in the other sin-offerings too, it may be the more clearly perceived. Compare the investigation on the sin-offerings and trespass-offerings in my work on the _Genuineness of the Pentateuch_, ii. p. 174 ff. But the sin- and trespass-offerings of the Old Testament typically point to a true spiritual sin-and trespass-offering; and their chief object was to awaken in the people of God the consciousness of the necessity of substitution (compare my Book: _Die Opfer der Heil. Schrift_, Berlin 1852). This antetypical sacrifice will be offered up by the true High-Priest. For the sins of the human race which [Pg 302] without compensation, cannot be forgiven, He furnishes the restitution which could not be paid by the sinners, and thereby works out the justification of the sinner before God.--To the trespass-offering here, all those passages of the New Testament point, in which Christ is spoken of as the sacrifice for our sins, especially 2 Cor. v. 21, where the apostle says that God made Christ to be ἁμαρτρία for us, that in Him we might be made righteous before God; Rom. viii. 3, according to which God sent Christ περὶ ἁμαρτρίας, as a sin-offering; Rom. iii. 25, where Christ is called ἱλαστήριον, propitiation; 1 John ii. 2: καὶ αὐτὸς ἱλασμός ἐστι περὶ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν ἡμῶν, iv. 10; Heb. ix. 14.--The אִם at the beginning must not be explained by "_as_" a signification, which it never has; it has its ordinary signification "when," and the Future is to be understood as a real Future: the offering of the trespass-offering is the _condition_ of His seeing, &c., and, according to the context, indeed, the absolutely _necessary_ condition. The translation: "Even if" could proceed from one only who had not understood this context. It is not death in general, but sacrificial death, which is specially spoken of; and to such a death, which is a necessary foundation of the glorification, and especially the foundation of "He shall see seed," "when" only is suitable, and not "even if."--In the words: "He shall see seed, prolong His days," that is, in a higher sense, promised to this Servant of God, which, under the Old Testament, was considered as a distinguished divine blessing. The spiritual interpretation has the less difficulty, that it must necessarily be granted in the case of אשם, immediately preceding. Just in the same relation in which the sin-offering of the Servant of God stands to the sin-offering of the bullocks and goats, does His posterity, the length of His days, stand to the ordinary posterity and length of days. The _seed_ of the Servant of God, identical with His generation, in ver. 8, are just those for whom, according to the words immediately preceding, He offers His soul as a trespass-offering--the many who, according to ver. 12, are assigned to Him as His portion; who, according to chap. lii. 15, are to be sprinkled by Him; who, according to ver. 11, are to be justified by Him; they whose sins He has taken upon Him (ver.