Genesis 3:15
15. thy seed—not only evil spirits, but wicked men.
seed of the woman—the Messiah, or His Church [CALVIN, HENGSTENBERG]. I will put enmity between thee and the woman—God can only be said to do so by leaving "the serpent and his seed to the influence of their own corruption; and by those measures which, pursued for the salvation of men, fill Satan and his angels with envy and rage." thou shalt bruise his heel—The serpent wounds the heel that crushes him; and so Satan would be permitted to afflict the humanity of Christ and bring suffering and persecution on His people. it shall bruise thy head—The serpent's poison is lodged in its head; and a bruise on that part is fatal. Thus, fatal shall be the stroke which Satan shall receive from Christ, though it is probable he did not at first understand the nature and extent of his doom.Isaiah 53:10-11
10. Transition from His humiliation to His exaltation.
pleased the Lord—the secret of His sufferings. They were voluntarily borne by Messiah, in order that thereby He might "do Jehovah's will" (Joh 6:38; Heb 10:7, 9), as to man's redemption; so at the end of the verse, "the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in His hand." bruise—(see Isa 53:5); Ge 3:15, was hereby fulfilled, though the Hebrew word for "bruise," there, is not the one used here. The word "Himself," in Matthew, implies a personal bearing on Himself of our maladies, spiritual and physical, which included as a consequence His ministration to our bodily ailments: these latter are the reverse side of sin; His bearing on Him our spiritual malady involved with it His bearing sympathetically, and healing, the outward: which is its fruits and its type. HENGSTENBERG rightly objects to MAGEE'S translation, "taken away," instead of "borne," that the parallelism to "carried" would be destroyed. Besides, the Hebrew word elsewhere, when connected with sin, means to bear it and its punishment (Eze 18:20). Matthew, elsewhere, also sets forth His vicarious atonement (Mt 20:28). when thou, &c.—rather, as Margin, "when His soul (that is, He) shall have made an offering," &c. In the English Version the change of person is harsh: from Jehovah, addressed in the second person (Isa 53:10), to Jehovah speaking in the first person in Isa 53:11. The Margin rightly makes the prophet in the name of Jehovah Himself to speak in this verse. offering for sin— (Ro 3:25; 1Jo 2:2; 4:10). his seed—His spiritual posterity shall be numerous (Ps 22:30); nay, more, though He must die, He shall see them. A numerous posterity was accounted a high blessing among the Hebrews; still more so, for one to live to see them (Ge 48:11; Ps 128:6). prolong . . . days—also esteemed a special blessing among the Jews (Ps 91:16). Messiah shall, after death, rise again to an endless life (Ho 6:2; Ro 6:9). prosper— (Isa 52:13, Margin).11. Jehovah is still speaking.
see of the travail—He shall see such blessed fruits resulting from His sufferings as amply to repay Him for them (Isa 49:4, 5; 50:5, 9). The "satisfaction," in seeing the full fruit of His travail of soul in the conversion of Israel and the world, is to be realized in the last days (Isa 2:2-4). his knowledge—rather, the knowledge (experimentally) of Him (Joh 17:3; Php 3:10). my . . . servant—Messiah (Isa 42:1; 52:13). righteous—the ground on which He justifies others, His own righteousness (1Jo 2:1). justify—treat as if righteous; forensically; on the ground of His meritorious suffering, not their righteousness. bear . . . iniquities— (Isa 53:4, 5), as the sinner's substitute.John 12:24
24. Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit—The necessity of His death is here brightly expressed, and its proper operation and fruit—life springing forth out of death—imaged forth by a beautiful and deeply significant law of the vegetable kingdom. For a double reason, no doubt, this was uttered—to explain what he had said of His death, as the hour of His own glorification, and to sustain His own Spirit under the agitation which was mysteriously coming over it in the view of that death.
Copyright information for
JFB