to point out the glory of the exaltation of the Servant of God. Ver. 14. "_As many were shocked at thee--so marred from man was His look, and His form from the sons of man_--Ver. 15. _So shall He sprinkle many nations; kings shall shut their_ [Pg 266] _mouths on account of Him, for they who had not been told, they see, and they who did not hear, they perceive._" Ver. 14 contains the _protasis_, ver. 15 the _apodosis_. The former describes the deep humiliation, the latter the highest glorification of the Servant of God. The _so_ in ver. 14 begins a parenthesis, in which the reason why many were shocked is stated, and which goes on to the end of the verse. In keeping with the dramatic character of the prophetic discourse, the Lord addresses His Servant in ver. 14: "At thee;" while, in ver. 15, He speaks of Him in the third person: "He shall sprinkle;" "on account of _Him_" This change has been occasioned by the parenthetical clause which contains a remark of the Prophet, and in which, therefore, the Servant of God could not but be spoken of in the third person. _Hävernick_ and _Stier_ refuse to admit the existence of a parenthesis. Their reasons: "Parentheses are commonly an ill-invented expedient only," and: "It is not likely that the same particle should have a different signification in these two clauses following immediately the one upon the other," are not entirely destitute of force, but are far-outweighed by counter-arguments. They say that the _apodosis_ begins with the first כן, and that in ver. 15 a second _apodosis_ follows. But no tolerable thought comes out in this way;--it is hard to co-ordinate two _apodoses_,--and the transition from the 2d to the 3d person remains unaccounted for. שמם "to be desolated" is then transferred to the spiritual desolation and devastation, and receives the signification "to be horrified," "to be shocked."--Who the many are that are shocked and offended at the miserable appearance of the Servant of God, appears from chap. xlix. 4, according to which the opposition to the Servant of God has its seat among the covenant people; farther, from the contrast in ver. 15 of the chapter before us, according to which the respectful surrender belongs to the _Gentiles_; and farther, from chap. liii. 1, where the unbelief of the former covenant-people is complained of; from vers. 2-4, where even the believers from among Israel complain that they had had difficulty in surmounting the offence of the Cross. משחת, properly "corruption," stands here as _abstractum pro concreto_, in the signification, "corrupted," "marred." As to its form, it is in the _status constructus_ which, in close connections, can stand even [Pg 267] before Prepositions. From the corresponding חדל אישים in chap. liii. 3, it appears that the Preposition stands here only for the sake of distinctness, and might as well have been omitted. The מן serves for designating the distance, "from man," "from the sons of men," so that