The Spirit of the Lord is the general, the principle; and the subsequent terms are the single forms in which he manifests himself, and works. But, on the other hand, in a formal point of view, the Spirit of the Lord is just co-ordinate with the Spirit of wisdom, &c. Some, indeed, explain: the Spirit of God, who is the Spirit of, &c.; but that this is inadmissible appears with sufficient evidence from the circumstance that, by such a view, the sacred number, seven, is destroyed, which, with evident intention, is completed in the enumeration; compare the _seven_ spirits of God in Rev. i. 4. To have the Spirit is the necessary condition of every important and effective ministry in the Kingdom of God, from which salvation is to come forth; comp. Num. xxvii. 18. It is especially the blessed administration of the regal office which depends upon the possession of the Spirit; comp. 1 Sam. xvi. 13 ff. where it is said of David: "And Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him: and the Spirit of the Lord came upon him from that day forward;" comp. 1 Sam. x. 6, 10. The circumstance that the Spirit of the Lord resteth upon the Messiah does not form a contradiction to His _divine nature_, which is intimated by his being born of the Virgin, chap. vii. 14, by the name אל גבור in chap. ix. 5, and elsewhere (comp. Vol. I., p. 490, 491), and is witnessed even in this prophecy itself; but, on the contrary, the pouring out of the Spirit fully and not by measure (John iii. 39) which is here spoken of, _implies_ the divine nature. In order to receive the Spirit of God in such a measure that He could baptize with the Holy Spirit (John i. 33), that out of His fulness all received (John i. 16), that, in consequence of His fulness of the Spirit overflowing from Him to the Church, the earth could be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters covering the sea (ver. 9), He could not but be highly exalted above human nature. It was just because they remained limited to the insufficient substratum of human nature, that even the best kings, that even David, the man after God's own heart, received the Spirit in a scanty measure only, and were constantly in danger of [Pg 114] losing again that which they possessed, as is shown by David's pitiful prayer: "Take not thy Holy Spirit from me" (Ps. li. 13). It was just for this reason, therefore, that the theocracy possessed in the kings a very sufficient organ of its realization, and that the stream of the divine blessings could not flow freely. In Matt. iii. 16: καὶ εἶδε τὸ πνεῦμα θεοῦ καταβαῖνον ὡσεὶ περιστερὰν καὶ ἐρχόμενον ἐπ' αὐτόν, it is not the passage before us only which lies at the foundation, but also, and indeed pre-eminently, the parallel passage, chap. xlii. 1: "Behold my Servant whom I uphold, mine Elect in whom my soul delighteth; I put my Spirit upon Him," as is apparent from the circumstance that it is to this passage that the voice from heaven refers in Matt. iii. 17: οὗτος