the sin of the world!' We cannot doubt, that the thought here present to the mind of John
was the description of 'The Servant of Jehovah,'22 as set forth in Is. liii. If all along the
Baptist had been filled with Isaiah-thoughts of the Kingdom, surely in the fo rty days after
he had seen the King, a new 'morning' must have risen upon them,23 and the halo of His
glory shone around the well-remembered prophecy. It must always have been
Messianically understood;24 it formed the groundwork of Messianic thought to the New
Testament writers25 - nor did the Synagogue read it otherwise, till the necessities of
controversy diverted its application, not indeed from the times, but from the Person of the
Messiah.26 But we can understand how, during those forty days, this greatest height of
Isaiah's conception of the Messiah was the one outstanding fact before his view. And
what he believed, that he spake, when again, and unexpectedly, he saw Jesus.
22. Is. lii. 13.
23. Is. viii. 20.
24. Is. lii. 13 - liii.
25. Co mp. St. Matt. viii. 17; St. Luke xxii. 37; Acts viii. 32; 1 Pet. ii. 22.
26. Manifestly, whatever interpretation is made of Is. lii. 13 - liii., it applies to Messianic
times, even if the sufferer were, as the Synagogue now contends, Israel. On the whole
subject comp. the most learned and exhaustive discussions by Dr. Pusey in his
introduction to the catena of Jewish Interpretations of Is. liii.
Yet, while regarding his words as an appeal to the prophecy of Isaiah, two other
references must not be excluded from them: those to the Paschal Lamb, and to the Daily
Sacrifice. These are, if not directly pointed to, yet implied. For the Paschal Lamb was, in
a sense, the basis of all the sacrifices of the Old Testament, not only from its saving
import to Israel, b ut as that which really made them 'the Church,'27 and people of God.
Hence the institution of the Paschal Lamb was, so to speak, only enlarged and applied in
the daily sacrifice of a Lamb, in which this twofold idea of redemption and fellowship
was exhibited. Lastly, the prophecy of Isaiah liii. was but the complete realisation of
these two ideas in the Messiah. Neither could the Paschal Lamb, with its completion in
the Daily Sacrifice, be properly viewed without this prophecy of Isaiah, nor yet that
prophe cy properly understood without its reference to its two great types. And here one
Jewish comment in regard to the Daily Sacrifice (not previously pointed out) is the more
significant, that it dates from the very time of Jesus. The passage reads almost like a
Christian interpretation of sacrifice. It explains how the morning and evening sacrifices
were intended to atone, the one for the sins of the night, the other for those of the day, so
as ever to leave Israel guiltless before God; and it expressly ascribes to them the efficacy
of a Paraclete - that being the word used.28 Without further following this remarkable
Rabbinic commentation, 29 which stretches back its view of sacrifices to the Paschal
Lamb, and, beyond it, to that offering of Isaac by Abraham which, in the Rabbinic view,
was the substratum of all sacrifices, we turn again to its teaching about the Lamb of the
Daily Sacrifice. Here we have the express statement, that both the school of Shammai and
that of Hillel - the latter more fully - insisted on the symbolic import of this sacrifice in
regard to the forgiveness of sin. 'Kebhasim' (the Hebrew word for 'lambs'), explained the
school of Shammai, 'because, according to Micah vii. 19, they suppress [in the A.V.
'subdue'] our iniquities (the Hebrew word Kabhash meaning he who suppresseth).'30 Still
more strong is the statement of the school of Hillel, to the effect that the sacrificial lambs