As presented to us in Isaiah 52:13-53:12.

These fifteen verses form a little pentateuch of three verses each:the Pentateuch of Moses being the basis of divisions of all Scripture. The 27 books of the New Testament itself fall into five divisions, which correspond not only in number with the five books of Moses, but in a more noteworthy manner correspond in lines of thought.

For example, if Genesis gives the origin and beginning of creation in its present state, the Gospels give us that which the apostle John recalls us to as another "beginning"-a brighter and better one, a new creation, in Him who is second Man and last Adam.

If Exodus tells the story of redemption from Egyptian bondage, the book of Acts shows us the Church brought out from Jewish "bondage, under the elements of the world."

If Leviticus unfolds to priests in the sanctuary the power and value of the various sacrifices with which they drew near to God, the epistles of Paul establish us before God in all the value of that one Sacrifice which, taking the place of all of these, brings us, as they could not, really to Him.

If Numbers gives us the order and provision for the camp in the wilderness, and how God brings through, to the glory of His name, a people continually failing under every testing, the other epistles furnish us for that path through the wilderness of this world, of which Israel's journey is but the-figure.

And, lastly, if Deuteronomy presents those governmental ways of God, according to which a blessing or a curse follows the way which leads to either, the book of Revelation, as a perfect Deuteronomy, traces those ways by which the Church or the world reaches the final consummation-the end nowhere else in Scripture so fully detailed.

This by the way; I do not dwell upon it now:though I may say that the whole canon of Scripture is, as I believe, a Pentateuch of Pentateuchs, four of which belong to the Old Testament:-the first consisting of the books of Moses; the second, of the rest of the historical books; the third, of the five psalm-like books, the utterances, under divine inspiration, of the human heart in its exercises, its sorrows, and its joys; the fourth, of the prophetic books, in which God's voice as it were answers man's voice.

The passage begins with the 13th verse of the 52nd chapter, and goes down to the end of the 53rd chapter, embracing fifteen verses, and these divide into five sections of three verses each, stamping the whole of it thus with the significant numbers 3 and 5. Our readers are probably aware that Scripture numbers have significance- that a uniform significance prevails throughout it. Three is the divine number, the number of the divine fulness- of the Trinity. It is the number which speaks of divine manifestation also; for only as Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Ghost) is God fully manifest. Five, on the other hand, is the number significant of weakness, and on that very account the human number-taken it may be from the number of those senses by which man is in constant relation with the scene in which he is placed. These two numbers then characterize this prophecy as the story of Him in whom, bodily, all the fulness of the Godhead dwelt, and who in this way was fitted to be what he alone was -"God manifest in the flesh."

Again, it is not merely because of its five divisions that I call this a Pentateuch, but because each of these divisions takes up in some way the theme of one of the books of Moses, and in the same order. The full proof of this we shall have as we take them up in detail; though it may be glanced at here, since this is no mere curious resemblance, but one which gives us the main features of the picture before us; and this is the use of all such matters-to be helps to the spiritual apprehension of what might otherwise escape us. I trust we shall find this true in a very marked way here.

Take the first three verses, and you will easily discern the voice of One who, as in creation at first, is the Molder and Fashioner of all things, who can thus speak confidently from the beginning of what the end shall be. It is God who speaks here of His Servant; He decrees the exaltation of the One who humbled Himself to that unequaled suffering by which "His face is so marred more than any man's, and His form more than the sons of men." It is God who presides, as we may say, at the blessed work of redemption as at that of creation; though the actual Redeemer, as the actual Creator, is the Word now made flesh.

In the second section (53:1-3) the speaker changes. It is now the testimony to Him who is the "power" or "arm of Jehovah," and notice that as "the Almighty" is the characteristic Divine title in Genesis, so it is Jehovah in Exodus, when God takes up and redeems His people according to the significance of that name. "Jehovah's arm" is thus the power of God in redemption, and this is the prophet's special testimony, rejected by besotted man. In the third section (vers. 4-6) we come, as in the opening of Leviticus, to the sacrificial character of those sufferings so misreckoned by unbelief. It scarcely needs to insist on the correspondence here.

The fourth section (vers. 7-9) exhibits Him under the pressure of evil, tested by all He passed through as none other ever was:the world to Him a. wilderness beyond that of which the book of Numbers gives us the history. Israel's testing brought out their innate evil; with Him it brought out nought but His own perfection.

Finally, the last verses (10-12) give us in perfect Deuteronomic sequence, the way and the end:the end as blessed as the way was full of unexampled sorrow:"When Thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin.. .the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand:He shall see of the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied." Let us now look at these sections more in detail.

"Behold, my servant shall act wisely:He is exalted, and raised up, and become very high" (Isa. 52:13).

