inadmissible is the supposition that a representative of the heathen world is speaking; the whole heathen world cannot be designated as a people. Ver. 9. "_And they gave Him His grave with the wicked, and with a rich in His death, because He had done no violence, neither was any deceit in His mouth._" ויתן is intentionally without a definite Subject, _q.d._: it was given to Him, _Ewald_ § 273a. The acting subject could not be at all more distinctly marked out, because there was a _double_ subject. Men fixed for Him the ignominious grave with criminals; by the providence of God, He received the honourable grave with a rich, and that for the sake of His innocent sufferings, as a prelude to the greater glorification which, as a reward, was to be bestowed upon Him, as an example of what is said in ver. 12: "He shall divide spoil with the strong." The _wicked_ who are buried apart from others, can be the real criminals only, the transgressors in ver. 12. Criminals received, among the Jews, an ignominious burial. Thus _Josephus_, Arch. iv. 8, § 6, says: "He who has blasphemed God shall, after having been stoned, be hung up for a day, and be buried quietly and without honour." _Maimonides_ (see _Iken_ on this passage in the Biblia Hagana ii. 2) says: "Those who have been executed by the court of justice are not by any means buried in the graves of their ancestors; but there are two graves appointed for them by the court of justice,--one for the stoned and burnt; the other for the decapitated and strangled." Just as the Prophet had, in the preceding verse, said that the Servant of God would die a violent death like a criminal, so he says here, that they had also fixed for Him a grave in common with executed criminals. _And with a rich_ [Pg 294] (they gave Him His grave) _in His death_: they gave Him His grave, first with the wicked; but, indeed, He received it with a rich, since God's providence was watching over the dead body of His Servant. ויתן, in so far as it refers to the first clause, receives its limitation by the second. Before their fulfilment, the words had the character of a holy riddle; but the fulfilment has solved this riddle. The designation of Joseph of Arimathea as ἄνθρωπος πλούσιος in Matt. xxvi. 57, is equivalent to an express quotation. Although it was by a special divine providence that the Singular was chosen, yet we may suppose that, in the first instance, the rich man here is contrasted with the wicked men, and is an ideal person, the personified idea of the species. _In His death_ is, in point of fact, equivalent to: "after He had died;" but, notwithstanding, there is no necessity for giving to the ב the signification "after." Death rather denotes the _condition of death_; _in death_ is contrasted with: _in life_. Altogether in the same manner we find in Lev. xi. 31: "Whosoever doth touch them in their death," for, "after they have died." _Farther_--1 Kings xiii. 31: "In my death