But we are by no means compelled to adopt the impersonal view of ch. liii. On the contrary, while the question is one, to which all experts know the difficulty of finding an absolutely conclusive answer one way or the other, it seems to me that reasons prevail, which make for the personal interpretation. . Let us see what exactly are the objections to taking ch. lii. 13-liii. in a personal sense. First, it is very important to observe, that they do not rise out of the grammar or language of the passage. The reference of both of these is consistently individual. Throughout, the Servant is spoken of in the singular.[154] The name Israel is not once applied to him: nothing--except that the nation has also suffered--suggests that he is playing a national _rôle_; there is no reflection in his fate of the features of the Exile. The antithesis, which was evident in previous passages, between a better Israel and the mass of the people has disappeared. The Servant is contrasted, not with the nation as a whole, but with His people as individuals. _All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all._ As far as grammar can, this surely distinguishes a single person. It is true, that one or two phrases suggest so colossal a figure--_he shall startle many nations, and kings shall shut their mouths at him_--that for a moment we think of the spectacle of a people rather than of a solitary human presence. But even such descriptions are not incompatible with a single person.[155] On the other hand, there are phrases which we can scarcely think are used of any but a historical individual; such as that he was taken from _oppression and judgement_, that is from a process of law which was tyranny, from a judicial murder, and that he belonged to a particular generation--_As for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living_. Surely a historical individual is the natural meaning of these words. And, in fact, critics like Ewald and Wellhausen, who interpret the passage, in its present context, of the ideal Israel, find themselves forced to argue, that it has been borrowed for this use from the older story of some actual martyr--so individual do its references seem to them throughout. If, then, the grammar and language of the passage thus conspire to convey the impression of an individual, what are the objections to supposing that an individual is meant? Critics have felt, in the main, three objections to the discovery of a historical individual in Isa. lii. 13-liii.