depressing _words_, but _speaks_ to them in a comforting and encouraging way, raising them up and strengthening them." But in this explanation everything is, without reason, drawn into the territory of speech, while Matthew rightly sees, in the healing of the sick by Christ, a confirmation by deeds of the prophecy before us. In chap. lxi., also, the Servant of God does not only bring glad tidings, but _creates_, at the same time, the blessings announced. According to chap. lxi. 3, He gives to them that mourn in Zion beauty for ashes, joy for mourning, garment of praise for a weak (כהה) spirit. Verse 6 of the chapter before us most clearly indicates how little we are allowed to limit ourselves to mere speaking; for, according to that verse, the Servant of God is himself the covenant of the people, and the light of the Gentiles, and according to ver. 7, He opens the eyes of the blind, &c. Ver. 4. "_He shall not fail nor run away until He shall have founded right in the earth, and for His law the isles shall wait._" On: "He shall not fail," properly, "He shall not become dim," comp. Deut. xxxiv. 7, where it is said of Moses, the servant of God: "His eye had not become dim, nor had his strength fled." The לא ירוץ "He shall not run away" (properly, "He shall not _run_") is qualified and fixed by the parallelism with לא יכהה "He shall not fail." רוץ in other passages also, several times receives, by the context, the qualified signification "to run away," "to take to flight," "to flee;" comp. Judges viii. 21; Jer. xlix. 19. The words: "He shall not fail nor run away" imply that, in the carrying out of His vocation, the Servant of God shall meet with powerful _obstacles_, with obstinate _enemies_, and shall have to endure severe sufferings. That which is here merely hinted at, is carried out and detailed in chap. xlix., l., liii. How near He was to failing and running away (David, too, was obliged to say: "Oh! that I had wings like a dove, then would I fly away and be at rest") is seen from His utterance in Matt. xvii. 17: ὦ γενεὰ ἄπιστος καὶ διεστραμμένη, ἕως πότε ἔσομαι μεθ' ὑμῶν; ἕως πότε ἀνέξομαι ὑμῶν.--According to the current opinion, ירוץ is here assumed to be the Future of רצץ, for יָרֹץ, and that in the appropriate signification: "He shall not be broken." (Thus it was probably [Pg 218] viewed by the Chaldean Paraphrast who renders לא ילאי _non laborabit_; by the LXX., who translate οὐ θραυθσησεται, while _Aquila_ and _Symmachus_, according to the account of _Jerome_, render, _non curret_, thus following the derivation from רוץ). As יכהה points back to כהה in the preceding verse, so, in that case ירוץ would point back to רצוץ "He shall not break that which is bent, nor quench that which is dimly burning; but neither shall He himself be broken or quenched." But this explanation is opposed by the circumstance, that we must make up our minds to admit a double anomaly. The territories of the two verbs רצץ