{14} The application of this principle may go some way towards neutralizing the doubts that have been raised as to the identity of the Isaiah of the later portion of the prophecy with the Isaiah of the earlier portion. See chap. lxiv. 10, 11. One thing at least is evident, namely, that the Apostle Paul, who was confessedly well read in Hebrew literature, in his quotations from the latter portion of the prophecy, seems to have had no notion of any other Isaiah than that to whom the whole prophecy is ordinarily ascribed. See Rom. x. 16. In fact, these doubts, now complacently acquiesced in as valid by the Rationalistic School abroad and at home, were equally unknown to all the world till about half a century ago. The general reader may content himself with Dr. Alexander’s candid and able investigation of the question in his recent Commentary on Isaiah. {15} The uses of the particle ו in combination with the verb. Let the Hebrew student consult the masterly investigation and elucidation of this subject in the Hebrew Grammar recently published by Messrs. Mason and Bernard, Vol. II. chapters 51–55. {17a} This rendering is faulty as not providing for the emphatic personal pronoun “he” in the original. {17b} Niphal in the sense of the Hithpael conjugation. See Gen. xvi. 9. {17c} The original will not admit of this rendering, though the sense is not objectionable. {17d} There is great difficulty here. The word rendered _impious_, and inserted in brackets, signifies _rich_, mostly with an accessory notion of violence and wrong; but the parallel clause, “He made his grave with the wicked,” and the further expression, “He was numbered with the transgressors,” in the last verse, seem to justify the sense here given; and so it has been understood by some rabbins and other commentators, as Luther, Calvin, Gesenius. See Matt. xix. 23. We confess we are not satisfied. The common reading that represents Christ as rewarded with a grave among the rich, _because_, forsooth, he had done no violence, &c., is surely inadmissible. {18a} So, ‘A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief,’ v. 3. {18b} _Intercedes_ in the present, because his intercession is a _continuous_ act. This distinction of tense as contradistinguished from the past tense in the use of the preceding verb _he bore_, expressing a transaction _once_ and _finally_ concluded, so conspicuous in the original, is entirely overlooked in the authorized version; so Calvin, Vitringa, Lowth, Henderson, Jones, Barnes, &c. This concurrence in the interpretation of the authorized version is especially to be wondered at in the more recent of the above-named critics. Messrs. Mason and Bernard give, less happily we think, _that he might make_, &c. Dr. Alexander, New Jersey, favours the view adopted in the amended version. See his admirable Commentary on Isaiah.