In ver. 6 and 7, after having pointed to His Omnipotence as affording a guarantee for the fulfilment of a prophecy so great that it might appear almost incredible, the Lord turns to His Servant and addresses Him. He announces to Him that it should be His glorious destination, partly to bring, in His person, the covenant with Israel to its full truth, partly to be the light for the Gentile world,--to be, in general, the Saviour of the whole human race. In the closing verses, 8, 9, the Lord addresses the Church, and directs its attention to the object which the announcement of the mission of His Servant, declared in the preceding context, serves: God, because He is God, is anxious for the promotion of His glory. In order, therefore, that it may be known that He alone is God, He grants to His people disclosures as regards the distant Future, as yet fully wrapped up in obscurity. There is no doubt, and it is now generally admitted, that the Servant of the Lord, here described, is the same as He who is brought before us in chap. xlix. 4; liii., lxi. It is, hence, not sufficient to point out an individual to whom, apparently, the attributes contained in this prophecy belong; but we must add and combine all the signs and attributes which are contained in the parallel passages. The Chaldean Paraphrast who, in so many instances, has faithfully preserved the exegetical tradition, understands the Messiah by the Servant of God; and so, from among the later Jewish expositors, do _Dav. Kimchi_ and _Abarbanel_, the latter of whom says of the non-Messianic interpretation, שכל אלה [Pg 198] החכמים הכו בסנורים "that all these expositors were struck with blindness." That this exposition was the current one among the Jews at the time of Christ, appears from Luke ii. 32, where Simeon designates the Saviour as the light to be revealed to the Gentiles φῶς εἰς ἀποκάλυψιν ἐθνῶν, with a reference to Is xlii. 6; xlix. 6. It is especially the latter passage which Simeon has in view, as also St. Paul in Acts xiii. 46, 47, as appears from the words immediately preceding ὅτι εἶδον οἱ ὀφθαλμοί μου τὸ σωτήριον σου ὃ ἡτοίμασας κατὰ πρόσωπον πάντων τῶν λαῶν, which evidently refer to chap. xlix. But chap. xlix. is, as regards the point which here comes into consideration, a mere repetition and confirmation of chap. xlii.