'He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied: by His knowledge shall My righteous servant justify many; and He shall bear their iniquities'--ISAIAH liii. 11.
These are all but the closing words of this great prophecy, and are the fitting crown of all that has gone before. We have been listening to the voice of a member of the race to whom the Servant of the Lord belonged, whether we limit that to the Jewish people or include in it all humanity. That voice has been confessing for the speaker and his brethren their common misapprehensions of the Servant, their blindness to the meaning of His sufferings and the mystery of His death. It has been proclaiming the true significance of these as now he had learned them, and has in verse 10 touched the mystery of the reward and triumph of the Servant.
That note of His glory and coronation is caught up in the two closing verses, which, in substance, are the continuation of the idea of verse 10. But this identity of substance makes the variety of form the more emphatic. Observe the '_My_ Servant' of verse 11, and the '_I_ will divide' of verse 12. These oblige us to take this as the voice of God. The confession and belief of earth is hushed, that the recognition and the reward of the Servant may be declared from heaven. An added solemnity is thus given to the words, and the prophecy comes round again to the keynote on which it started in chapter lii, 13, '_My_ Servant.' Notice, too, how the same characteristic is here as in verse 10--that the recapitulation of the sufferings is almost equally prominent with the description of the reward. The two are so woven together that no power can part them. We may take these two verses as setting forth mainly two things--the divine promise that the Servant shall give righteousness to many, and the divine promise that the Servant shall conquer many for Himself.
As to the exposition, 'of' here is probably casual, not partitive, as the Authorised Version has it; 'travail' is not to be understood in the sense of childbirth, but of toil and suffering; 'soul' is equivalent to _life_. This fruit of His soul's travail is further defined in the words which follow. The great result which will be beheld by Him and will fill and content His heart is that 'by His knowledge He shall justify many.' 'By _His_ knowledge' certainly means, by the knowledge of Him on the part of others. The phrase might be taken either objectively or subjectively, but it seems to me that only the former yields an adequate sense. 'My righteous servant' is scarcely emphatic enough. The words in the original stand in an unusual order, which might be represented by 'the righteous one, My servant,' and is intended to put emphasis on the Servant's righteousness, as well as to suggest the connection between His righteousness and His 'justifying,' in virtue of His being righteous. 'Justify' is an unusual form, and means to procure for, or impart righteousness to. '_The_ many' has stress on the article, and is the antithesis not to _all_, but to _few_. We might render it 'the masses,' an indefinite expression, which if not declaring universality, approaches very near to it, as in Romans v. 19 and Matthew xxvi. 28. 'He shall bear,' a future referring to the Servant in a state of exaltation, and pointing to His continuous work after death. This bearing is the root of our righteousness.
We may put the thoughts here in a definite order.
I. The great work which the Servant carries on.
It consists in giving or imparting righteousness. It seems to me that it is out of place to be too narrow here in interpreting so as to draw distinctions between righteousness imparted and righteousness bestowed. We should rather take the general idea of _making righteous_, making, in fact, like Himself. Note that this is the work which is Christ's characteristic one. All thoughts of His blessings to the world which omit that are imperfect.