For the conversion,--on which everything depends, and apart from which the announcement of the Prophet would be an empty fancy--is, in all these prophecies, not mentioned by a single word. On the contrary, the Servant of God is everywhere, from His very origin, brought before us as the absolutely just. No more glaring contrast can really be imagined than that which exists between that which the Prophet says of the ordinary Israel (whose outward state, as it is described in chap. xlii. 22: "This is a people robbed and spoiled, they are all of them snared in holes, and hid in prison-houses," is only a faithful image of the internal condition), and the Son of God in whom His soul delighteth, who in exuberant love seeks [Pg 204] that which is lost, whose overflowing righteousness justifies many, and who, as a substitute, can suffer for others. It is in Christ only, that Israel attains to its destination, both in a moral point of view, and as regards the Divine preservation and glorification. To this it may still be added, that neither here, nor in the parallel passages is עבד יהוה ever connected with a Plural, but always with the Singular only; while elsewhere, in the case of collective nouns and ideal persons, the real plurality not uncommonly shines forth from behind the unity; and in those passages, especially, where Israel appears personified as a unity, the use of the Singular is interchanged with that of the Plural. Comp., _e.g._, chap. xli. 8: "And thou Israel, my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, seed (_posterity_) of Abraham, my friend," chap. xliii. 10: "_Ye are my witnesses._ saith the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen." But a circumstance, which alone would be sufficient for the proof, is the fact, that in chap. xli. 6, (comp. chap. xlix. 5, 6) the Servant of the Lord is plainly distinguished from the people. How can the Lord say of the people, that He will give it for a covenant of the people, that in it He will cause the covenant with the people to attain to its truth? The fact, that this passage opposes an insurmountable barrier to the explanation which makes the people the subject, sufficiently appears from the circumstance, that the expositors saw themselves obliged to set aside its natural sense by a forced, unphilological explanation. _Finally_,--In understanding the people by the Servant of God, the prophecies of the Servant of God are brought into irreconcileable contradiction with all other prophecies, with the first part of Isaiah, and even with the second part, inasmuch as things would then be prophesied of the people which, everywhere else, are constantly assigned to the Messiah. This is quite openly expressed by _Köster_: "The Servant of Jehovah is the Jewish people; viewed, however, by the Prophet in such a manner as to combine in itself the attributes of both, the prophets and the Messiah." Prophetism would have dug its own grave if its organs had, in a manner so inconsiderate, contradicted