[149] A king's courtiers, soldiers, or subjects are called _his servants_. In this sense Israel was often styled the _servants of Jehovah_, as in Deut. xxxii. 36; Neh. i. 10, where the phrase is parallel to _His people_. But _Jehovah's servants_ is a phrase also parallel to His worshippers (Psalm cxxxiv. 1, etc.); to those who trust Him (Psalm xxxiv. 22); and to those who love His name (Psalm lxix. 36). The term is also applied in the plural to the prophets (Amos iii. 7); and in the singular, to eminent individuals--such as Abraham, Joshua, David and Job; also by Jeremiah to the alien Nebuchadrezzar, while engaged on his mission from God against Jerusalem. [150] See p. 244. [151] The definite article is not used here with the word people, and hence the phrase has been taken by some in the vaguer sense of _a people's covenant_, as a general expression, along with its parallel clause, of the kind of influence the Servant was to exert, not on Israel, but on _any_ people in the world; he was to be _a people's covenant_, and _a light for nations_. So practically Schultz, _A. T. Theologie_, 4th ed., p. 284. But the Hebrew word for people עם is often used without the article to express _the_ people Israel, just as the Hebrew word for land רץא is often used without the article to express _the_ land of Judah. (הארץ with the article, is in Isa. xl.-lxvi. _the Earth_.) And in ch. xlix. the phrase a _covenant of the people_ again occurs, and in a context in which it can only mean _a covenant_ of _the_ people, Israel. Some render עם ברית a _covenant people_. But in xlix. 8 this is plainly an impossible rendering. [152] Meshullam is found as a proper name in the historical books of the Old Testament, especially Nehemiah, _e.g._, iii. 4, 6, 30. [153] Hosea xi. 1; Matt. ii. 15 [154] Of all the expressions used of him the only one which shows a real tendency to a plural reference is _in his deaths_ (ver. 9), and even it (if it is the correct reading) is quite capable of application to an individual who suffered such manifold martyrdom as is set forth in the passage. [155] Not one word in them betrays any sense of a body of men or an ideal people standing behind them, which sense surely some expression would have betrayed, if it had been in the prophet's mind. [156] A. B. D., in a review of the last edition of Delitzsch's _Isaiah_, in the _Theol. Review_, iv., p. 276. [157] _Isaiah I._ i.-xxxix., pp. 134, 135. [158] See p. 42. [159] See ch. ii. of this volume. CHAPTER XVII. _THE SERVANT OF THE LORD IN THE NEW TESTAMENT._