(_c._) The hypothesis, that the pious portion of the Jewish people--in contrast to the ungodly--are the subject, has been defended especially by _Paulus_ (_Memorabilien_, Bd. 3, S. 175-192, and _Clavis_ on Isaiah). His view was adopted by _Ammon_ (_Christologie_, S. 108 ff.). The principal features of this view are the following:--It was not on account of their own sins that the godly portion of the nation were punished and carried into captivity along with the ungodly, but on account of the ungodly who, however, by apostatising from the religion of Jehovah, knew how to obtain a better fate. The ungodly drew from it the inference that the hope of the godly, that Jehovah would come to their help, had been in vain. But when the captivity came to an end, and the godly returned, they saw that they had been mistaken, and that the hope of the godly was well founded. They, therefore, full of repentance, deeply lament that they had not long ago repented of their sins. This view is adopted also by _Von Cölln_ in his _Biblische Theologie_; by _Thenius_ in _Wiener's Zeitschrift_, ii. 1; by _Maurer_ and _Knobel_. The latter says: "Those who were zealous adherents of the Theocracy had a difficult position among their own people, and had to suffer most from foreign tyrants." The true worshippers of Jehovah were given up to mockery and scorn, to persecution and the grossest abuse, and were in a miserable and horrible condition, unworthy of men and almost inhuman. The punishments for sin had to be endured chiefly by those who did not deserve them. Thus the view easily arose that the godly suffered in substitution for the whole people. (_d._) The hypothesis which makes the priestly order the subject, has been defended by the author of: _Ausführliche Erklärung der sämmtlichen Weissagungen des A. T._ 1801.