in the
immediate context an account of this mission.
In the passage before us the whole stress is
laid upon the mission of Cyrus, and it would,
therefore, be contrary to Hebrew idiom to
refer by the way to a mission of Israel. The
words, ' my servant ' and ' my chosen,'
which, of course, refer to Israel, must therefore
be used simply to explain the mission of
Cyrus. In other words, Jehovah has given
Cyrus the victory for the sake of His people
Israel, who stand to Him in a special relation,
viz. that of servant. Israel is thought of
as one who is, so to speak, attached to the
household of Jehovah ; one who stands in
the same relation to Jehovah as a courtier,
who not only has free access to a king, but
receives the special protection of the king.
This is apparently the sense which the word
has, when it is used, for example, of Abraham

THE SERVANT OF THE LORD 53
in Gen. xxvi. 24, of Jacob in Ezekiel xxviii.
25, xxxvii. 25, of Zerubbabel in Haggai ii. 23,
of the ' Branch ' in Zechariah iii. 8. There
is, however, an advance from the thought in
the passages quoted from Genesis and Ezekiel,
in that phrases used there of the individual
patriarchs are here used of the nation. The
phrase ' my chosen ' receives illustration from
Zechariah i. 17, ii. 12. It means what Amos
means by the words, ' You only have I known
of all the families of the earth.'
We may say then that, before the end of
the sixth century B.C., Israel as a whole was
spoken of as the ' Servant of Jehovah ' ;
the phrase meaning primarily that Israel in
a special sense enjoyed the favour and pro
tection of Jehovah. But a phrase which has
once become current may in course of time
suggest a conception somewhat different from
that which, it bore in the mind of its originator.
We may, perhaps, see a trace of the transition
in Malachi i. 6, although Malachi in this
passage is thinking of the priests, and not of
the whole nation. ' A son honoureth his
father, and a servant his master,' says Malachi :
' if then I be a father, where is mine honour ?
and if I be a master, where is my fear ? saith

54 THE SERVANT OF THE LORD
the Lord of hosts unto you, 0 priests that
despise my name.' Here the prophet is
thinking of the obedience that is due to
Jehovah and the work which should be con
scientiously performed for Him, not of the
protection which a king affords his servants.
It is not unlikely that this aspect of service,
which Malachi impresses upon the priests,
was constantly brought before the Jews in
the age following Nehemiah's publication of
the Law, and that the Jewish Church, or at
least the better portion of it, considered that
Jehovah had made Israel His servant in order
that Israel might faithfully carry out His
commands. It is improbable that during the Persian
period the nation ever supposed that Jehovah
had commanded, or would command, His
servant Israel to preach His Law to the
Gentiles ; for the policy of Nehemiah had
been to isolate Israel from the Gentiles ; but
if the assignment of the book of Jonah to the
time of Alexander the Great is correct, we
may conclude that by that time at least a
section of the Church had perceived, however
dimly, that what the prophets had been in
Israel, that Israel ought to be in the world.

THE SERVANT OF THE LORD 55
But the hopes which had been raised by the
conquests of Alexander were destined for a
time to be shattered. Before the close of
the fourth century B.C. the Jews found them
selves beneath the yoke of the Ptolemies,
which they bore till 198 B.C. ; and although
there can be little doubt that their position
had enormously improved from what it had
been in the days of Persian rule, the thought
of paying tribute to Egypt was particularly
galling to them, at least to the non-Hellenising
section of the people. The wider outlook
which we find in the book of Jonah would,
therefore, be likely to give way to some extent
to the exclusiveness of Nehemiah.
And meanwhile there was a gradually
widening rift in Judaism. On the one hand,
there were those who welcomed the civilisation
which the Macedonian conquest had brought
with it, and on the other, there were those
who regarded every departure from the old
customs, whether good or bad, as virtually
apostasy from Jehovah. No doubt, among
those who in the third century would have
been described by the more conservative party
as Hellenisers, there were some who were
generally loyal to the Law of their fathers ;

56 THE SERVANT OF THE LORD
but since, as a rule, it must have been profit
able to stand well with the ruling classes,
the ranks of the Hellenisers would naturally
contain many who cared nothing about real
religion, and were only anxious for worldly
advantage. In the eyes of these latter those
who clung so tenaciously to the Law of their
fathers (who belonged for the most parts to
the poorer ranks of society, and to the country
rather than to the town) were a set of hope
lessly unreasonable fanatics exciting the
contempt of reasonable men, whose opinion
might be entirely disregarded. Accordingly,
while the upper classes cultivated Greek ways,
the poorer classes, isolated more and more
from their wealthier brethren, tended to
become what was virtually a Church apart.
They worshipped, indeed, at Jerusalem, and
acknowledged the authority of the priests
who there ministered, but it seemed to them
that of the Jewish nation only a small portion,
and that the poorest and weakest portion,
could claim in any way to fulfil the purpose
for which Jehovah had chosen Israel. It
was, speaking generally, only the poor who
could with any propriety be described as a
people for Jehovah's own possession.

THE SERVANT OF THE LORD 57
By the time of Antiochus Epiphanes these
opponents of Hellenism had come to be called
by a distinctive name, viz. Hasidim, or, in
the Aramaic form which underlies the spelling
of the Greek word found in the first book
of Maccabees, Hasidayya. The name Hasid,
of course, denotes one who is in some way
or other an example of hesed. It is not,
however, easy to decide exactly what it
connoted ; whether those who bore the name
laid stress on kindness to the poor (in which
some of the wealthy Hellenisers were terribly
deficient), or whether they were simply the
religious as distinct from the irreligious. On
the whole, the former is perhaps the more
probable view, especiaUy as at this period
great stress was laid on the duty of alms
giving. It is impossible to say whether the
name Hasidim was given by the HeUenisers
in mockery, or whether it was taken as the
party name by those who bore it. Whatever
its origin was, however, the Hasidim came to
regard it as an honourable title.
One element in Jewish religious life in the
third and second centuries before Christ
must not be forgotten, viz. the existence of
synagogues, which are probably mentioned

58 THE SERVANT OF THE LORD
in Ps. lxxiv. 8. Since the priests formed to a
great extent the aristocracy of Judaism, and
the aristocracy were most strongly influenced
by Hellenism, it is likely that the Temple
offered no rallying point to those who were
zealous for the faith of their fathers. With the
synagogues, however, it was different. If,
as is probable, the synagogues had had their
origin in a desire for instruction in the law,
it is obvious that the HeUenisers would not
have any affection for them. It was one
thing to go through official worship at the
Temple ; it was another to spend time in the
study of laws, many of which they regarded
as barbarous and obsolete. It is extremely
probable, therefore, that if we could have
gone into a Jewish synagogue in the first
quarter of the second century before Christ,
we should have found ourselves in a con
gregation composed entirely of Hasidim.
Those who worshipped in synagogues would
thus have formed, to aU intents and purposes,
a community apart. The Temple was a
place in which to sacrifice, and, save that its
ritual differed from that of Gentile temples,
there was nothing (with the possible exception
of certain hymns sung by the Levitical choirs)

THE SERVANT OF THE LORD 59
to remind the Jew that he belonged to a nation
apart. In the synagogue, however, he received
instruction in the unique Law of Israel ; in
the synagogue he heard read the sacred books
which related what great things Jehovah had
done for his fathers ; in the synagogue he
could never forget that he was a Jew, of the
seed of Jacob, a fact of which the HeUenisers
appeared to have lost sight ; and consequently
he would naturaUy be disposed to regard
those who attended the synagogues as the
true Israel, the true heirs to the promises
which Jehovah had made to the fathers, the
true remnant of Israel which in the end would
be saved.

LECTURE III
I have already endeavoured to trace out the
development in Israel of a consciousness of
Jehovah's choice of the nation to be His
servant ; and, in order to do this, it has been
necessary to analyse briefly the group of
chapters which contain references to the
' Servant of the Lord.' It is now necessary,
in order to carry forward our study, to consider
more closely the passages which refer speciaUy
to this ' Servant.' Of these the most important
are four which it is the fashion to speak of
as ' Songs.' The term is not altogether a
satisfactory one, for there is nothing to suggest
that these four poems, or fragments of poems,
were speciaUy intended to be sung, any more
than many other portions of the book. In
one respect, however, it is useful, inasmuch
as it suggests that these poems possess a
definite rhythmical form. It is pretty gener
ally agreed that these four passages possess a
certain independence, and that, whatever 61

62 THE SERVANT OF THE LORD
be their origin, the position which they now
occupy in the book is not that in which they
were originally placed.
One thing may be said with tolerable
certainty. The four passages, though they
may not be altogether complete, and though
the text of them has to some extent been
corrupted, show in each case signs of literary
unity. They are not mere comments, editorial
additions to the context in which we now
find them, but each of them was originaUy as
distinct as, for example, one of the Psalms.
There is much that we cannot hope to dis
cover. By whom they were composed,
when and where they were first written down,
— these are questions to which we cannot give
any definite answer. We cannot even tell
whether they existed in writing before they
were incorporated in the book of Isaiah,
though this is certainly probable. Con
sidering the extraordinary abruptness with
which they begin, without any introduction
to show who is the speaker, it is reasonable
to suppose that they are to be regarded as
excerpts from some collection of prophecies
dealing with the subject of ' Israel the Lord's
Servant.' And although, if this be the case,

THE SERVANT OF THE LORD 63
it is difficult to understand why the editor
of the book of Isaiah should have selected
just these excerpts, and should have rejected
their setting, a like editorial arbitrariness,
if it be right to caU it arbitrariness, is found
elsewhere. Why, for example, should the
section which we find in Isaiah ii. 2-4, Micah
iv. 1-4 have been inserted in its present
context ?
In these four passages we find a diversity
of speakers. In the first (xhi. 1-4) the speaker
is Jehovah ; in the second (xlix. 1-6), and in
the third (1. 4-9) the Servant Himself speaks ;
in the fourth (hi. 13-liii.), except in some
instances where the text probably needs
correction, we find the declaration of a number
of people, that is to say, the verbs are in the
first person plural.
I have already stated that the four passages
which we are speciaUy considering are poems,
that is to say, they possess a definite
rhythmical form ; and inasmuch as it wiU be
necessary in a discussion of the integrity of
the text to take account of this, it will be well
that I should describe briefly the ordinary
laws of Hebrew poetry. It is, indeed, affirmed
by many scholars that Hebrew poetry is

