which treats of sacrifices, it is, _a priori_, probable that it will be the object offered up. In Lev. xvii. 11, it is said: "For the soul of the flesh is in the blood, and I give it to you upon the altar, to atone for your souls, for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul," viz., by the soul "_per animam, vi animae in eo sanguine constantis_" (_Gussetius_).[8] The soul, when thus considered as the passive object, is here therefore in a high degree in its proper place; and there can the less be any doubt of its occurring here in this sense, that it occurs twice more in vers. 11 and 12, of the natural psychical life of the Servant of God, which was given up to suffering and death. But, on the other hand, if the soul be considered as the active object, it stands here at all events rather idle,--a circumstance which is sufficiently apparent from the supposition of several interpreters, that נפש "soul," stands here simply for the personal pronoun,--"His soul," for "He," a _usus loquendi_ which occurs in Arabic, but not in Hebrew. And, strictly speaking, the offering of the sacrifice does not belong to the soul, but to the spirit of the Servant of God, compare Heb. ix. 14, according to which passage, Christ διὰ πνεύματος αἰωνίου ἑαυτὸν προσήνεγκεν ἄμωμον τῷ θεῷ; and on the subject of the difference between soul and spirit, compare my Commentary on Ps. iv. p. lxxxvii. But how will it now be possible to reconcile and harmonize [Pg 300] our two results, that, in a formal point of view, the soul is that which offers up, and, in a material point of view, that which is offered up? By the hypothesis that, _in a rhetorical way of speaking, that is here assigned to the soul as an action which, in point of fact, is done upon it._ All that is necessary is to translate: "If His soul puts or gives a trespass-offering;" for, "to put," stands here, as it does so frequently, in the sense of "to give," compare Ezek. xx. 28, where it is used in this sense in reference to sacrifice. But, in point of fact, this is equivalent to: "If it is made a trespass-offering," or, "If He, the Servant of God, offers it as a trespass-offering." It is analogous to this when, in Job xiv. 22, the soul of the deceased laments; and a cognate mode of representation prevails in Rev. vi. 9, where, to the souls of the slain, life is assigned for the sole purpose of their giving utterance to that which was the result of the thought regarding them, in combination with the circumstances of the time. To a certain degree analogous is also chap. lx. 7, where it is said of the sacrificial animals: "They ascend, for my pleasure, mine altar." The fact that it is in reality the soul which is offered up, is confirmed also by the remarkable reference to the passage before us in the discourses of our Lord. Our Lord says in John x. 12: ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ποιμὴν ὁ καλός· ὁ ποιμὴν ὁ καλὸς τὴν χυχὴν αὑτοῦ τίθησιν ὑπὲρ τῶν προβάτων. Ver. 15: καὶ τὴν χυχήν μου τίθημι ὑπὲρ τῶν προβάτων. Vers.