Chapter XXV.
A digression concerning the 53d chapter of Isaiah, and the vindication of it from the perverse interpretation of Hugo Grotius.
This chapter is well by some termed “Carnificina Rabbinorum,” — a place of Scripture that sets them on the rack, and makes them turn themselves all ways possible to escape the torture which it puts their unbelieving hearts unto. Not long since a worthy and very learned friend told me, that speaking with Manasseh Ben Israel at Amsterdam, and urging this prophecy unto him, he ingenuously told him, “Profecto locus iste magnum scandalum dedit;” to whom the other replied, “Recte, quia Christus vobis lapis scandali est.” Hulsius, the Hebrew professor at Breda, professes that some Jews told him that their rabbins could easily have extricated themselves from all other places of the prophets, if Isaiah in this place had but held his peace, Huls. Theolog. Judaic. lib. i. part. ii. Dict. Sapp. de Tempor. Messiæ.1 Though I value not their boasting of their extricating themselves from the other prophecies, knowing that they are no less entangled with that of Dan. ix. (of which there is an eminent story in Franzius de Sacrificiis concerning his dispute with a learned Jew on that subject2), yet it appears that by this they are confessedly intricated beyond all hope of evading, until they divest themselves of their cursed hypothesis.
Hence it is that with so much greediness they scraped together all the copies of Abrabanel’s comment on this chapter, so that it was very hard for a Christian a long time to get a sight of it, as Constantine l’Empereur acquaints us in his preface to his refutation of it,3 because they thought themselves in some measure instructed by him to avoid the arguments of the Christians from hence by his application of the whole to Josiah; and I must needs say he hath put as good, yea, a far better colour of probability upon his interpretation than he with whom I have to do hath done on his.
How ungrateful, then, and how unacceptable to all professors of the name of Jesus Christ, must the labours of Grotius needs be, who hath to the utmost of his power reached out his hand to relieve the poor blind creatures from their rack and torture, by applying, though successlessly, this whole prophecy to Jeremiah, casting himself into the same entanglements with them, not yielding them indeed the least relief, is easy to conjecture. And this is not a little aggravated, in that the Socinians, who are no less racked and tortured with this scripture than the Jews, durst never yet attempt to accommodate the things here spoken of to any other, though they have expressed a desire of so doing, and which if they could compass, they would free themselves from the sharpest sword that lies at the throat of their cause, seeing if it is certain that the things here mentioned may be applied to any other, the satisfaction of Christ cannot from them be confirmed. This digression, then, is to cast into the fire that broken crutch which this learned man hath lent unto the Jews and Socinians to lean upon, and keep themselves from sinking under their unbelief.
To discover the rise of that learned man’s opinion, that Jeremiah is intended in this prophecy, the conceits of the Jewish doctors may a little be considered, who are divided amongst themselves.
1. The ancient doctors generally conclude that it is the Messiah who is here intended. “Behold, my servant the Messiah shall prosper,” says the Chaldee paraphrast upon the place. And Constantine l’Empereur tells [us] from R. Simeon, in his book Salkout, that the ancient rabbins, in their ancient book Tanchuma, and higher, were of the same judgment.4 Rabbi Moses Alscheth is urged to the same purpose at large by Hulsius; and in his comment on this place he says expressly, “Ecce doctores nostri laudatæ memoriæ uno ore statuunt, et a majoribus acceperunt, de rege Messia sermonem esse, et doctorum L. M. vestigiis insistemus.” And one passage in him is very admirable, in the same place; saith he, “Dicunt doctores nostri L. M. omnium affiictionum quæ mundum ingressæ sunt, tertia pars Davidi et patriarchis obtigit, tertia altera seculo excisionis, ultima tertia pars regi Messiæ incumbet;” where he urgeth the common consent of their doctors for the sufferings of the Messiah. Of the same mind was R. Solomon, as he is cited by Petrus Galatinus, lib. viii. cap. xiv.; as the same is affirmed by the Misdrach Resh, cap. ii. 14; and in Bereshith Rabba on Gen. xxiv. as is observed by Raymundus Martinus, Pug. Fidei 3, p. dist. 1, cap. x. So that before these men grew impudent and crafty in corrupting and perverting the testimonies of the Old Testament concerning the Messiah, they generally granted him and only him to be here intended. It was not for want of company, then, that Grotius took in with the modern rabbins, who, being mad with envy and malice, care not what they say, so they may oppose Jesus Christ.