64 THE SERVANT OF THE LORD
governed by no fixed rules ; and it may be
freely admitted that in the case of a number
of Psalms it is impossible either to arrange
them as they stand according to any exact
scheme, or to reconstruct the text in such a
way as to reduce it to a precise poetical form.
It such cases, as perhaps in the case of the
New Testament canticles, it is probable that
aU that was aimed at was the production of
a composition which could be sung to certain
chants. In a great number of cases, however, the
evidence for a more or less exact poetical form
is unmistakable. In my opinion a careful
critical study of the book of Job, and of many
of the Psalms, estabhshes this fact beyond
question ; and although few poems, as they
have come down to us, conform in aU their
parts to any rule, it is probable that, after
making aUowance for a certain amount of
poetical licence, we should attribute this
irregularity to corruption of the text. The
Hebrew text which has come down to us would
seem, in many places, to have been copied
from mutilated manuscripts, or from manu
scripts which were partly iUegible. The
scribes apparently copied what they could

THE SERVANT OF THE LORD 65
read without attempting to restore or complete
the text. HappUy, however, owing to one
of the chief characteristics of Hebrew poetry,
the general sense has been preserved in many
places, even where there is good reason to
suppose that the text is incomplete. Speaking
generaUy, the most prominent characteristic
of Hebrew poetry is parallelism, a balancing
of clause by clause, and line by line. The
poet makes a statement in a few words con
taining a certain number of rhythmic beats,
and then completes the line by a paraUel
statement, whether nearly synonymous or
antithetical, consisting of an equal number
of beats.1 Such a line is immediately foUowed
by a paraUel or complementary line of like
construction, the two lines forming a couplet.
A definite progress in the thought of the poem,
or new idea, wUl be introduced in a new
couplet. Thanks to this paraUelism, the sense
may remain almost unimpaired, though a
whole line may be lost.
A good illustration of this poetical structure
1 This is true of the ordinary hexameter or octameter
rhythm, but not of the pentameter {e.g. Ps. xix. 7-10), in
which the two beats which follow the caesura of each line
are not parallel in sense to the three beats before it, but
complementary. E

66 THE SERVANT OF THE LORD
is seen in the old poem in Micah vi. 6 ff., which
is composed in Hexameter lines (i.e. lines of
six beats with a caesura in the middle, the
latter hah being paraUel to the first) arranged
in couplets. The words which are the render
ing of those on which the beat faUs in the
Hebrew are marked by an accent.
Wherewith shall-I-meet Jehovah,
bow-myself to-the-God of-heaven ?
Shall-I-meet-Him 1 with-bumt-offerings 1
with-calves of-a-year old ?
Will-He-be-pleased with-thousands of-rams,
with myriads of-the-fat-portions of peace-offerings 1
Shall-I-give my-firstborn as-my- transgression- offering,
my- womb-fruit as my sin-offering ? 2
In studying a Hebrew poem therefore the
first thing to be discovered is whether any
1 ^iSDIpSn is to be regarded as two beats. Possibly the
word should be pointed as Hiph'il. It seems to be a rule
that a word which has two syllables long by nature in
addition to the accented syllable may be scanned as two
beats. 2 Omit niiT1 and read QiDPE' ,|X>n (as in 1 Kings viii. 64)
for JDB» ^nj.
Read TjKtSn for ''tS'Si flNlSH. Since JE33, is perpetu
ally simply a synonym of Orn, it is improbable that it is
here used of the father. '3D3 'HS is to be regarded as
virtually a compound word 'womb-fruit,' the suffix pro
noun defining the whole expression.

THE SERVANT OF THE LORD 67
parts of it conform to the rules described
above. If so, it may be assumed that the
poem was originally written according to a
definite poetical scheme, and since the rules
of parallelism are as precise in their way as
rules of rhyme in English poetry,1 we shaU
have an invaluable means of testing the
text as a whole, and often of making good
deficiencies. A useful Ulustration of poetical structure
in Hebrew, and of the help which may be
derived from this in the restoration of the

1 No one would hesitate to admit the existence of cor
ruption in an English rhymed poem of which some stanzas
were only half the proper length and destitute of rhyme.
Let it be supposed, for example, that the first stanza of the
Old Hundredth occurred only in this form : ' All people that
on earth do dwell, Come ye before Him and rejoice ' ; the
second stanza being complete, no one would deny that we
should be justified in arguing that the first stanza was
mutilated. In this case we should be led to discover the
exact nature of the corruption by observing that, although
the line 'Come ye before Him,' etc., makes some sort of
sense, if read immediately after the first line, yet there is
no antecedent to the pronoun 'Him,' which requires some
previous mention of the Lord. But if the line ' Come ye
before Him,' etc., cannot be the original second line of the
stanza, the absence of any rhyme between its last word and
that of the first line makes it impossible that it can be
the third. We should therefore conclude, quite correctly,
that the missing lines were the second and third, though
it would obviously pass the wit of man to say precisely
what the missing words ought to be.

68 THE SERVANT OF THE LORD
text may be found in Psalm ii. Since the
first verse down to the words, ' take counsel
together,' forms an exact hexameter couplet,1
and the words, ' Let us break their bonds
asunder, and cast away their cords from us,'
form a complete hexameter line, it is reasonable
to suppose that the psalm originaUy foUowed
the ordinary hexameter rhythm. But no
one who pays any attention to the laws of
parallelism can read the psalm, as it stands,
without being struck by the fact that the
words, ' against the Lord and against His
anointed,' have no paraUel in the first part
of the line, and further that the words, ' Let
us break,' etc., are introduced without any
indication of the speaker. It wiU also be
noticed that the words, ' and against His
anointed,' are naturaUy paraUel to the words,
' against the Lord,' and we should therefore
conclude that they belonged to a paraUel
clause ; in other words, ' against the Lord '
is the conclusion of the first hah of a line,
and ' against His anointed ' the beginning of
the second half.
With this clue we are able to gain some idea
1 Some commentators, regarding each of the parallel
clauses in one sentence as a line, speak of quatrains.

THE SERVANT OF THE LORD 69
of the original form of the psalm, which we
can arrange in couplets, thus : —
Why do the Gentiles rage,
r i i
and the peoples imagine a vain-thing ?
the kings of the earth stand up,
and the rulers take counsel together ?
The first couplet, which asks the reason for
the excitement among the GentUes, is thus
complete. The second couplet will then
develop stiU further the account of the GentUes'
hostility by stating what they design to do.
We may make good the deficiency in the first
line somewhat as follows : —
[They have said, We will contend] against Jehovah,
and against His anointed [we will gather together to
fight];
we will break their bonds asunder,
and cast away their ropes from us.
The next couplet describes the futihty of aU
these schemes of revolt.
He that dwelleth in heaven will laugh,
the Lord will have them in derision.
Then will He speak unto them ;
in His wrath and hot anger He will affright them.
Verse 6 f. formed originally two couplets, but
the parallel line to v. 6 is lost, and one clause

70 THE SERVANT OF THE LORD
of the foUowing couplet. We may arrange
the verses thus : —
I it
While I (for my part) am constituted King,
yea, upon His holy hill of Zion.
Jehovah's anointed then goes on to develop
the thought which is imphed in the statement
that he is constituted King in Zion.
I t I
I will give an account of Jehovah's decree ;
He hath said, Thou art My son,2
I myself this very day have begotten thee.
The next couplet then describes the privUeges
of the anointed King who receives a share of
territory from Jehovah who has adopted him
as son. The words ' Desire of me and ' are
unnecessary to the sense ; they destroy the
rhythm, and are probably a later insertion.
The couplet should run : —
I will give the Gentiles for thine inheritance
and the ends of the earth for thy possession ;
thou shalt shepherd 3 them with a rod of iron,
yea, thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.
1 Reading on the basis of the LXX. 1^0 ,rOD; VIK1
itsni? -in ps?~^>.
2 According to the existing text the first half of the
second line is too long by one beat. The only word which
can be dispensed with is vX, which may have been intro
duced by a copyist or may belong to the missing half line,
having been transposed with 1DN.
3 Reading with LXX. DV"\Pi.

THE SERVANT OF THE LORD 71
In the next couplet the anointed King ad
dresses a solemn warning to those who rebel.
And now, 0 ye kings, be wise ;
11 i
be admonished, ye judges of the earth.
it t
Serve Jehovah with fear
and tremble before Him,1 with quaking.
The text of the last couplet is very doubtful,
grammar, rhythm, and sense ahke being at
fault, at any rate in the first line. It appears
to have emphasised the admonition to the
GentUes by pointing out the consequences of
rebellion and the blessedness of submission.
If, as I hope, these Ulustrations are sufficient
to demonstrate the existence in Hebrew of
an exact poetical structure as weU as the
assistance which such a structure affords us
in detecting, and to some extent correcting,
corruptions of the text, I shaU be pardoned
for this digression, inasmuch as we shall now
be in a better position to consider the poems
relating to ' The Servant of the Lord,' of which
the original poetical form appears to have
been identical with that which I have described.
In the first passage (Isaiah xlii. 1-4) it is
not quite clear whether we have a description
1 This seems to be the sense required, but the text iB
probably corrupt.

