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off out of the land of the living: for the tranfgreffion of my people was he ftricken. And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it pleafed the Lord to bruife him; he hath put him to grief. When thou shalt make his foul an offering for fin, he fhall fee his feed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord fhall profper in his hand. He fhall fee of the travail of his foul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge fhall my righteous fervant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the ftrong; because he hath poured out his foul unto death: and he was numbered with the tranfgreffors; and he bare the fin of many, and made interceffion for the tranfgreffors.”

These words are extant in a book, purporting to contain the predictions of a writer, who

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who lived feven centuries before the Chrif tian æra.

That material part of every argument from prophecy, namely, that the words alledged were actually spoken or written before the fact to which they are applied took place, or could by any natural means be foreseen, is, in the present instance, inconteftable. The record comes out of the cuftody of adverfaries. The Jews, as an ancient father well obferved, are our librarians. The paffage is in their copies as well as in ours. With many attempts to explain it away, none has ever been made by them to difcredit its authenticity.

And, what adds to the force of the quotation is, that it is taken from a writing declaredly prophetic; a writing, profeffing to defcribe fuch future tranfactions and changes in the world, as were connected with the fate and interefts of the Jewish nation. It is not a paffage in an historical

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or devotional compofition, which, because it turns out to be applicable to fome future events, or to fome future fituation of affairs, is prefumed to have been oracular. The words of Isaiah were delivered by him in a prophetic character, with the folemnity belonging to that character; and what he fo delivered, was all along understood by the Jewish reader to refer to fomething that was to take place after the time of the author. The public fentiments of the Jews, concerning the design of Isaiah's writings, are fet forth in the book of Ecclefiafticus: "He faw, by an excellent fpirit, what should come to pass at the laft, and he comforted them that mourned in Sion. He fhewed what should come to pafs for ever,.and secret things or ever they came." (ch. xlviii. ver. 24.)

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It is also an advantage which this prophecy poffeffes, that it is intermixed with no other fubject. It is entire, feparate, and uninterruptedly directed to one scene of

things.

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The application of the prophecy to the evangelic hiftory is plain and appropriate. Here is no double fense: no figurative language, but what is fufficiently intelligible to every reader of every country. The obfcurities, by which I mean the expreffions that require a knowledge of local diction, and of local allufion, are few, and not of great importance. Nor have I found that varieties of reading, or a different conftruing of the original, produce any material alteration in the fenfe of the prophecy. Compare the common tranflation with that of Bishop Lowth, and the difference is not confiderable. So far as they do differ, Bishop Lowth's corrections, which are the faithful refult of an accurate examination, bring the defcription nearer to the New Testament history than it was before. In the fourth verfe of the fifty-third chapter, what our Bible renders "ftricken," he tranflates "judicially ftricken :" and in the eighth verfe, the clause he was taken from prifon and from judgement," the Bishop gives " by an oppreffive judgement he was taken off."

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The next words to thefe, "who fhall declare his generation?" are much cleared up. in their meaning by the Bishop's version, "his manner of life who would declare ?". i. e. who would ftand forth in his defence? The former part of the ninth verfe," and he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death," which inverts the circumftances of Chrift's paffion, the Bishop brings out in an order perfectly agreeable to the event; "and his grave was, appointed with the wicked, but with the rich man was his tomb." The words in the eleventh verfe, "by his knowledge fhall my righteous fervant juftify many," are`in the Bishop's verfion "by the knowledge of him fhall my righteous fervant juftify many."

It is natural to enquire what turn the Jews themselves give to this prophecy. There is

Vaticinium hoc Efaiae eft carnificina Rabbinorum, de quo aliqui Judæi mihi confeffi funt, Rabbinos, fuos ex propheticis fcripturis facile fe extricare potuiffe, modo Efaias tacuiffet." Hulfe Theol. Jud. p. 318, quoted by Poole in loc.

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