_Farther_--It cannot be denied that a certain amount of truth lies at the foundation of the explanation which makes the prophetic order the subject. The Messiah appears in our prophecy pre-eminently as the Prophet, in harmony and connection with Deut. xviii. (comp. Vol. i., p. 107); and the substratum of the description forms chiefly the prophetic order, while, in the prophecies of the first part, it is chiefly the regal office which appears, and, in chap. liii., the priestly. But the mistake (as _Umbreit_ himself partly saw) is, that this explanation changes the person into a personification, instead of recognizing that the idea, which hitherto was only imperfectly realised by the prophetic order, demands a future perfect realisation in an individual, so that we could not but expect such an one even if there did not exist any Messianic prophecy at all. Every prophet who, in human weakness, performed his office, was a guarantee of the future appearance of _the_ Prophet, as surely as God never does by halves what, according to His nature, and as proved by the existence of the imperfect, He must do. But the fact that, here, we have not before us a mere personification of the prophetic order, nor, as little, according to the opinion of _Umbreit_, a single individual by whom, in future, the idea of the prophetic order was to be most perfectly realised, is evident from the circumstance that the Servant of God does not, by any means, represent himself as being _only_ the Prophet. The contrast between Cyrus and the Servant of God, which _G. Müller_ advances: "Evidently, the former is a conqueror; the latter, a meek teacher," is one-sided; for the Servant of God appears, at the same time, as a powerful _ruler_, just as Christ, in chap. lv. 4, is at the same time designated as a _Witness_, and as Prince and Lawgiver of the nations. To the mere teacher not even ver. 3 is applicable, if the parallel passages are compared, but far less ver. 4: "The isles shall wait for _His law_." Nor does a mere teacher come up to the embodied covenant with Israel in ver. 6, nor to _the_ [Pg 208] _light_, _i.e._, Salvation and Saviour of the Gentiles. By mere teaching, salvation cannot be wrought out. Ver. 7 also does not apply to the mere _teacher_.