72 THE SERVANT OF THE LORD
of Jehovah's Servant as he actually exists, or
an ideal of what such a servant should be.
Verse 3 in the Masoretic text somewhat favours
the latter alternative, but there is good reason
here for doubting the correctness of the text.
The opening words of this passage imply
that the writer was f amihar with the prophecies
which had been uttered concerning Cyrus, and
that he adapts the phrases which his great
predecessor had originated, in order to set
forth his view of the Servant of Jehovah.
Thus the terms ' my servant,' ' my chosen/
appear to be taken from Isaiah xlv. 4 ; the
phrase, ' whom I uphold,' may have been
suggested by the words used of Cyrus in xlv. 1,
though the verb there used is different, what
seems to be a reminiscence of both passages
being found in xh. 9 ; the words, ' I have put
my spirit upon him,' may be borrowed from
lxi. 1, but it is possible that in both cases
the phrase is taken from the older Scriptures,
as, for example, the story of the anointing of
Saul or the commission of Elijah. The
Septuagint inserts in the first two clauses the
names Jacob and Israel ; but inasmuch as
the first verse forms a perfect couplet, each
line consisting of two paraUel clauses of three

THE SERVANT OF THE LORD 73
beats each, and inasmuch as the symmetry
of the rhythm is spoUt by their insertion, in
all probability the Masoretic text is here
correct. The whole couplet, therefore, wiU
run as foUows : —
Behold my servant, whom I uphold ;
my chosen, in whom my soul delighteth :
I have put my spirit upon him :
he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles.
Verse 2 appears to be mutilated, as we have
only one line instead of a whole couplet.
It describes, or rather did describe, the mute
patience of the Servant, who suffers un
complainingly. This is somewhat obscured
in the English version, where the words, ' He
shaU not cry,' seem to imply that the Servant's
preaching wiU be done quietly. The Hebrew,
however, imphes rather, ' He wiU not cry for
help.' The first line of the couplet, therefore,
should be translated : —
He will not cry for help, nor lift up his voice,
nor cause his voice to be heard in the street.
The second line of the couplet is gone, but it
must have been more or less paraUel in thought
to the first line, and no doubt expressed the
same thought which is found in liii. 7.
Verse 3, as it stands, expresses the patience
of the Servant in dealing with the weak, but

74 THE SERVANT OF THE LORD
since in v. 4 it is evident that it is the Servant
himseh who is, in accordance with the meta
phors used, in danger of being extinguished or
crushed, it is almost certain that we should
read in v. 3 : —
A bruised reed will I not break,
and a dimly-burning wick I will not extinguish.1
The parallel line has lost one of its clauses ;
it probably was somewhat to this effect : —
For he shall proclaim my [law in the land] ;
to the coastlands he shall publish my justice.2
Verse 4 wiU then be a reiteration of what is
affirmed in v. 3. One clause is gone, and
another has suffered a slight corruption. We
should probably read somewhat as foUows : —
For [Israel my chosen] will not burn dimly,
nor will [Jacob my servant] be crushed.3
He will set judgement in the land,
and the coastlands will wait for his teaching.
The foUowing verses, 5-7, are an appendix,
but whether they were appended to the
prophecy which they foUow before or after
the insertion of that prophecy in its present
place it would be impossible to say. These
appended verses, no less than the passage to
1 i.e. reading ltaB>N and H3MK.
2 Reading B?k|> for HpsS and ^B^O.
3 Reading ^1V 3f«£ }*iV l&) iirp; t6 'H'TO ^t^.

THE SERVANT OF THE LORD 75
which they are added, appear to have been
composed by one whose inspiration was
drawn both from the ' Cyrus ' passages and
from the ' Servant ' passages (cf . for example
v. 6 with xhx. 6 and 8). In v. 6 the tenses
should probably be read as past, i.e. we should
translate : ' I the Lord have caUed thee in
righteousness, and I have grasped thine hand,
and I have kept thee and have made thee a
national covenant ' (i.e. the mediator of a
national covenant), ' for a light of the GentUes ;
to open the blind eyes, to bring out the
prisoners from the dungeon, and them that
sit in darkness out of the prison house.' Here
we have almost certainly a reminiscence of
lxi. 1-3 as weU as of xlv. 1. The conviction
is expressed that the Servant has been caUed,
not only to be the mediator of a national
covenant (i.e. a covenant of Jehovah with
His people Israel), but also to be a ' light to
lighten the GentUes.' There is obviously
very little difference, if any, in the stand
point from which verses 1-4 were written and
that from which the appended verses were
composed. One may, perhaps, infer that the
affliction of the Servant which appears to be
stiU present in vv. 1-4 is a thing of the past

76 THE SERVANT OF THE LORD
in the appendix, but the language is scarcely
conclusive on this point.
In the next passage, Isaiah xhx. 1-6, although
the general sense is similar to that of the
section which we have just considered, a more
hopeful, more triumphant note is struck.
Here the sufferings of the Servant, which are
only hinted at, are clearly past ; and the
Servant is no longer mute in the midst of his
afflictions, but hfts up his voice to the whole
world in strong assurance that he has received
from Jehovah not only a commission to be a
light to the Gentiles (that is to proclaim to
the Gentiles the teaching which goes forth
from Sion, and the word of the Lord which
goes forth from Jerusalem), but also power
to make that mission a success. In chapter
xlii. the Servant was presented to us un
complaining in his weakness ; here we see him
rejoicing in his strength.
Now, as I have before pointed out, the
Servant in this passage is distinctly stated
(v. 3) to be Israel, and even though the name
should here be supposed to be a gloss, the
resemblance between this passage and xliv. 1 f.
shows that is at any rate a correct gloss.
The passage just referred to (xliv. 1) is

THE SERVANT OF THE LORD 77
important as showing that the words, ' The
Lord hath caUed me from the womb : from
my mother's body hath he made mention of
my name,' do not necessarily imply that the
speaker is an individual man. The Hebrews
carried personification to a point where our
prosaic western minds find it hard to foUow
them. Those who in ordinary prose could
write of tribes, ' And Judah said unto Simeon
his brother, Come up with me into my lot,
that we may fight against the Canaanites ;
and I likewise wiU go with thee into thy lot '
(Judges i. 3), could obviously in poetry go
stUl further in the way of personification.
As a matter of fact, the books of the prophets
contain many examples of the application to
Israel of language which is apparently suitable
only to an individual. As an illustration it wiU
be sufficient to mention Hosea xi. 1, 'When
Israel was a child, then I began to love him.'
The Servant of Jehovah, therefore, who in
this passage (v. 3) is represented as possessing
in some way or other the right to be styled
Israel, here claims that from the very begin
ning of his history Jehovah has destined him
for a mission the glory of which has now been
revealed to him. The Lord can select an

78 THE SERVANT OF THE LORD
individual or a nation as a vessel for His use,
whether to honour or to dishonour. As He
can make Ephraim His helmet, Judah His
sceptre, and Moab His washpot, so He can
make His Servant, whom He declares to be
the true Israel, a sharp sword or a pohshed
arrow. By the statement that Jehovah has
made his mouth like a sharp sword, the
Servant means that Jehovah has put into his
mouth teaching which wiU overcome the
wickedness of the world, as a warrior armed
with a sharp sword overcomes his enemies.
The thought is very simUar to that which
we find in chapter xi. 4, where it is said of
the ideal ruler who wiU restore the throne
of David that ' he wiU smite the violent
(read r?J0 with the rod of his mouth,
and with the breath of his lips wiU he slay
the wicked.' Jehovah has protected His
Servant as a warrior guards his weapons, and
has encouraged him by reminding him that
he is His Servant : one, that is to say, whom
He, Jehovah, wiU not aUow to be unavenged,
one, moreover, in whom wUl be manifested
His glorious might.
The Servant has, however, in time past
found it difficult to keep his faith in Jehovah

THE SERVANT OF THE LORD 79
and in his mission. In his afflictions it was
hard to make his sense of God's justice square
with his experiences. He then said, as other
sorely tried servants of God have said, ' I
have laboured in vain, I have spent my
strength for nought and vanity : yet surely
my cause must be with the Lord, and my
recompense with my God ' (v. 4). But,
though it was once difficult to retain a behef
in a mission, now the darkness is past, and a
more glorious destiny is revealed than had
previously been imagined. Now the Servant
perceives that the scope of his mission is not
Israel only, but the GentUes also to the ends
of the earth. Now that his God has become
his strength (i.e. now that God has visibly
made him strong, and has given him the
victory), the restoration of Israel, which once
seemed the most glorious of achievements,
appears insignificant compared with the
prospect of world-wide influence which now
opens out before him (vv. 5, 6).
In verse 7 we come upon an appendix to
the passage which we have just been con
sidering, evidently containing reminiscences
of the great prophecy in chapter hii. as weU
as of earlier prophecies. I have already caUed

80 THE SERVANT OF THE LORD
attention to the fact that it has phrases in
common with the appendix to xlii. 1-4.
In the next passage, 1. 4-9, the speaker is
not specified, but he is obviously the same
as in xhx. 1-6 ; and that he was regarded by
the editor of the book as being the Servant
of Jehovah is made probable by the fact
that foUowing upon this section comes
the question, ' Who is among you that
feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of
his servant ? ' (v. 10). This speech, however,
is spoken by the Servant not as in xhx. 1-6,
when his triumph is manifest, but in the days
of his conflict, when his ultimate triumph is
stiU a matter of faith.
Unfortunately the opening verse is corrupt,
though the general sense is fairly clear. The
Servant declares that Jehovah has disciplined
him, and that he has been an apt and obedient
disciple. Jehovah has given him a weU-
trained tongue (ht. a tongue of disciples) ;
that is to say, he has learned to repeat faith-
fuUy the message which has been entrusted
to him ; while his ear has been rendered quick
to catch the words which Jehovah speaks
to him (v. 4). He has been caUed upon to
undergo a discipline from which most people

THE SERVANT OF THE LORD 81
would have shrunk (v. 5) ; he has been exposed
to persecution, and has been treated with
contumely ; he has given his back to the
smiters, and his cheeks to them that have
plucked off the hair ; he has not refused to
suffer shame and spitting (v. 6). For aU the
whfle he has been supported by his faith in
Jehovah ; possessing a full assurance of the
help, which in His own good time Jehovah
wiU give, he has never been confounded.
Knowing that he wUl not in the end be dis
appointed, he has set his face like a flint (v. 7).
The Lord, who can and wiU vindicate him,
is with him ; who then can oppose him ?
who by overthrowing him can prove that he
is one forsaken by the Lord (v. 8 f .) ?
In the fourth passage we are confronted
with serious textual difficulties, though
happUy for the most part the general sense
is clear. A fuU discussion of these diffi
culties is impossible without reference to the
original Hebrew ; I wUl, however, endeavour
to confine myself to those points which may
be considered by those who are dependent
upon the English versions.
In the first place we naturally ask whether
the modern division of the text, which regards

82 THE SERVANT OF THE LORD
w. 13, 14, 15 of chapter lii. as forming one
composition with chapter liii., is correct.
Certainly it must be admitted that prima
facie the division of our Bibles, which separates
these portions by beginning a new chapter
with the words, ' Who hath beheved ? ' has
much to recommend it. For, as the text
stands, the speaker in lii. 13 can be none
other than Jehovah ; whereas in chapter
liii. we have a plurahty of speakers who
acknowledge that the sufferings of the
Servant have been in some way or other the
consequence of their sin, and Jehovah is spoken
of in the third person. The first person singular
appears again according to the existing text
in vv. 11, 12 of chapter liii. Apart from this
difficulty, however, it must be admitted that
chapter hii. appears to be the natural sequence
of lii. 14 ; moreover, it is plain that liii. 1 can
scarcely have been the beginning of the section.
But if lii. 13-15 is the beginning of a section
of which chapter liii. is the continuation, it
is obvious that the text of v. 13 has not come
down to us in its original form ; for the
first person singular is evidently out of place.
This, however, is not the only instance of
corruption in the text. It is pretty obvious

