In the Messianic explanation of this Section, the Lord himself has gone before His Church. We read in Luke xviii. 31, 32, παραλαβὼν δὲ τοὺς δώδεκα εἶπε πρὸς αὐτούς• ἰδοὺ ἀναβαίνομεν εἰς Ἰεροσόλυμα καὶ τελεσθήσεται πάντα τὰ γεγραμμένα διὰ τῶν προφητῶν τῷ υἱῷ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου• παραδοθήσεται γὰρ τοῖς ἔθνεσι καὶ ἐμπαιχθήσεται καὶ ὑβρισθήσεται καὶ ἐμπτυσθήσεται καὶ μαστιγώσαντες ἀποκτενοῦσιν αὐτόν. There cannot be any doubt that the Lord here distinctly refers to ver. 6 of the prophecy under consideration. There is, at all events, no other passage in the whole of the Old Testament, except that before us, in which there is any mention made of being spat upon. But in other respects, too, the reference is visible: "I gave my back to the smiters (μαστιγώσαντες, LXX. εἰς μαστιγας), and my cheeks to those plucking (ἐμπαιχθήσεται--the plucking of the beard, an act of degrading wantonness), my face I hid not from shame (ὑβρισθήσεται) and spitting." _Bengel_ draws attention to the fact of how highly Christ, in the passage quoted, placed the prophecy of the Old Testament: "Jesus most highly valued that which was written. The word of God which is contained in Scripture is the rule for all which is to happen, even for that which is to happen in eternal life." If, in respect of the high estimation of prophecy, our age were to follow in the steps of Jesus, it would also most readily agree with Him as regards the subject of the prophecy before us. This alone is the cause of the aberration from Him, that people confined and shut up the prophet within the horizon of his time, and then imagined that he could not know anything of the suffering of Christ. It was altogether different in the [Pg 249] ancient Christian Church. In it, the Messianic interpretation prevailed throughout; and _Grotius_, who in a lower sense would refer the prophecy to Isaiah, and, in a higher sense only, to Christ, met with general opposition, even on the part of _Clericus_.