3. The word rendered by us "chastisement," and by the Vulgar Latin, which Grotius follows, " disciplina," is ""DiD^ which as it hath its first signification " to learn," so it signifies also " to correct," because learn- ing is seldom carried on without correction; and thence "disciplina" signifies the same. Now, what is the " correction of our peace ? " Was it the instruction of Christ, — not that he gave, but that he had, — that we have our peace by? The word IvV, he renders "apud eum," contrary to the known sense of the word, '^^i' is " to ascend, to lift up, to make to ascend," a word of most frequent use ; thence is the word used rendered " super," intimating that the chastisement of our peace was made to ascend on him. As Peter expresseth the sense of this place, "Og rdg a(i>apriag rs/j,uv uvrog dvrjvi'y/.BV sv rui ffuifj^ari avrov J'3-/ TO |u>.oi/- — "He carried up our sins on his body on the tree ;" they were made to ascend on him. The LXX. render the words st' avTov; the Vulgar Latin, " super eum ;" and there is not the least colour for the annotator's " apud eum." Now, " the chastisement of our peace," — that is, the punishment that was due that we might
470 VINDICIiE EVANGELIC^.
have peace, or whereby we have peace with God, — " was upon him," is, it seems, " He gave us good counsel and admonition, if we woukl have followed it" !
4. Here is no word expressing any act of the person spoken of, but his suffering or undergoing punishment. But of this enough.
" Et livore ejus sanati sumus. Livore ejus (id est, ipsius patien- tia), nos sanati fuissenius : id est, liberati ab impendentibus malis, si verbis ipsius, tanta raalorura tolerantia confirmatis, habuissemus fidem. Hebrsei potentialem modnm aliter quam per indicativum exprimere nequeunt ; ideo multa adhibenda attentio ad consequen- dos sensus;" — "'With his stripes we are healed.' With his wound, or sore, or stripe, that is, by his patience, we might have been healed, that is, freed from impendent evils, had we believed his words, con- firmed with so great bearing of evils. The Hebrews cannot express the potential mood but by the indicative; therefore much attention is to be used to find out the sense."
I cannot but profess that, setting aside some of the monstrous figments of the Jewish rabbins, I never in my whole life met with an interpretation of Scripture offering more palpable violence to the words than this of the annotator. Doubtless, to repeat it, with all sober men, is sufficient to confute it. I shall briefly add, —
1. The prophet says, "We are healed;" the annotator, "We might have been healed, but are not."
2. The healing in the prophet is by deliverance from sin, men- tioned in the words foregoing, and so interpreted by Peter, 1 Ep. ii. 24, whereby we have peace with God, which we have; the healing in the annotator is the deliverance from the destruction by the Chaldeans, which they were not delivered from, but might have been.
8. "T^^'^ri in the prophet is /iwXwvj^ in Peter, but " patience " in the annotator.
4. " By his stripes we are healed," is in the annotator, " By heark- ening to him we might have been healed," or delivered from the evils threatened. " By his stripes ; " that is, " By hearkening to his counsel, when he endured evils patiently." " We are healed," that is, " We might have been delivered, but are not."
5. As to the reason given of this interpretation, that the Hebrews have no potential mood, I shall desire to know who compelled the learned annotator to suppose himself wiser than the Holy Ghost, 1 Pet. ii. 24, to wrest these words into a potential signification which he expresseth directly, actually, indicatively ? For a Jew to have done this out of hatred and enmity to the cross of Christ had been tolerable; but for a man professing himself a Christian, it is a some- what strange attempt.
G. To close with this verse, we do not esteem ourselves at all be-
DIGRESSION CONCERNING GROTIUS ON ISAIAH LIII. 471
holdins: to the annotator for allowing an accommodation of these words to ou}- blessed Saviour, affirming that the Jews who converted themselves (for so it must be expressed, lest any should mistake, and think their conversion to have been the work of the Spirit and grace of God) on the day of Pentecost used such words as those that the Jews are feigned to use in reference to Jeremiah. It is quite of another business that the prophet is speaking ; not of the sin of the Jews in crucifying Christ, but of all our sins, for which he was cru- cified.
"Munera magna quidem misit, sed misit in hamo." — Martial, lib. vi. Ep. 63.
Verse 6, " All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way ; and the Lord hath laid on him the ini- quity of us all."
Grotius: " Erraveramus jam a Manassis temporibus, alii ad alia idola; et permisit Deus ut ille nostro gravi crimine indignissima pateretur ; " — " We have all erred from the days of Manasseh, some following some idols, others others ; and God permitted that he by our grievous crime should suffer most unworthy things."