THE SERVANT OF THE LORD 83
from chapter hii. that the section was
originaUy a poem composed in the most
common form of Hebrew poetry which I have
already described, viz. in couplets of which
each line consists of two paraUel clauses.
But it is impossible to reduce vv. 13 and 14
to couplets as they stand. Evidently we have
here an example of that most common form
of corruption in the text of the Old Testa
ment, viz. the omission of a number of words,
possibly through the scribe's eye having
wandered, but more probably through the
mutilation of the manuscript which he was
copying. Now v. 13 ought to form a com
plete couplet, whereas at present we have
only two not very exact paraUel clauses of
unequal length. Obviously it is impossible
to restore the actual words which have gone,
but from what remains we may assume that
the opening couplet ran originaUy somewhat
as foUows : —
Behold the servant of [Jehovah,
His chosen in whom He is well pleased],
now shall he prosper, yea he shall be exalted,
and shall be lifted up and shall be very high.
The second couplet has lost the greater part
of the second half of the first line, and has

84 THE SERVANT OF THE LORD
suffered also some minor corruptions, among
them being the introduction of the second
person instead of the third into the first
clause, and the reading, ' so was a marring,'
instead of ' for his countenance was marred.'
The gist of the missing clause can be fairly
weU guessed from the context ; and Psalm
lxxxviii. wUl furnish us with clauses which
would do very weU as a makeshift. Probably
the couplet ran originaUy somewhat as
foUows : —
As they were appalled at [him,
and fled from him, even all] who saw him ; *
for his aspect was marred that it was not that of
a man,
and his visage that it was not that of a human being ;
The next couplet wiU then describe the con
trast to the Servant's condition of weakness
and degradation described in v. 14. With
the exception of the word (unwarrantably)
translated ' He shaU sprinkle,' which with
the addition of one letter gives the more
probable reading, ' shall see him,' the text
here seems to have come down to us sub-
stantiaUy as it left the author's hand. The
couplet should probably read : —
1 W21 is perhaps a blunder for VN1.

THE SERVANT OF THE LORD 85
so shall many nations behold him,
yea at him will kings shut their mouths ;
for that which was not told them they have seen,
and on that which they had heard not they have gazed.
The next couplet, of which, however, the last
half is missing, develops the thought of the
unexpectedness of the Servant's triumph. The
pronoun ' our ' is, however, unsuitable, for
those who speak had been incredulous, and
had not pubhshed any message. The omission
of one letter would give the sense ' his report,'
viz. the preaching or message of the Servant ;
the objection to this, the simplest correction,
is that in the parallel clause the reference is
not to the Servant but to Jehovah, and the
first clause needs another word to improve the
rhythm. Perhaps therefore, with a shght re
arrangement of the words, we may read : —
Who believed Jehovah's message ?
and His arm to whom was it revealed 1
Since the next couplet begins with the word
' And he grew up,' the missing line must have
contained a reference to the Servant's obscure
origin and weakness. We can bridge over
the gap between v. 1 and v. 2 by supplying
some such line as this : —
[For His servant was poor and needy ;
weak, and there was none to help him ;]

86 THE SERVANT OF THE LORD
In the foUowing couplet (v. 3), by a very
slight correction, we get the necessary sense,
' before us ' instead of ' before him.' The
text of the last clause also is in some con
fusion. We should probably render the verse
thus : —
and he grew up before us as a sucker,
and as a root from a dry ground ;
(Sc. a shoot from the root of a cut-down tree, which
everyone believes to be dead.)
he had no beauty nor majesty,
and we saw him and desired him not.
In the next couplet, although the text of the
first clause is somewhat uncertain, the un
certainty does not affect the verse as a whole,
which may be rendered : —
He was despised and rejected of men,
a man of sorrows and acquainted with sickness (or
perhaps ' known by reason of sickness ') ;
and, like one who hides his face from us,
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
The next couplet is contained in v. 4. It
reads :
And yet it was our sicknesses that he bore,
and our sorrows that he carried ;
but we esteemed him stricken,
smitten of God and afflicted.

THE SERVANT OF THE LORD 87
The next couplet needs no correction. It
runs : —
But he was wounded 1 through our transgressions,
bruised (or rather crushed) through our iniquities ;
the chastisement of our peace (or with a different pro
nunciation of the Hebrew, The chastisement due to
us) was upon him,
and with his stripes we have been healed.
The next couplet (v. 6) is substantially correct,
and in any case the sense is not affected. It
reads : —
All we like sheep went astray (cf. Ps. cxix. 176),
we turned each one to his own way ;
and Jehovah treated him as responsible,2
[and made him bear] 3 the guilt 4 of us all.
The next clause has been lengthened somewhat
through the accidental repetition of a clause,
and the word translated ' was dumb,' which
should probably be masculine agreeing with
the ' Servant,' has been misread as feminine
agreeing with the sheep. The present state
1 Cheyne questions this sense of the P6'al, but it is more
probable than the sense ' profaned. '
2 I take this to be the meaning of the difficult word
yaan. * As another beat is necessary to complete the rhythm,
it is probable that some such word as irp'apM has fallen
out. 4 That is, in accordance with a common Hebrew usage,
the consequences of guilt, or what appeared to be such.

88 THE SERVANT OF THE LORD
of the rhythm suggested that there may also
be some other modifications of what was
originaUy written. The corrected text wUl
give the foUowing couplet : —
He was oppressed, yet he humbled himself,
[persecuted]1 yet opened not his mouth (cf. 1. 6);
as a lamb he was brought2 to the slaughter (cf. Ps.
xliv. 22 ; Zech. xi. 4) ;
and as a sheep before her shearers he was dumb.3
In the next couplet the text is in some con
fusion ; perhaps the least change that is
necessary to give sense is to read ' his judg
ment ' 4 for ' and judgment he ' (R.V.), and
' his way ' (i.e. his fate) for ' his generation.' 5
We must also read ' our transgressions ' for
' the transgression of my people,' 6 and ' he
was smitten to death.' 7
Of the foUowing couplet, contained in v. 9,
there is general agreement as to what must
be the sense, though the Masoretic text is
certainly not what the writer originaUy wrote.
1 The rhythm shows that a word has fallen out.
2 The tense shows that the verb is frequentative ; cf. Ps.
xliv. 22.
3 Read D^K3 for i1tti>tO. 4 i.e. iDBB>D for USBto
t v:iv t t v:iv t : • t : • . ¦
" i.e. i3"H for 11H suggested by Cheyne.
6 i.e. WyfSO for 'BJ/ J?B>£lD ; so Budde and Marti.
7 So the lxx.

THE SERVANT OF THE LORD 89
Though ' poor ' may sometimes denote the
godly, we are not justified in saying that
' rich ' was ever the equivalent of ' ungodly ' ;
obviously we require two synonyms expressing
the idea of wickedness. Instead of the word
translated ' in his death ' we require an
expression paraUel to the words, ' his grave
was appointed ' ; perhaps we may venture
to read, ' his corpse was cast forth ' (cf . 1 Kings
xiii. 24). The couplet wiU therefore have run
somewhat as foUows : —
And his grave was appointed with transgressors,1
and with the wicked his corpse 2 was cast forth,
although he had done no violence.
neither was any deceit in his mouth.
Verse 10 is hopelessly corrupt, and verse 11
is not much better. The last part of verse 10
is indeed translatable Hebrew ; it is, however,
impossible to accept it as the last line of a
couplet, since the rhythm is wrong ; we
are therefore without any data for the
restoration of the text. The sense of the
Enghsh version, however, is probably so far
1 So Cheyne and Marti.
2 A not very violent alteration of the existing consonants
would give lDPiV JV3 'his long home' (cf. Eccles. xii. 5);
but it is doubtful whether at this date such an expression
could have been a mere synonym for grave.

90 THE SERVANT OF THE LORD
correct that it represents the persecuted
Servant as alive and prospering. Verse 11
is also corrupt past restoration, and it is
impossible to say whether the word ' my
Servant ' is correct. If it is, the verse must be
an appendix in which Jehovah is represented
as speaking, and similarly also v. 12. Since,
however, some such passage as this is necessary
for the completion of the poem, and as v. 12
appears to have had originaUy the same
poetical form as the other verses, we may
probably in both verses account for the
introduction of the first person by corruption
of the text. The last couplet, therefore,
should probably read somewhat as foUows : —
Therefore shall he have a share with the high,1
yea with the mighty shall he share the spoil ;
forasmuch as he poured out his soul to death,
and with transgressors was numbered.2
Then foUow some words which may be an
editorial note or may be a fragment of another
couplet : ' Now he bore the sin of many ;
and he interposes for the transgressors.'
1 Read i!>-p!?!T and DWja for D^Sl. The latter cor
rection I owe to my former pupil, Mr. R. H. Willey.
2 The rhythm here is halting, and the text is not above
suspicion.

THE SERVANT OF THE LORD 91
To sum up therefore, after making all
aUowance for textual corruption,1 a good
deal remains fairly certain. In the main
the English version gives what is undoubtedly
the general sense of the passage ; though it
is almost certainly wrong in representing the
Servant in hi. 15 as a priest sprinkling many
nations, and it is very doubtful whether in the
original text lni. 10 contained any reference
to an offering for sin, or v. 11 to any future
justification of the many, and to the bearing
of their iniquities. Upon the whole it is
probable that a correct restoration of the
corrupt verse, though it would, of course,
bring out the beauty of the poem, and would
make its meaning somewhat clearer, would not
materiaUy add to its sense.
What then do we learn from it as to the
Servant of the Lord ? Have we here a purely
imaginary ideal picture ? or a description of
an actual fact ? Is the author describing
what he thinks wiU come to pass, or what he
believes is already an accomplished fact ?
1 It is, of course, possible that some of the changes noted
above from what the poet originally composed may have
taken place in the course of the oral transmission of the
poem. On the whole, however, it is more natural to regard
them as due to imperfect manuscripts.

