and, in general all sorrow, have lost their sting. But it has not yet appeared what we shall be, and we have still to expect the complete fulfilment. In the Kingdom of glory, sickness and pain shall have altogether disappeared.--Some interpreters would translate נשא by "to take away;" but even the parallel סבל is conclusive against such a view; and, farther, the ordinary use of נשא of the bearing of the punishment of sin, _e.g._, Ezek. xviii. 19; Num. xiv. 33; Lev. v. 1, xx. 17. But of conclusive weight is the connection with the preceding verse, where the Servant of God appears as the intimate acquaintance of sickness, as the man of pains. He has, accordingly, not only _put away_ our sicknesses and pains, but He has, as our substitute, _taken them upon Him_; He has healed us by His having himself become sick in our stead. This could be done only by His having, in the first instance, as a substitute, appropriated our _sins_, of which the sufferings are the consequence; compare 1 Peter ii. 24: ὃς τὰς ἁμαρτίας ἡμῶν αὐτὸς ἀνήνεγκεν ἐν τῷ σώματι αὐτοῦ ἐπὶ τὸ ξύλον.--_Plagued_, _smitten of God_, _afflicted_, are expressions which were commonly used in reference to the visitation of sinful men. It is especially in the word _plagued_, which is intentionally placed first, that the reference to a self-deserved suffering is strongly expressed, compare Ps. lxxiii. 14: "For all the day long am I _plagued_, and my chastisement is new every morning." Of Uzziah, visited on account of his sin, it is said in 2 Kings xv. 5: "And the Lord inflicted a _plague_ upon the king, and he was a leper unto the day of his death." נגע "plague" is in Lev. xiii., as it were, _nomen proprium_ for the leprosy, which in the law is so distinctly designated as a punishment of sin.--הכה too, is frequently used of the infliction of divine punishments and judgments. Num. xiv. 12; Deut. xxviii. 22. The people did not err in considering the suffering as a punishment of sin, but only in considering it as a punishment for the sins committed by the Servant of God himself. According to the view of both the Old and New Testament, every suffering is [Pg 284] punishment. The suffering of a perfect saint, however, involves a contradiction, unless it be vicarious. By his completely stepping out of the territory of sin, he must also step out of the territory of evil, which, according to the doctrine established at the very threshold of revelation, is the wages of sin, for otherwise God would not be holy and just. Hence, as regards the Servant of God, we have only the alternatives: either His sinlessness must be doubted, or the vicarious nature of His sufferings must be acknowledged. The persons speaking took up, at first, the former position; after their eyes had been opened, they chose the latter. Ver. 5, "_And He was pierced for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed._"