In vers. 7-9 we have the future glory, which makes it easy for the Servant of God to bear the sufferings of the Present. If God be for Him, who may be against Him? Ver. 7. "_But the Lord Jehovah helpeth me, therefore I am not confounded, therefore I make my face like a flint, and I know that I am not put to shame._" נכלמתי refers to כלמות in the preceding verse. He whom the Lord helps is not confounded or put to shame by all the ignominy which the world heaps upon him. The expression: "I make my face like a flint" denotes the "holy hardness of perseverance" (_Stier_); comp. Ezek. iii. 8. In that passage it is especially the assailing hardness which comes into consideration; here, on the contrary, it is the suffering one. There is an allusion to the passage before us, in Luke ix. 51: ἐγένετο δὲ τῷ συμπληροῦσθαι τὰς ἡμέρας τῆς ἀναλήψεως αὐτοῦ, καὶ αὐτὸς τὸ πρόσωπον αὐτοῦ ἐστήριξε τοῦ πορεύεσθαι εἰς Ἱερουσαλήμ. Ver. 8. "_He is near that justifieth me; who will contend with one? Let us stand together; who has a right upon me, let him come near me._" In the confidence and assurance of Christ, His redeemed ones, too, partake,--those that hear the voice of the Servant of God, ver. 10, comp. Rom. viii. 33, 34, where this and the [Pg 254] following verse are intentionally alluded to. The justification is one by _deeds_. It took place and was fulfilled, in the first instance, in the resurrection and glorification of Christ, and, then, in the destruction of Jerusalem.--בעל משפטי literally, "the master of my right," _i.e._, he who according to his opinion or assertion which, by the issue is proved to be false, has a right over me, comp. the ἐν ἐμοὶ οὐκ ἔχει οὔδέν which, in John xiv. 30, the Lord says in reference to the chief of His enemies. Ver. 9. "_Behold the Lord Jehovah will help me; who is he that shall condemn me? Lo, they shall wax old as a garment, the moth shall eat them._" That which is said herein reference to the enemies of Christ is, in chap. li. 8, with a reference to our passage, said of the opponents of those who know righteousness, and in whose heart is the law: "The moth shall eat them up like a garment." Enmity to Christ and His Church is, to those who entertain it, a prophecy of sure destruction. The words: "The moth shall eat them," are farther expanded in ver. 11, where it is described how the people who ventured to _condemn_ the Servant of God, become a prey to destruction. The Servant of God closes with a double address; first, to the godly; and then, to the ungodly. Ver. 10. "_Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the word of His Servant? When he walketh in darkness, in which there is no light to him, let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God._"