92 THE SERVANT OF THE LORD
On this point it seems to me there is absol
utely no room for doubt. A consideration of
the tenses of the Hebrew verbs in this passage
show conclusively that the author is here
stating that the Servant of the Lord has already
been smitten to death. He is describing an
historical fact. There is, however, a reference
to the future in the glorification of the Servant.
It is evident that this glorification has begun,
and that it is a cause of astonishment to those
who have seen it ; but it is to develop and
grow stiU further.
In the next place we naturaUy inquire who
are represented as speaking. Obviously they
are those in whose midst and through whose
fault the Servant of Jehovah has so grievously
suffered. They once shunned him as one
shuns a leper ; they regarded him as one
whom God had smitten, and treated him as
though he were a criminal ; yet now they
recognise that the calamities which came upon
him were the outcome, not of his wrong
doing, but of their own sins. They acknow
ledge that they went astray, and that their
transgression and rebeUion against Jehovah
has not been visited upon them, but that aU
the consequence of it has come upon the

THE SERVANT OF THE LORD 93
Servant. He indeed was persecuted to the
death ; nevertheless he lives ; he has achieved
a victory in which they, who formerly held
aloof from him and despised him, and through
whose fault he suffered, have shared. They
beheve that henceforth he wiU be a power in
the world.
Now, inasmuch as those who are repre
sented as speaking in this great section
mention Jehovah as one whose wiU has been
made known to them, and inasmuch as there
is no indication that they have recently turned
to Him from idols, it may be regarded as
unlikely that the heathen are intended. Had
that been the case, we should almost certainly
have had put into the mouth of the speakers
a declaration that Jehovah .is God alone.
And since in other passages of this book
where we find the first person plural, the
reference is undoubtedly to Israel (cf. for
example fix. 9 ff., lxiii. 16 ff.), we may safely
conclude that in this place also thofee who
speak are the Jewish nation.

LECTURE IV
We have already seen that the passages
which treat of the Servant of the Lord have
many features in common ; what is fuUy
developed in one being at least imphed in
another. We may therefore take these
passages together, and may consider the
account of the Servant's career which is to be
obtained by their combination.
The beginning of the Servant's career gave
no promise of a brilliant future. He had no
support from the influential ; his own nation
had scarcely recognised that he existed in
its midst, and on his first appearance regarded
him as contemptible. He was convinced,
however, that he had received the teaching
of the Lord, and he was an obedient and
loyal disciple. But in foUowing what he
believed to be the Lord's commands, he
encountered the fiercest opposition and
obloquy ; he was regarded as a pariah ; he
was made as the offscouring of the world ;
95

96 THE SERVANT OF THE LORD
he was persecuted and treated hke a criminal ;
he was done to death, unresisting, as a sheep
in the slaughter-house ; he himself could not
understand why the calamities should have
come upon him ; he was, however, steadfast
in the conviction that he was Jehovah's
Servant ; he felt that Jehovah had recognised
him as the true Israel, and that, in accordance
with the promises made to the fathers, Jehovah
would be glorified in him ; though everything
seemed hopeless, he was convinced that the
Lord would help him ; he felt that the
restoration of the tribes of Israel, to which
the prophets had looked forward, depended
upon his steadfastness ; he refused to give
up this behef in his mission, and met death,
stiU convinced that his cause would triumph ;
and when it seemed that his struggle had
ended in utter faUure, it was suddenly found
to have been successful ; though he had
been done to death, he yet lived ; his achieve
ments fiUed with amazement those who had
watched his career ; even kings were astonished
at his success ; through his steadfastness in
affliction he had won benefits not only for
himself, but even for that section of his nation
which had had no sympathy with him, and

THE SERVANT OF THE LORD 97
whose apostasy had been the cause of his
sufferings ; those who had once scoffed at
him now accepted his teaching of Jehovah's
wiU ; the body politic of Israel had been
sick indeed, but his struggle had brought
healing ; the Servant might be said to have
already fulfiUed to a great extent that which
he himself beheved to be his mission ; he had
raised up the tribes of Israel ; but with this
success his conception of his mission grew
and developed ; GentUe kings had been
astonished at his achievements, and had
been constrained to admit the might of Jehovah
who had upheld him ; therefore there now
opened up a prospect of yet further influencing
the GentUes ; Jehovah would make His
Servant a light to the GentUes, that aU the
earth might be partakers in the blessings
which He had bestowed upon His people.
Whom then are we to understand by the
Servant of Jehovah ? In the first place are
we to regard him as an individual, or as a
personification of the nation or some section
of the nation 1
Against the supposition that an individual
is intended by the Lord's Servant the evidence,
in my opinion, is absolutely convincing. Not
G

98 THE SERVANT OF THE LORD
only is it extremely hard to believe that any
Hebrew would ever have applied the name
Israel to any individual man, even though
he was the head of the nation, but there is a
further objection which is quite insuperable.
The Servant is described as actuaUy suffering
death and being buried among criminals ;
yet after aU this he is represented as alive,
and as going on from one success to another.
I have already pointed out that the language
of Isaiah hii. makes it quite certain that the
career of the Servant there described is an
accomphshed fact. But it certainly could
not have been said at any time in the history
of the world before the resurrection of our
Lord from the dead that an individual man
who had been put to death, and had been
buried, was still living, and triumphing, and
advancing from one success to another.
But this, which could not be predicated of
any individual man, could be affirmed of a
nation, or of a section of a nation. When a
Hebrew personified a multitude, it was not
unnatural for him to assign to that multitude
what in reality could only be affirmed of
certain individuals composing it. Even in
prose a Hebrew could write, ' And they (sc.

THE SERVANT OF THE LORD 99
the soldiers of the Assyrian army) awoke in the
morning, and lo, they were aU dead corpses.'
SimUarly the poet of Psalm xliv. says, ' For
thy sake are we killed all the day long,' where
of course the prose meaning is that continuaUy
members of that community, in whose name
the poet speaks, are being put to death.
The natural interpretation, therefore, of
the language used about the Servant is that
a plurality of persons is intended by the author.
We have stUl to decide, however, between the
whole nation of Israel and a section of that
nation. Here also the language is quite
conclusive. We are precluded from thinking
of the whole nation, for in xhx. 6 the Servant
teUs us that it is part of his mission ' to raise
up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the
preserved of Israel,' and in chapter liii. a
plurahty of speakers who, as we have seen,
are not the Gentiles, and may reasonably
be .identified with the Jewish nation, speak
of the Servant as in some sense distinct from
themselves. There can, therefore, be little
doubt that by the Lord's Servant we are to
understand a section of the Jewish nation.
But this identification of the Servant
brings us at once face to face with the problem

100 THE SERVANT OF THE LORD
of the date of these passages. At what period
in the history of the Jewish nation did a sec
tion of that nation suffer grievous persecution
for its steadfastness to the religion of Jehovah,
and ultimately win through its struggles a
degree of success at which kings were amazed,
a success which benefited not only those who
had suffered, but also those of their nation
who, in the days of the struggle, had sided with
the persecutors, and had scorned the martyrs ?
It is unnecessary to discuss pre-exUic dates,
for both the success which the Servant is
said to have achieved, and his attitude to
wards the Gentiles, are incompatible with
what we know of the pre-exilic period ; more
over it is almost universaUy admitted that
the prophecies which we have been consider
ing are later than the exile. Our inquiry is
therefore narrowed down to the time after
the exile, or, to state it more definitely, to the
period after the time of Cyrus.
At what time then subsequent to the year
538 B.C. did a section of the Jewish nation
suffer persecution for faithfulness to the
religion of Jehovah, persecution of which the
ultimate cause would seem to be the apostasy
of a considerable part of the Jewish nation,

THE SERVANT OF THE LORD 101
and in which Jews were allied with the perse
cutors ? Such opposition as Zerubbabel and
his party encountered from Samaritans and
others could hardly be described as religious
persecution ; for, if we accept the statement
of the book of Ezra, the Samaritans had wished
to take part in the buUding of the Temple ;
and, at any rate, the fiercest opposition was
directed, not against the Temple, but against
the building of the waU of Jerusalem which
the prophet Zechariah himself had deprecated.
Moreover, at no time during the generation
foUowing Zerubbabel's bunding of the Temple
could it have been said of the Jewish com
munity at Jerusalem that their success had
astonished kings, and that there was every
prospect of their attracting the Gentile world
to the rehgion of Jehovah, so that kings and
princes, seeing it, would arise and worship.
The age of Zerubbabel wiU certainly not
satisfy the requirements of the exegesis of the
prophecies we have considered.
We come then to the age of Nehemiah.
Nehemiah was unpopular enough with many
of his feUow-countrymen, but he and those
who sided with him were never in the condi
tion of absolute helplessness in the presence

102 THE SERVANT OF THE LORD
of their enemies which is imphed by the
language used of the Servant of the Lord.
Certainly the temper of Nehemiah seems very
different from that which is ascribed to the
Servant. So far from attempting to make
Israel a hght to the nations, Nehemiah's
whole energy was directed towards isolating
Israel from the Gentiles ; and what we know
of Judah at the close of his governorship
affords us no warrant for supposing that any
one in Judah could have used the language
of calm triumph and exuberant hope which
is found in the ' Servant ' passage.
Is there any epoch later in the Persian
period which will justify the statements made
about the Servant ? The time of Artaxerxes
Ochus is considered by many to suit the
language of such Psalms as xliv., lxxiv., which
speak of the Jews as in dire straits ; wiU it
suit the language of the prophecies of the
Servant ?
To such a question it is sufficient to say that,
even if aU that has ever been imagined of the
condition of the Jews in the reign of Arta
xerxes Ochus were proved to be fact, we should
stiU be unable at this period to account for
the language in which the Servant's achieve-

THE SERVANT OF THE LORD 1<J3
ments are described. What great success was
won for the Jews in the days of Artaxerxes
Ochus ? What portion of the nation could
say in his reign of any other portion, ' By his
stripes we are healed ' ? Of what section of
the Jews could the expectation then be main
tained that it would divide the spoil with the
strong ? Certainly, if we are to look for the
interpretation of the prophecies to the cir
cumstances of the Persian period, we can not
only say (what, indeed, everybody admits)
that the history of this period is very incom
plete ; we are justified in affirming that such
history of it as we do possess must give an
altogether wrong impression.
From the conquest of Palestine by Alex
ander the Great tiU the reign of Seleucus rv.,
187-176 B.C., there is nothing in the known
history of the Jews which wiU account for the
composition of the prophecies on the Servant
of the Lord. Before the end of this reign,
however, the peace of the Jewish Church was
threatened, and in the next reign, that of
Antiochus Epiphanes, the Jewish Church was
thrown into a furnace of affliction the like of
which it had never experienced before.
The facts are briefly these. WhUe

