Israels.

Israel looked at in his actual faultiness was one entity, while Israel as the embodiment of Yahaweh's promise was a different entity.

This is nowhere more marked than in the passages that use personal terms concerning future manifestations of the promise. Some of these passages we shall, later, consider more in detail. For the present we only note that while they sometimes speak of the Coming one as the chief product of Yahaweh's dealings with Israel, they quite as often make him to be Israel himself. Oftenest they use language which explicitly designates Israel as a race or people or nation. But in such utterances they always refer to Israel in his especial character of the nation of the promise. Israel, when thought of as representing Yahaweh's promise, is always glorious, no matter how inglorious he may be in himself.

It is not only true that the prophets have this conception of the promise-Israel, but that in virtue of this conception they make the existing Israel a witness against himself, and a teacher to himself. As we have seen, the great bulk of messianic prophecy is not the mere foretelling of facts, but the preaching of religious doctrine for the securing of public and private conversion and growth in grace. The prophets regard the promise as made for the sake of the nations, and Israel as God's peculiar people for the manifestation of the divine lovingkindness to the world. Because Israel is thus the divinely appointed hope of mankind; because Israel's monarch is Yahaweh's anointed Servant, in a kingdom that is to be universal and eternal; because this, while already true, is to become more grandly true in the future; Israel is exhorted to turn from idols, to purify himself, to repent, to take comfort in the midst of affliction; in short, to act as becomes the people whom

God has made the channel of his grace. In other words, the existing Israel is exhorted to conform himself to the ideal Israel as defined by the conditions of the promise.

5. It could not escape the notice of the prophets that the various calamities which befell Israel had their connection with his mission as the people of the Mediatorial promise. Though he is for a blessing to the suffering nations, the nations bring suffering upon him. He cannot escape by becoming annihilated, for his mission is eternal. He must be preserved in existence and made to suffer, that the nations may be benefited. In some of the prophetic writings this idea of suffering for the benefit of others becomes very prominent (e.g. Pss. xxii, xl; Isa. liii). This point needs to be mentioned here; it will be more fully discussed in our study concerning the Servant, in the next chapter.

This chapter has been prepared from the critical point of view which assumes that the several Old Testament books were written at the dates Critical assigned to them in the Old Testament itself. questions From this point of view the doctrine taught by the prophets presents an orderly unfolding and progress. from David to Malachi, though the main points in it are the same throughout. From a different point of view, the unfolding and the progress would look differently, and there would be modifications in many of the details. In particular, the criticism that puts over more and more of the writings into the postexilian times would transfer a large part of the messianic utterances to those times; and that would change their setting, and to some extent their meaning. But I think that the results would not be greatly changed so far as the main points are concerned, provided we allow the

utterances of the biblical writers to mean what by their words they naturally mean. A vast number of questions have arisen as to the date and the authorship of these writings; but whatever their date or origin, they certainly contain these strains of thought concerning the promise and the mission of Israel.

CHAPTER XII

MESSIANIC TERMS. THE SERVANT

As we have seen, the prophetic literature says that the calling of Abraham from Ur of the Chaldees was the beginning of Israelitish history. At that time, these writings say, Yahaweh made a promise to Abraham, the benefits of which extend to all mankind. This promise was the heart of the creed of what the prophets regard as the true religion of Yahaweh in Abraham's time. This literature further affirms that the promise was renewed to Israel when Israel became a nation, still with the necessary implication that it constituted the heart of the creed of those who most truly worshipped Israel's God. There was another distinguished renewal of it, these writings say, to David the king, making his line central in Israel in the fulfilment of the promise. In David's time and the centuries that followed, they say, there arose in Israel a large number of singers and other prophets, and these generally made this promise, already well known, the basis of their religious and political teachings; and in doing this they unfolded and illuminated the promise itself.

Now if this is true, we should expect to find in the writings of these singers and other prophets a considerable number of technical terms, set apart to Rise of techthe uses of this teaching. The evolution of nical terms such terms would in the circumstances be inevitable, under the known laws of human speech. Similar phe

nomena mark our own habits of thinking and utterance. A dictionary which should include all our technical religious terms and phrases, with an exhaustive classification of the uses of each term, would be a large volume. It is incredible that the teaching of the prophets concerning the promise should have been maintained generation after generation without giving rise to such terms. As a matter of fact, the literature is marked by them. In the course of time certain words came to have a partly technical sense when used in the treatments of the promise-doctrine. Especially do we find personal terms denoting the "seed" through whom the promise and its benefits are transmitted, for example, Servant, Son, Chosen one, Branch, Holy one, Messiah; and other terms denoting his relations to human history, - for example, the kingdom, the last days, the day of Yahaweh. In most instances the roots of this use are preDavidic. There is a strong development of it in the Psalms that are assigned to the times of David. use remains to the close of the Old Testament.

spicuous

term

The

Taking up these terms in the order of their conspicuousness, we should perhaps expect that "Messiah" "Servant" is would come first; but that is not the case. the most con- On the whole, the term "Servant" is the most prominent and is the best fitted to stand as a representative of the rest in any brief statement of the In the King James version this term is occult in the New Testament, but it appears in the revised version.1 Aside from its use elsewhere in the Old Testament, it

matter.

1 For example, Peter says: "Ye are the sons of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with your fathers, saying unto Abraham, And in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. Unto you first God, having raised up his Servant, sent him to bless you" (Acts iii. 25-26. See also iii. 13, iv. 27, 30, etc.).