aken upon Himself His sufferings
(according to ver. 10, He offers himself as a sacrifice for sin;
according to ver. 12, He is crowned with glory because He has poured
out His soul unto death). Himself sinless, He bears the sins of others,
vers. 4-6, 9. His sufferings are the means by which the justification
of many is effected. He suffers quietly and patiently, ver. 7. Not one
of these four signs can be vindicated for the people of Israel. (a).
The Jews did not go voluntarily into the Babylonish exile, but were
dragged into it by force. (b). The Jewish people were not without sin
in suffering; but they suffered, in the captivity, the punishment of
their own sins. Their being carried away had been foretold by Moses as
a punitive judgment. Lev. xxvi. 14 ff.; Deut. xxviii. 15 ff. xxix. 19
ff., and as such it is announced by all the prophets also. In the
second part, Isaiah frequently reminds Judah that they shall be cast
into captivity by divine justice, and be delivered from it by divine
mercy only; comp. chaps. lvi.-lix., especially chap. lix. 2: "Your
iniquities separate between you and your God, and your sins hide His
face from you that He doth not hear. For your hands are defiled with
blood, and your fingers with iniquity, your lips speak lies, and your
tongue meditates perverseness. Their feet run to evil, and they make
haste to shed innocent blood, their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity,
wasting and destruction are in their paths. The way of peace they know
not, and there is no right in their paths; they pervert their paths;
whosoever goeth therein doth not know peace. Apostacy and denying the
Lord, and departing away from our God, speaking oppression and revolt,
conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood." Comp. chap.
xlii. 24: "Who gave Jacob for a spoil, and Israel to the robbers? Did
not the Lord, He against whom we have sinned, and in whose ways they
would not walk, neither were they obedient unto His law." Farther, [Pg
338] chap. xliii. 26, 27, where the detailed proof that Israel's merits
could not be the cause of their deliverance, inasmuch as they did not
exist at all, is, by the Prophet, wound up by the words: "Put me in
remembrance, let us plead together, declare then that thou mayest be
justified. Thy first father hath sinned, and thy mediators have
transgressed against me. Therefore I profane the princes of the
sanctuary, and give Jacob to the destruction, and Israel to
reproaches." It is