104 THE SERVANT OF THE LORD
Seleucus iv. was stfll king, the High Priest,
Oniah, who appears to have had the confi
dence of the anti-HeUenising party, the Hasidim
as they caUed themselves, was compeUed,
owing to certain intrigues against him, to
leave Jerusalem for Antioch, in order to set
his case before the king. Oniah did not
return to Jerusalem, and on the accession of
Antiochus Epiphanes his brother Jesus, who
had taken the name Jason, was appointed in
his stead, he having promised to pay to the
Syrian king a larger tribute. Jason was an
ardent HeUeniser, and he at once set about
transforming Jerusalem, which at this time
received the name of Antioch, into a Greek
city. There is no evidence that Jason and
his party were guilty of anything which, in
these days, would in itself be considered a
serious breach of the Jewish law ; but it
was impossible for Judaism and HeUenism
to be combined without the one or the other
being changed ; the condition of things in
Jerusalem in the days of Jason, though it
may not have directly encouraged, provided
great temptation to what the Hasidim could
only look upon as, actual apostasy.
But Jason was not left long in the High

THE SERVANT OF THE LORD 105
Priesthood which he had usurped. In a short
time a Benjamite named Menelaus, backed
up by some of the most influential people in
Jerusalem and Judaea, intrigued against Jason,
and by a money payment induced Antiochus
to appoint him High Priest. Menelaus, not
being even of priestly family, was quite in
eligible for the High Priesthood, and certainly
every Jew who retained a spark of reverence
for the Law, even though he did not belong
to the ranks of the Hasidim, must have been
scandahsed by his appointment. Perhaps
Menelaus feared that the general indignation
against himself would end in the recaU of
Oniah at Antioch. To guard against such a
contingency he contrived to get Oniah
murdered at Antioch.
It was utterly impossible that the Jews
should long acquiesce in the High Priesthood
of Menelaus. We may feel pretty sure that
even the Hasidim would be wiUing to support
Jason against him ; for Jason, HeUeniser as
he was, was, at least by birth, qualified for
the High Priesthood. Probably Menelaus had
few supporters except among the wealthy
Jewish famUies. The country people be
longed, for the most part, to the Hasidim.

106 THE SERVANT OF THE LORD
The turn of events having thus put Jason
right with his feUow-countrymen, it was but
likely that he should seek to regain his position
in Jerusalem. During the campaign of Anti
ochus in Egypt in 169 B.C., a rumour reached
Palestine that the king was dead. Thereupon
Jason, who had contrived to collect a thousand
men, suddenly marched to Jerusalem, attacked
Menelaus, who was compeUed to take refuge
in the citadel, and massacred a number of his
supporters. As Menelaus had been appointed
by Antiochus, the latter regarded this attack
upon him as a rebellion against his own rule.
On his return from Egypt, he brought an
army to Jerusalem to vindicate his authority,
and to teach the rebellious city a lesson.
Jason had already fled, but those who re
mained bore the full brunt of Antiochus's
wrath. There was a massacre of the citizens
of Jerusalem by the king's troops, and Anti
ochus plundered the Temple.
The rising against Menelaus and his sup
porters, i.e. the wealthy Jews who were
favourable to the Seleucid government, had
made Antiochus doubt the loyalty 01 the
Jewish nation. He determined, therefore, to
crush aU opposition ; and inasmuch as he

THE SERVANT OF THE LORD 107
doubtless knew that the most determined
opponents of Menelaus were those who on
religious grounds resisted HeUenism, he deter
mined to put a stop to the worship of Jehovah,
and to compel the Jews to conform to the
worship which he prescribed. In the year
168-167 the Temple, which had suffered
already considerably in the struggle between
Jason and Menelaus, when the gatehouses
had been burnt, was still further desecrated.
An image of Olympian Zeus was set up in it,
and upon the altar of burnt-offering a Greek
altar was placed, on which swine were sacri
ficed, the High Priest Menelaus taking part in
the new ritual. An edict was issued com
manding the Jews to take part in the unclean
sacrifices, and forbidding to them circumcise
their chUdren and to keep the Sabbath. It is
evident that many Jews in Jerusalem, no
doubt, with inward grief and humihation, did
conform to the king's decree, fearing the
penalty of disobedience ; but there were not
a few even in Jerusalem, and a much larger
proportion in the country districts, who were
resolved that, come what might, they would
not defile themselves with the meat of the
sacrifices which the king had commanded,

108 THE SERVANT OF THE LORD
nor bow down to the image which he had set
up. It had been the teaching of the fathers,
and it was the established doctrine of the
Jewish Church, that the Lord would not
forsake the righteous, and that the wicked
would fall into the pit which he had dug for
others. In the circumstances, however, in
which the Hasidim now found themselves,
the old orthodox teaching of retribution
broke down. It was on those who were most
zealous for the Law of their God that the
wrath of Antiochus came to the uttermost.
They were perplexed, driven almost into un
belief, and yet they remained faithful. They
did not possess the sure and certain hope of a
joyful resurrection,1 and yet they yielded up
their bodies to torture and death. The words
of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are an
example of the faith which in the days of
Antiochus inspired thousands of persecuted
Jews : ' If our God whom we serve is able to
dehver us, from the burning fiery furnace and
from thy hand, 0 king, He wiU dehver us.
But if not, be it known unto thee, 0 King,
1 2 Mace. xii. 43 ff. expresses the belief of a later age ;
and Daniel xii. 2 scarcely warrants the supposition that
there was a common belief in a general resurrection.

THE SERVANT OF THE LORD 109
that we wiU not serve thy gods, nor worship
the image which thou hast set up.'
For some time, indeed, it seemed as though
the Lord had forsaken His people. The tale
of martyrdoms continuaUy grew, and yet the
Lord did not interpose. WeU might men
ask whether there could be any good in pro
longing such a struggle ; weU might they say
that they had laboured in vain, and spent
their strength for nought and vanity ; but
though the darkest gloom there broke out the
irresistible Hebrew faith, ' Surely my judg
ment is with the Lord, and my recom-
pence with my God.' Who could deny to
such a people the right to style themselves
the true Israel, the chosen Servant of the
Lord ?
And the Lord looked, and there was none to
help, and He wondered that there was none
to uphold ; therefore His own arm brought
salvation unto Him, and His fury it upheld
Him. Suddenly a great change came over
the persecuted people. Those who had
suffered mutely turned to resist their enemies.
Though they had been counted as sheep for
the slaughter, suddenly, under the leadership
of the Maccabaean brethren, they became as

110 THE SERVANT OF THE LORD
Jehovah's goodly horse in the battle.1 I need
not dweU on the details of the struggle. Re
sistance to the troops of Antiochus seemed at
first a forlorn hope ; but a combination of
political circumstances favoured the Macca
bees, and enabled them to achieve a success
which, at the beginning, had not been dreamed
of. Just three years after the desecration of
the Temple, it was restored to the Maccabees,
who purified it, and rededicated it to the
service of Jehovah on the 25th of December
165 B.C. Henceforth the Jews were free to
worship as they would. The Maccabaean
leaders, however, were not contented with
this, and continued the struggle. By throw
ing in their lot, now with one, now with
another of the rival claimants to the throne of
Syria, they obtained concession after con
cession, tiU in the year 142 B.C., the King of
Syria renounced aU claim to tribute, and the
yoke of the heathen was taken away from
Israel. On the 23rd of May 141, the Syrian
garrison having at last surrendered, the
Maccabees entered the citadel ' with praise
and palm branches, and with harps, and with
cymbals, and with songs ; because a great
1 Cf. Zech. *. 3.

THE SERVANT OF THE LORD 111
enemy was destroyed out of Israel ' (1 Mace.
xiii. 51).
It was an occasion which might weU have
inspired the most phlegmatic ; indeed, it
probably did inspire words which for their
beauty wiU hve for ever.
' Awake, awake, put on thy strength, 0
Zion ; put on thy beautiful garments, 0
Jerusalem, the holy city : for henceforth there
shaU no more come into thee the uncircum-
cised and the unclean. Shake thyself from
the dust ; arise, sit thee down, 0 Jerusalem :
loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, 0
captive daughter of Zion.
' For thus saith the Lord, Ye were sold for
nought ; and ye shaU be redeemed without
money. For thus saith the Lord God, My
people went down at the first into Egypt to
sojourn there : and the Assyrian x oppressed
them without cause. Now, therefore, what
do I here, saith the Lord, seeing that My
people is taken away for nought ? they that
rule over them do howl, saith the Lord, and
My name continuaUy all the day is blas
phemed. Therefore My people shaU know My
1 i.e. the Seleucid empire. For this use o^ ~\WK cf.
Ezra vi. 22 ; Isa. xi. 16, xix. 23 ff.