The word "servant" is a very characteristic word in this latter part of Isaiah. First it is Israel that is God's servant (chap. 41:8) :"But thou, Israel, art my servant .. .whom I have taken from the ends of the earth, and called thee from the chief men thereof, and said unto thee, Thou art my servant; I have chosen thee, and not cast thee away." But while in God's purpose and grace this thought still abides, it is one which Israel as a nation has not yet fulfilled; and in chapter 40 we find another in this place-called even by the name of Israel:One who does not fail, and whose work is owned of God. His work too is there defined:"It is a light thing that Thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel:I will also give Thee for a light to the Gentiles, that Thou mayest be my salvation unto the ends of the earth."
Thus the Person before us in this 52nd chapter is not introduced here abruptly for the first time. He is the Servant-Saviour, the Servant whose work is salvation, but who in it is above all else Jehovah's Servant-the only one among men who filled perfectly that blessed place. And with this was connected the wisdom He displayed. His was the perfectly clear eye, undimmed by any veil of self-interest-the single eye which made the whole body full of light. Wisdom is not an attribute of mere intellect. The eyes are in the heart, as Eph. 1:18 really says.

This characterizes His path then:it is the path of true service-thus of clear-sighted wisdom; a path which ends in exaltation, for "he that humbleth himself shall be exalted." He then "is exalted and raised up, and become very high." It is what Phil., chap. 2, speaks of, admonishing us to have "the mind that was in Christ Jesus." What an effectual rebuke to pride and self-seeking this exaltation of the lowliest! And what an incentive for us to the path of obedience which we had forsaken is this free choice of it by Him who owed none! And what a place of glory it is that awaits us, where the highest are they who realize best the blessedness of service, and highest of all is He who came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many!

"As many were astonished at Thee; his visage was so marred more than any man's, and his form more than the sons of men" (ver. 13).

The unequaled sorrow is revealed here in its effects, in the outward signs which were before the eyes of beholders. Its depths were known to God alone, indicated to faith indeed in one pregnant word, which unbelief would misconstrue. Even in the Gospels, which give us the history of those sufferings, the veil of reserve is maintained; and that cry', "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" is recorded without comment. Faith, taking this up reverently, is led further by this cry in the opening of the 22nd psalm, and finds there a prophecy of the Spirit of God in which all that may be told is told:while unbelief finds David only, or a rhapsody. But it is the Christ (dumb before His enemies) revealing Himself in the circle of His friends. We acquiesce fully in this reserve, which nevertheless invites to intimacy those who desire intimacy. In this same way is (more or less) all Scripture written, not for formalists to make out a creed, but "that the man of Gad may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works."

But what sorrow is this that could thus mar the human form of the Man of Sorrows! As He speaks of the astonishment of the beholders, the divine Speaker's heart turns towards Him in this place of humiliation, and breaks the sentence with an abrupt address to Him-"As many were astonished at Thee;" then He returns to announce to men the result of this unparalleled suffering:-

"So shall He sprinkle many nations; kings shall shut their mouths at Him:for that which had not been told them they shall see; and that which they had not heard, shall they consider" (ver. 14).

Strange news, these gospel-news! and with strange power! What all the tomes of philosophers have never done has been accomplished for low and high, for Greek and Barbarian, by the power of the Cross alone:the heart is sprinkled from an evil conscience, the body washed with pure water. That which was lacking in all human wisdom, in Christ, God's wisdom, is found "righteousness and sanctification and redemption." Man's need is met, his soul satisfied-and satisfied with God, in unspeakable love and grace revealed to him in Christ; his heart is cleansed and his life changed. All other greatness bows its head in presence of the Cross, and every tongue shall yet confess that the Crucified, Jesus Christ, is LORD, to the glory of God the Father.
Thus, in this introductory section, God as sovereign in counsel declares His purpose concerning His elect, that Jehovah's "good pleasure" was to prosper in the hands to which He could commit it absolutely, assured of the result. "I have laid help upon One that is mighty," He says-I know Him; I can answer for Him. Just so, in the presence of the multitudes at John's baptism, in which He had just pledged Himself to this very work, heaven is opened, and the Father's voice proclaims His Son the object of His good pleasure; and the descending Spirit hastens to give Him up, after forty days of fasting in a wilderness, to let the devil sift Him as he may. Yes, God can rest all, whether for man's salvation or His own glory, with perfect satisfaction and delight upon Him.

But where is this mighty One? And how is this might displayed? John looked in heaven for the "Lion of the tribe of Judah," but with wonder saw a "Lamb as it had been slain." In the conflict of good with evil, not force avails, but good; and the Cross was such a battle-ground, when He, "crucified through weakness," becomes the power of God. At the cross power was upon the side of evil:it was as the Lord told the Jews "their hour and the power of darkness." On His part there was none:he who used the sword was only rebuked for it; of the legions of angels He might have had, none stirred on His behalf. The forces of evil were loosed:He is bound, and unresisting. Then as He hangs on the accursed tree, the night which falls over all proclaims that God has withdrawn. He, is left alone, unsuccoured, in the awful distress of that abandonment, to meet the full flood of evil at its height!

And if the darkness passed, and He were heard "from the horns of the unicorns," crying "with strong crying and tears unto Him that was able to save Him out of death," it was, as the apostle says, " or his piety." He was heard, winning back life and light-eternal blessedness-out of the jaws of death and hades. It was the victory of goodness, greater immeasurably than all power arrayed against it.

This, then, is the divine plan, the counsel of God, which the following sections open out in detail. In the next the speaker changes; and henceforth it is the prophet that speaks, connecting himself with the "election of grace" in Israel, the believing remnant of a future day. F. W. G.

(To be continued.)