Yet it pleased the Lord... — The sufferings of the Servant are referred not to chance or fate, or even the wickedness of his persecutors, but to the absolute “good-pleasure” of the Father, manifesting itself in its fullest measure in the hour of apparent failure. (Comp. Psalms 22:15.)
When thou shalt make... — Better, if his soul shall make a trespass offering, he will see his seed; he will prolong his days ... The sacrificial character of the death of the Servant is distinctly defined. It is a “trespass offering” (Leviticus 6:6; Leviticus 6:17; Leviticus 14:12), an expiation for the sins of the people. The words declare that such a sacrifice was the condition of spiritual parentage (Psalms 22:30), of the immortality of influence, of eternal life with God, of accomplishing the work which the Father had given him to do (John 17:4). The “trespass offering” was, it must be remembered, distinct from the “sin offering,” though both belonged to the same sacrificial group (Leviticus 5:15; Leviticus 7:1-7), the distinctive element in the former being that the man who confessed his guilt, voluntary or involuntary, paid his shekels, according to the judgment of the priest, and offered a ram, the blood of which was sprinkled upon the altar. It involved, that is, the idea not of an atonement only, but of a satisfaction, according to the nature of the sin.