112 THE SERVANT OF THE LORD
name : therefore they shaU know in that
day that I am He that doth speak ; behold,
it is I.
' How beautiful upon the mountains are the
feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that
pubhsheth peace, that bringeth good tidings
of good, that publisheth salvation ; that
saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth ! The
voice of thy watchman ; they lift up the
voice, together do they sing ; for they shaU
see, eye to eye, when the Lord returneth
to Zion. Break forth into joy, sing to
gether, ye waste places of Jerusalem : for
the Lord hath comforted His people, He
hath redeemed Jerusalem. The Lord hath
made bare His holy arm in the eyes of aU
the nations ; and aU the ends of the earth
shaU see the salvation of our God ' (Isaiah
lii. 1-10).
The martyred Hasidim had not suffered in
vain. Even though we cannot see in the
Hasmonaean brothers themselves a trace of
that whole-hearted piety and devotion to the
Law which we see in those who were martyred
early in the struggle, through the help which
they had obtained from the Hasidim the
Maccabees had won the freedom of Israel,

THE SERVANT OF THE LORD 113
and had vindicated the Law of Israel. Under
Menelaus the national existence itself had been
threatened ; in the time of Simon the Jews
were masters in their own country, and had
on aU sides extended the borders of their land.
Truly it might be said in the days of Simon
that the Lord's Servant had raised up the
tribes of Jacob, and had restored the pre
served of Israel !
But this was not aU. When the Jews
formed a part of the kingdom of Syria, and
the Seleucid government was at war with
Egypt, it must have been difficult, if not im
possible, for Egyptian Jews to come up to
Jerusalem to the feasts. SimUarly during
the Maccabaean struggle it must have been
impossible for Jews who were settled in other
portions of the kingdom to visit the district
which was in revolt against the king. But
when Judaea had become virtuaUy an inde
pendent state, the obstacles which had made
it weU nigh impossible for Jews from Egypt
and Assyria to visit Jerusalem were removed.
The Lord had made a highway out of Egypt
to Assyria, and the Assyrian could come into
Egypt, and the Egyptian into Assyria, and
the Egyptians could worship with the Assyrians.
H

114 THE SERVANT OF THE LORD
The Lord had dried up, as it were, the tongue
of the Egyptian sea, and with His scorching
wind had He shaken His hand over the river
Euphrates, and had smitten it into seven
streams so that men could pass over dryshod
(cf. Isaiah xi. 15, xix. 23).
And with the estabhshment of free communi
cation between Jerusalem and the Jews of the
Dispersion there came in a kindlier feeling
towards the nations of the world. In many a
place the leaven of Israel was leavening the
lump of heathenism. Those who came up
to worship at Jerusalem could teU of many a
Gentile who was willing to throw in his lot
with the people of the Lord. It had at
length come to pass that ten men out of aU
the languages of the nations would take hold
of the skirt of him that was a Jew, saying,
We wUl go with you, for we have heard that
God is with you (cf . Zech. viii. 23). Jehovah's
Servant, having fulfilled the first part of his
destiny, and having raised up the tribes of
Jacob, had become a hght to hghten the
Gentiles. Such, I believe, is the primary, historical
meaning of the prophecies which we have
been considering. But since they contain,

THE SERVANT OF THE LORD 115
as I also believe, a divinely inspired inter
pretation of history, we cannot limit their
application to the martyrdom of the Hasidim
under Antiochus Epiphanes, and the subse
quent triumph of the cause for which they
suffered, but we must recognise that their
teaching possesses a far wider scope. We
learn from them that the sufferings of those
who, in a wicked or apostate age, endure
persecution for their adherence to the right
are not in vain. So long as men are ready to
endure martyrdom, wickedness cannot have
its perfect work. The sight of suffering
bravely borne for the truth's sake will cause
many, who would otherwise throw in their
lot with the wicked, to pause, and then,
it may be, to give themselves to the carrying
on of the work so nobly begun. In aU such
cases, to use the language of the Prophets,
those who fight for the truth do ' raise up the
tribes of Jacob ' — the people of the Lord —
' and restore the preserved of Israel ' — the
' seven thousand who have not yet bowed
the knee to Baal.'
But further, inasmuch as the health of the
body politic depends upon righteousness,
even those who have had no share in striving

116 THE SERVANT OF THE LORD
for righteousness — those who stand to the
righteous in the position in which the GentUes
stood to Israel — are nevertheless benefited
by the martyrs' sufferings. It is not only the
people of the Lord — the tribes of Jacob —
who are raised up and strengthened ; those
who are beyond the pale, those who walk
in darkness like the GentUes, see the hght of
the righteous, and thereby receive salvation.
And if this prophetic interpretation of history
be apphcable to every case of suffering borne
for the truth's sake, much more must it be
apphcable to Him who not only suffered for
the truth, but is Himseh the truth of God.
Surely to aU who, having known within
themselves the power of that evU which caused
the passion and death of Jesus Christ, have
experienced the joy of the victory to which
His victory pointed the way, and have
received within themselves the spirit of
adoption whereby they cry, Abba, Father,
the words of the Hebrew Prophet receive a
deeper meaning ; they are indeed ' fulfiUed '
in Christ. It would scarcely be possible to
sum up the work of Christ more tersely than
in the words of the great prophecy which we
have been considering : ' He was wounded

THE SERVANT OF THE LORD 117
for our transgressions, He was bruised for our
iniquities : the chastisement of our peace
was upon Him ; and with His stripes we are
healed.' But since there may be some who, though
they are quite prepared to accept the theory
of a primary, historical reference in the
prophecies which form the subject of these
lectures, may yet feel difficulty in assigning
any part of the book of Isaiah to a date as
late as I have postulated, it may be weU that
I should say a few words on this point.1 The
facts are briefly these. That a book of Isaiah
was in existence at the beginning of the second
century B.C., and that Isaiah was included
among the canonical Prophets seems certain
from Ecclus. xlvin. 22 ff. ; but it does not
foUow that this book was identical with that
which we now possess. It is certain that the
Hebrew book of Jeremiah was re-edited after
the Greek translation of it was made ; and if
one book of the Prophets could be re-edited
after it was translated into Greek, it is not
easy to see what insuperable objection there
1 For a fuller treatment of this question I may refer to
my Schweich Lectures — The Composition of the Booh of
Isaiah in the Light of History and Archceology.

118 THE SERVANT OF THE LORD
can be to a theory which requires us to believe
that another book was translated into Greek
shortly after the issue of a new edition of the
Hebrew. Exactly what was contained in
the book of Isaiah known to Ben Sira cannot
be decided with certainty. He mentions the
going backward of the sun in the days of
Isaiah ; but we are unable to say whether
he derived this fact from the book of Isaiah
or from the book of Kings. The only passage
of the prophetical portion of the book which
Ben Sira seems to refer to at aU definitely
is the section lxi. 1 ff .
Some seventy or eighty years later, as we
learn from the prologue to Ecclesiasticus
written by the grandson of the author, aU
three divisions of the Hebrew Canon, the Law,
the Prophets, and the Hagiographa, were
represented in a Greek version of the Scrip
tures ; and although we cannot suppose that
the whole of the Old Testament had been
translated into Greek at this time, it is hkely
that, if any of the prophets had been trans
lated, Isaiah would be among the number.
But it must be noted that the author of the
preface does not say that he found the
Prophets translated when he arrived in Egypt

THE SERVANT OF THE LORD 119
in the thirty-eighth year of Euergetes. AU
that can be established from his words is that
a translation of this part of the Old Testament
existed when he published his own version
of his grandfather's book. And the fact that
the Jewish Church in Egypt accepted the
Greek version of Ecclesiasticus among its
Scriptures, though the Church at Jerusalem
never regarded the original book as canonical,
may be taken as evidence that the Greek
translation of the greater portion of the Old
Testament had not been in the possession of
the Jews in Egypt for any length of time.
Had this been the case, had the canonical
books been marked as distinct from other
hterature, the inclusion of the book in the
Egyptian canon would be hard to explain.
We do not know the exact meaning of the
word o-v7%/3oz/i'o-a? (translated in R. V. 'having
continued there some time ') ; but if, as Mr.
Hart suggests,1 it means ' having stayed there
as long as Euergetes reigned,' the date of the
pubhcation of Ecclesiasticus wUl be not
earlier than 117 B.C. Since there is no
prophecy in the book of Isaiah which it is
necessary to assign to a later date than 141
1 Hart, Ecclesiasticus in Greek, p. 259.

120 THE SERVANT OF THE LORD
B.C., there would thus be an interval of more
than twenty years between the composition of
its latest portions and the translation of the
whole book into Greek. This would aUow
ample time for the editing of the book in
Jerusalem or Judaea, and for the book so
edited to be taken to Egypt and there trans
lated. But even if the sense assigned to
o-i/7xpoz'io-a? be inadmissible ; even if the
translator of Ecclesiasticus pubhshed his
work within two years of his arrival in Egypt ;
we have an interval of some ten years between
the date of the latest prophesy and the time
when there is evidence of the existence of
the Greek version of the book of Isaiah, and
much may be done in ten years.
In order to give some idea of the time
necessary for the translation of the Prophets
and Hagiographa, we may take an Ulustration
from our own time. The Revision of the
whole of the Old Testament in Enghsh, which
was begun on June 30, 1870, was completed
on June 20, 1884. But in this case, of
necessity the work was not continuous. The
number of days actuaUy devoted to the work
was seven hundred and ninety- two. If then
a large body of scholars, who were compeUed

THE SERVANT OF THE LORD 121
to discuss at length differences of opinion as
to the rendering of the work to be translated,
could complete the whole of the Old Testament
in seven hundred and ninety-two days, there
is no difficulty in supposing that a version of
the Old Testament, exclusive of the Pentateuch
and of some books of the Hagiographa, could
be completed by a body of translators working
independently x in even less time, and there
would stUl remain ample time for the editing
of the original Hebrew text.
FinaUy, it cannot be insisted upon too
strongly that, when we have once abandoned
the traditional view of the authorship of
Isaiah, the son of Amoz, there is no reason
for preferring a date during the Exile to the
Maccabaean period, if the latter is in harmony
with aU the facts. Why should it be imagined
that God could inspire men during the fifth
century b.c. and during the first century
of the Christian era, but not in the intervening
period ? Is it not far more reasonable, far
more faithful to beheve that the promise of
Deut. xviii. 15 was fulfilled aU through the
1 N.B. — That the various books of the Old Testament
were translated by different hands is certain (Swete, Intro
duction to the Old Testament in Greek, p. 315 ff.

122 THE SERVANT OF THE LORD
Old Dispensation, as indeed it has been, and
stiU is, fulfilled in the New ? Throughout the
ages ' the true light, even the hght which
lighteth every man,' has been ' coming into
the world.'

Printed by T. and A. Constable, Printers to Bis Majesty
at the Edinburgh University Press

BY THE SAME AUTHOR
IN OUR TONGUES
Some Hints to Readers of the English Bible
By ROBERT HATCH KENNETT
Canon of Ely, and Regius Professor of Hebrew in
the University of Cambridge.
Crown Svo. 3s. 6d. net.
This book attempts to formulate the chief differ
ences between Hebrew and English thought, as
reflected in the idioms of the two languages, and
to make plain, to those unacquainted with the
peculiarities of Hebrew, passages which have hitherto
proved serious stumbling-blocks to many.
' No one can read his book without learning much from it and
being gladdened by its noble spirit. It shows a large-hearted
trust in the integrity of the New Testament as a whole. It
brings us back, as with the impulse of a wholesome breeze, to
the reality and present interest of the great things of faith. And
the appeal of the last sermon to the whole Church to know and
exercise its priestly duties should be heard in every household
of the country.' — Guardian.
' The best popular book on the difference between the English
idiom and the Hebrew.' — Expository Times.
' We heartily commend this book not only to the clergy, but
also to those literary laymen who desire to attain to a better
appreciation of the Bible.' — Morning Post.
' This is a most useful and seasonable volume.'— Spectator.
'No one could be better qualified to handle such a subject
than Canon Kennett, and the book will be valuable to many
readers.' — Cambridge Review.
' With many pungent examples Professor Kennett shows with
great clearness and force what a difference some knowledge of
Hebrew will make to our appreciation of the Bible.'— Pall Mall
Gazette.

