e cause
of the aberration from Him, that people confined and shut up the
prophet within the horizon of his time, and then imagined that he could
not know anything of the suffering of Christ. It was altogether
different in the [Pg 249] ancient Christian Church. In it, the
Messianic interpretation prevailed throughout; and _Grotius_, who in a
lower sense would refer the prophecy to Isaiah, and, in a higher sense
only, to Christ, met with general opposition, even on the part of
_Clericus_.

In favour of the Messianic explanation there is the remarkable
agreement existing between prophecy and fulfilment, comp. Matt. xxvi.
67, 68: [Greek: Tote eneptusan eis to prosopon autou kai ekolaphisan
auton. hOi de erhrapisan legontes. propheteuson hemin, christe, tis
estin ho paisas se]; xxvii. 30: [Greek: kai emptusantes eis auton
elabon ton kalamon kai etupton eis ten kephalen autou],--an agreement,
the significance and importance of which are only enhanced by the
circumstance that one of the most individualizing features of the
prophecy, viz., the plucking off of the beard, is not met with in the
history of Christ; for it is just thereby that this agreement is proved
to be a free and spontaneous one. _Farther_--The exactness with which,
in ver. 10 and 11, the destinies of Israel, after the rejection of
Christ, are drawn; and the destruction which the mass of the people,
who did not believe in the Servant of God, prepared for themselves, by
their attempts to help themselves by their own strength, by enkindling
the flame of war, whilst those who fear the Lord and listen to the
voice of Hs Servant, obtain salvation. _Farther_--Ver. 11, where the
Servant of God ascribes to himself the judgment upon the unbelieving
mass of the people: "From _my_ hand is this to you," in harmony with
Matt. xxvi. 64 and other passages, where the Son of Man appears as
executing judgment upon Jerusalem. _Finally_--The parallel passages.

Most of the modern interpreters assume that the Prophet himself,
Isaiah, or Pseudo-Isaiah, is the subject of the prophecy. _Jerome_
mentions that this explanation was the prevailing one among the Jews of
his time. The explanation which refers it to the better portion of the
people, found only one defender, viz., _Paulus_. The explanation which
refers it to the _whole_ of the Jewish people, or to the collective
body of the prophets, has been entirely abandoned, although it is
maintained in reference to the parallel passage