(i) The Exile. — After the destruction of tlia monarchy and the abasement of the Davidic house the hope of a great ruler out of that house for a time disappears (e.g. in Is 4011'.). The general eschatological hope of the perfection and felicity of the people is even more luilliant than before, but no great personage is referred to as ruler of the saved people. J" Himself is the Saviour and the everlasting King, who feeds His (lock like a shepherd (Is 40"). And the .sure mercies of David — the privileges and the mission of the Davidic house — are now transferred to the people (Is 55"'). Circumstances turned the thoughts of the prophets in other directions. God's providential tnalment of Israel suggested to them new conceiition.s They reflected on the meaning of the history of Israel and its sufferings, and on its place in the moral history of mankind. And there arose the great conception of 'the Servant of the Lord.' The phrase expresses the highest generalization on the meaning of Israel in the religious life of mankind — Israel is the Servant of J" to the nations, to bring to them the know- ledge of God. Scholars do not universally accept this interpretation, but they agree that tiie ideai expressed by the prophet in regard to the Servant have been more tlian verified in Christ. Of these ideas the two chief are : first, that the Servant is the mis^ional•y of J" to the nations — he bringeth forth right to the nations, that the s.alvation of J* may be to the ends of the earth (Is 42'-' 49'-" etc.); • The Tai-K""! intei-preta Hos 3* of the Mc^jtiioh.
PEOPHECY A2fD PROPHETS
PROPHECY AXD PROPHETS 123
and second, hy his sufferings he atones for the SIMS of the nionibers of the people (Is j.'i, cf. 40-'). The Servant is the ' word' and spirit of J" incar- nated in the seed of Abraham. I'liis inciirnaied word will yet redeem all Israel and be the light of the nations. Here again it is the Dirine that saves ; the word of J", the true knowledge of the true (Jod, implanted once for all in the heart of man- kind in Israel, which will accomplish that whereto it is sent (Is a')'"). As Delitzsoh remarks, the Servant of the Lord, though strictly nut a Mes- sianic figure at all in the narrower sense, contri- butes more elements, and those of the profoiindest kind, to the Christological conception realized in our Lord than all other figures to^'ether. The ideal of the Davidic king is that ot a ruler just and conipa-ssionate, whose rule secures righteous- ness and peace and the wellbeing of the poor and meek (Is 11''") : whether in Is 9'"' he be the saviour or onlj- ruler of a people saved by J " may be dis- puted. But in connexion with the Servant of the Lord deeper conceptions appear, such as that of atonement for sin througli tlie sullering of the guiltless, and the idea tliat the highest glory is the reward of him who loses his life for others (Is 53'-). In former prophets, who foresee both the rejection and the restoration of the people, the restoi-ation is unmediated by any atonement beyond the people's repentance : God forgives their sins of His mere}* and restores them. In Den tero- Isaiah the Servant atones for the sins of the people, and their restoration follows. lormer prophets, owing to the people's misconceptions of the meaning of ritual, assail the sacrifices; Deut.- Is. combines the sacrificial idea with the sufferings of the Servant, lifting the idea out of the region of animal life into that of human life. These two figures, the Davidic king and the sutfering Servant, supply the chief contents of the idea of the Chris- tian Slessiah. It is strange how little impression the conceptions of the prophet of the Exile seem to have niatle ujion those who followed him. While his universalism — the idea that Israel is the mis- sionary of J" to mankind that His salvation may be to the end of the earth — entered into the thought of the people and profoundly infiuenced it, his conce[)tion of atonement tlirough the inno- cent bearing the sins of the guilty hardly if at all reappears. There may be a far-otf echo of it per- haps in the Rabbinic idea that the merit of great saints may avail for others. In the OT period the suffering Servant was never identified with the Davidic king. The idea that the royal Messiah suffers yVyr the sins of his people does not appear. No doubt Immanuel, who appears amidst the Assj-rian desolations, shares the hardships of his generation, living on thick milk and honey like all those left in the land (Is 7); and in Zee 9" Zioii's king shares the character of tlie saved jieople, being meek and lowly and a prince of |ieace, out nothing is said of suffering in behalf of others.
(K) Post-exile Perioil. — At tlie Restoration the general eschatological hope, as it appears in Ilaggai and Zechariah, was that so soon as the temple was finished J" would return to it in glory ; at His manifestation He would shake all natums, who would turn to Him, and His universal kingdom would come (Ha'' 2", Zee l'""- S'""-). Side by side with this hojie, however, the more special Mes- sianic hope of a ruler from David's house also appears (cf. Kzk 34"- ■^). This ruler appears to be Zei-ubbabel (Hiig 2«'-). But with the Restoration I lie priest becomes more prominent. The calami- tous history of the nation sank <leep into the popular mind, and seemed to be the seal set to the p.ophetie teaching regarding the people's sin. And from henceforth the sense of sin in the people's mind was deeper ; and that view of sacri-