oncerning Him; and we cannot well expect
that Christ should have made no reference to a passage which one of the
Apostles points out as being of greater weight than all others. This is
done by Peter in Acts iii. 22, 23. The manner in which he quotes it,
entirely excludes the notion that Moses was [Pg 109] speaking of
Christ, only in so far as He belonged to the collective body of the
prophets. Peter says expressly, that Moses and the later prophets
foretold [Greek: tas hemeras tautas]; and the words, [Greek: tou
prophetou ekeinou], show that he did not understand the singular in a
collective sense. The circumstance that Stephen, in Acts vii. 37,
likewise refers the passage to Christ, would not be, in itself,
conclusive, because Stephen's case is different from that of the
Apostles. But we must not overlook the passage Matt. xvii. 5, according
to which, at Christ's transfiguration, a voice was heard from heaven
which said: [Greek: houtos estin ho huios mou ho agapetos, en ho
eudokesa. autou akouete.] As the first part of this declaration is
taken from the Messianic prediction in Is. xlii., so is the second from
the passage under consideration; and, by this use of its words, the
sense is clearly shown. It is a very significant fact, that our passage
is thus connected just with Is. xlii.--the first prophetic announcement
in which it is specially resumed, and in which the prophetic order
itself is the proclaimer of _the_ Prophet. And it is not less
significant that this reference to our text, with which all the other
announcements by Isaiah concerning the Great Prophet to come are so
immediately connected, should precede chapters xlix., l., and lxi. It
thus serves as a commentary upon the declaration of Moses. The
beginning and the outlines receive light from the progress and
completion.

He, however, who believes in Christ, will, after these details, expect
that internal reasons also should prove the reference to Christ; and
this expectation is fully confirmed.

That Moses did not intend by the word [Hebrew: nbia] "prophet," to
designate a collective body merely, but that he had at least some
special individual in view, appears, partly, from the word itself being
constantly in the singular, and, partly, from the constant use of the
singular suffixes in reference to it; while, in the case of collective
nouns, it is usual to interchange the singular with the plural. The
force of this argument is abundantly evident in the f