LONDON : EDWARD ARNOLD

Selections from
Mr. Edward Arnold's List
of Theological Books.
St. Paul in the Light of Modern Research.
By the Rev. J. R. Cohu, Rector of Aston Clinton, Bucks ; sometime
Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford ; Author of ' The Old Testament in the
Light of Modern Research. ' Crown 8vo. 5s. net.
A careful and scholarly appreciation of St. Paul's Gospel, in a reverent
spirit, but in the full light of recent research. The author, a modernist, is
convinced that Paul is the Apostle of the present, still more of the future,
and that, with a few important reservations, his solution of the deep problems
of life is abreast of the highest and best modern thought, often ahead of ii.
In Part I. is lucidly discussed, psychologically, the early Hfe and conversion
of Paul. In the writer's opinion, the whole man and his gospel are already
there. In Part II. a separate chapter is given to each of Paul's fundamental
ideas — e.g., Righteousness, Sin, Flesh and Spirit, Christ's Person and Death, The
Holy Spirit, Grace, Predestination, Faith, Justification, Sanctification, Sonship, The
Christian Life, The Church, Sacraments, Gifts, Eschatology , etc. These ideas are
clearly defined and translated into the words and experience of to-day.
Throughout the author approaches his subject from a severe modern stand
point, shirking no difficulties and fearlessly tackling questions which have
agitated the minds and hearts of thinking men for generations. As regards
his authorities for the life and teaching of St. Paul, the author accepts the
Pauline Epistles in their entirety (except the pastoral letters) as authentic
documents of the highest historical value, but he regards Acts only as a useful
supplement of quite secondary importance, giving full reasons for his con
clusions.
Preachers and Teachers. By James gilliland
Simpson, M.A., D.D., Canon of Manchester ; Recently Principal of the
Leeds Clergy School ; Author of ' Christian Ideals,' ' Christus Crucifixus,'
etc. Crown 8vo. 5s. net.
' Preachers and Teachers ' opens with a study of famous and characteristic
English, or more accurately British, preachers, followed by chapters descrip
tive of the personality, teaching, or method of certain Christian doctors,
ancient and modern. The whole book is designed to lead up to the final
chapter on the Modern Pulpit, in which the Author discusses the principles
which ought to guide the preacher in his presentation of the Christian message
to the men and women of to-day.
Church Times. — ' The whole book may be profitably studied both by preachers and
hearers.' Manchester Guardian. — ' Dr. Simpson's new book possesses in a very high degree
the merit of being readable.'
Christian World. — 'A series of stimulating studies of preachers of bygone days.
Dr. Simpson stands for a live pulpit that touches things as they are.'
LONDON : EDWARD ARNOLD, 41 & 43 MADDOX STREET, W.

2 Selections from Mr. Edward Arnold's List
The Book of Books. A Study of the Bible. By
Canon Lonsdale Ragg, B.D., Rector of Tickencote and Prebendary of
Buckden in Lincoln Cathedral. Crown 8vo., cloth. 5s. net.
Church of Ireland Gazette. — 'This is a brilliant contribution to the many vol
umes which have been published in recent years on the proper method of studying
the Bible. Mr, Ragg has scored heavily in snowing that he is a master of the subject
of Biblical criticism. His calmness, his specially noticeable desire to say nothing that
will ruffle the feelings of the most rigid exponent of the old verbal inspiration idea,
will commend his work to that large circle of thinking men who daily study the trend
of modern thought, and whose creed, like that 'of a great French writer, is composed in
the main of a series of notes of interrogation.'
The Spirit Of Power. The Church in the Early Second
Century. By the Rev. Ernest A. Edghill, M.A., B.D., Sub-Warden
of the College of St. Saviour in Southwark ; Hulsean Lecturer in the
University of Cambridge ; Lecturer in Ecclesiastical History in King's
College, London, etc. Crown 8vo., cloth. 5s. net.
The Diary of a Modernist. By William scott palmer,
Author of ' An Agnostic's Progress,' etc. Crown 8vo., cloth. 5s. net.
Church Times. — ' Mr. Scott Palmer always has something to say that is worth
hearing.' Nation. — ' An exceptionally suggestive book. Its merit lies not in the rean-ange-
ment of given material, though much excellent work is to be done in that field, but in
its record of intimate personal thought and feeling. Nothing is superficial; the note
of experience is everywhere recognizable; every page breaks the surface and is first
hand.'The Clergy and Social Service. Cambridge Lectures on
Pastoral Theology. By the Very Rev. W. Moore Ede, D.D., Dean of
Worcester. Cloth. 2s. 6d. net.
In Our Tongues. Some Hints to Readers of the English Bible.
By Robert Hatch Kennett, Canon of Ely, and Regius Professor of
Hebrew in the University of Cambridge. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net.
Pall Mall Gazette. — ' With many pungent examples Professor Kennett shows with
great clearness and force what a difference some knowledge of Hebrew will make to
our appreciation of the Bible.'
Outlines of the Synoptic Record. By the Rev. Bernard
Hugh Bosanquet, Vicar of Thames Ditton, and R. A. Wenham. Crown
8vo. 6s.
Scotsman. — ' There is at the present moment a place for some such work as this,
which, at once scholarly and popular, reverent, yet pervaded with the modern spirit,
will put young students of theology and the educated laity in possession of the results
of recent " higher " or literary criticism of the Gospels.'

Selections from Mr. Edward Arnold's List 3
Cross-Bench Views of Current Church Questions.
By H. Hensley Henson, D.D., Canon of Westminster. Demy 8vo.
12s. 6d.
The Church and Commonwealth. Visitation Charges
of the Right Rev. George Ridding, D.D., First Bishop of Southwell.
Collected and Edited by his Wife, Lady Laura Ridding. Demy 8vo.
ios. 6d. net.
Jerusalem under the High Priests. Five Lectures on
the Period between Nehemiah and the New Testament. By Edwyn
Bevan, Author of ' The House of Seleucus.' Demy 8vo. 7s. 6d.
Cambridge Review. — 'These lectures deserve careful study by everyone interested
in the history of how Hellenism and Judaism first came into contact.'
A Parson in the Australian Bush. By the Rev. c. h. s.
Matthews. With Illustrations by the Author. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net.
Extract from a Letter from the Archbishop of Canterbury : 'Your breezy and
inspiriting book . . . will do real good in England, and I hope in Australia too.'
A Great Bishop of One Hundred Years Ago :
Being a Sketch of the Life of Bishop Horsley. By the Rev. H. H.
Jebb, Rector of Streatham. 5s. net.
Spectator. — 'Altogether, the book is a vivid picture of the time, and of one who,
whatever his defects, was a worthy representative of it.'
Letters of Mary Sibylla Holland, selected and Edited
by her Son, Bernard Holland. Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d. net.
Arnold Toynbee : A Reminiscence. By Viscount Milner, G.C.B.
New Edition. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d.
Benjamin Jowett : Master of Balliol. A Personal Memoir. By
the Hon. Lionel Tollemache. Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
A Reported Change in Religion. By onyx, crown 8vo.
3s. 6d.
Letters tO a Godchild. By Alice Gardner, Associate and
Lecturer of Newnham College, Cambridge. Fcap. 8vo. 2s. 6d. net.
HOW tO Deal With Lads. A Handbook of Church Work. By
the Rev. Peter Green, M.A., Rector of Sacred Trinity, Salford. Crown
8vo. 2s. 6d. net.
Some Problems of Existence. By Norman Pearson.
7s. 6d. net.
The Art of Reading and Speaking. By the Rev. James
Fleming, Canon of York. Eighth Impression. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.

4 Selections from Mr. Edward Arnold's List
BIOGRAPHIES OF SAINTLY MEN.
PranCIS : the Little Poor Man of Assisi. By James Adderley.
With Portrait. 3s. 6d.
Monsieur Vincent : a Short Life of St. Vincent de Paul. By
James Adderley. With Devotional Portrait. 3s. 6d.
Hugh of Lincoln. By Charles Marson. With Portrait. 3s. 6d.

Theodore Of Studium : His Life and Times. By Alice Gardner,
Associate and Lecturer of Newnham College, Cambridge. Demy 8vo.
With Illustrations. 10s. 6d. net.
Church Times. — ' We would bear testimony once more to the care, erudition, and
skill with which the life of a remarkable man has been written. And the student, both
of the political and ecclesiastical history of that period, will be grateful for the material
here collected.'
Ten Great and Good Men. Lectures by henry Montagu
Butler, D.D., D.C.L., Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. Crown
8vo. 6s. net.
The Times. — ' It is not for nothing that a man has been Headmaster of Harrow and
Master of Trinity ; and when one whose character and ability have called him to such
high places comes forward to speak of some of the greatest of his countrymen, he can
hardly fail to say something which will interest, stimulate, and — what Dr. Butler has
most at heart — uplift an average audience of Englishmen. No one who reads this
book will doubt that the Master of Trinity does all these things in these lectures.'
Men Of Might. Studies of Great Characters. By A. C. Benson,
M.A., and H. F. W. Tatham, M.A. Sixth Impression. Crown 8vo.
3s. 6d.
A very popular and charming book. It includes chapters on Socrates,
Mahomet, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, Savonarola, Michael Angelo, Carlo
Borromec, Fenelon, Wesley, George Washington, Henry Martyn, Dr. Arnold,
Livingstone, Gordon, and Father Damien.
Short Lives of Great Men. By Rev. w. f. burnside and
A. S. Owen. Illustrated. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
The plan and contents of this book were suggested by the wonderful
reredos erected in Cheltenham College Chapel, and the Authors have
endeavoured to set forth a literary memorial of the same famous Englishmen
whose figures are there represented in sculpture.
LONDON : EDWARD ARNOLD, 41 & 43 MADDOX STREET, W.

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