II. Biblical View,— -The prophecies of the 0. T. des- ignate the Redeemer as the perfect and model proph' ftj as the servant of God to whom the attributes of prophecy, priesthood, and royalty alike belonK ; as the Idt^tf seed of David, or the second, perfect David ; and finally as the priest4anff. He, moreover, in spir- it, calls himself in the Gospels, "prophet," and "son of David.*' In the Epistle to the Hebrews he is repre- sented as the only true and eternal high-priest. This threefold aspect of his misswn is united in the concep- tion of the Anointed or Mestiah; for as Elisha was by Elijah anointed h prophet (1 Kings six, 16), so was the promised ^ servant of God'* to be anointed by the Spir- it of the Lord ; and as the kings of Israel were anointed (1 Sam. X, 1 ; xvi, 13; 1 Kings 1, 13 ; xix, 15, etc.), so was Christ anointed king of righteousness (Heb. i, 8, 9). And as it was ordained by the law that ihe A^ priest should be anointed to his office (Exod. xxHii, 41 ; xxix, 7 ; xxx, 80 ; Lev. iv, 3 ; vi, 22 ; vii, 86), so Christ was made high-priest ''^not after the law qf a carnal commandmentj hut q/ter ihe power of a» endlea life'' (Heb. vii, 16). The conception of the Messiah or Anointed thus divides itself into the three aspects of prophet, priest, and king.
The first prophecy bearing on the subject b in Deut. xviii, 15. The people, aftnid of hearing the command- ments of God, sent up Moses to hear them (Exod. xx, 19 ; Dent, v, 27). The Lord ' * heard*' the people (Deut V, 28), and promised (as they had sent up Moses to hear Him) that He would send them a prophet whom thejf could and should hear. The God who revealed his law in the midst of thunder and lightning, so that the people durst not approach him, would siterwards approach ihe people through a prophet. On Mount Sinai the people bad to send Moses up to God, and God promised, in the future, to send down a prophet to the people. Thus the difference between the Law and the Gospel is sketched in Its dawning outline.
The latter part of Isaiah (chapters xl-lxvi) is re- lated, though not in the most direct way, to the proph- ecy in Deuteronomy. In Isaiah, not **the prophet," but the "servant of God," is the predominant con- ception. Isaiah ** labors in vain'* (xlix, 4) ; a coming servant of God, however, will accomplish both Isaiah's task in Israel and the mission of the people of Is- rael to the Gentiles together and perfectly (xlix, 6) ; and this because he is more than a prophet ; because he takes upon himself the penalty of our sins (liii, v)— si3^lblO "^0173, " the chastisement of our peace,'* i. e. the punishment whose fulfilment secures our exemp- tion. He brings a nh-ojferin^, &^K (ver. 10). The prophecy does not merely indicate that the prophet's mission should entail death on the servant of God, as was the case with Paul (Col. i, 24; 2 Tim. i, 11), but that he should die as an ex[^atory sacrifice. And in chap, xlix, 7, he appears as " King of kings,'* for "kings and princes** are to bow down before him.
Thus we find in Deut. v, 18 a pronuse of the " proph- et,** and in Isaiah xlix-llii a promise of " a servant of God,** of whom prophetic preaching, priestiy self-of- fering, and crowning with kingly power are predicated. But regal dominion b not merely assigned to the fu- ture Redeemer as the predicate, or as the issue of his destiny, but, on the contrary, the very root of the Messianic prophecies li^ in the promise of " one of the seed of David," whose "throne should endure for- ever.** Redemption from future servitude was prom- ised to the seed of Abraham (Gen. xv). Through Mo- ses, Joshua, and David,.this promise, in its outwud and
material sense, was gradually MfiUed. It was lor this reason that David determined to build a temple to the Lord, that the '* Eternal mi^t dwell with his peo- ple.*' But such a union of God, "who is a spirit, *" with a material place and edifice, did not agree with the divine plan of salvation (compare John iv, 2S, 24). Israel was to acknowledge tliat the temporal redemption, obtained through David, was not yet the true redemption, but a mere faint foreshadowing there- of. This was indicated by the prophecy in the sev- enth chapter of 2 Samuel, in which it was shown that not David himself, but David's seed after his death, was to build the Lord a house, and that the Lord would assure the throne of his kingdom forever. Even here no mention is made of an indtvidnaly bat merely of a successor of David (chap, vii, 12-15). David at the same time understood that his sinful race was not fit to build the Lord a temple, and to rule on his eternal throne, as he said, " Thou hast spoben a]L$o of thf eervcuWe houee for a great while to come. And i$ this the manner of man, O Lord God? (2 Sam. vii, 19; comp. 1 Chron. xvii, 17). The allusion in Psa. ii, €, 7, to this prediction is uiyiistakable, and Psa. ex is a poetic explanation of the passage 2 Sam. vii, 19. So Christ himself (Matt, xxii, 42) explains it.