Isaiah 42:1-17 Behold my servant, whom I uphold; my elect, in whom my soul delights; I have put my spirit on him… Nothing could be more clear than this, that in the earlier years of the exile, the servant of Jehovah was Israel as a whole, Israel as a body politic Very soon the prophet has to make a distinction, and to sketch the servant as something less than the actual nation In modern history we have two familiar illustrations of this process of winnowing and idealising a people, in the light of their destiny. In a well-known passage in the "Areopagitica" Milton exclaims: "Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation rousing herself and shaking her invincible locks; methinks I see her as an eagle renewing her mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full midday beam while the whole noise of timorous and flocking birds, with those also that love the twilight, flutter about, amazed at what she means." In this passage the "nation" is no longer what Milton meant by the term in the earlier part of his treatise, where "England" stands simply for the outline of the whole English people; but the "nation" is the true genius of England realised in her enlightened and aspiring sons, and breaking away from the hindering and debasing members of the body politic. Or, recall Mazzini's bitter experience. To no man was his Italy more really one than to this ardent son of hers, who loved every born Italian because he was an Italian, and counted none of the fragments of his unhappy country too petty or too corrupt to be included in the hope of her restoration. To Mazzini's earliest imagination, it was the whole Italian seed who were ready for redemption, and would rise to achieve it at his summons. But when his summons came, how few responded, and after the first struggles how fewer still remained, Mazzini himself has told us with breaking heart. The real Italy was but a handful of born Italians; at times it seemed to shrink to the prophet alone. From such a core the conscience indeed spread again, till the entire people was delivered from tyranny and from schism, and now every peasant and burgher from the Alps to Sicily understands what Italy means, and is proud to be an Italian. But for a time Mazzini and his few comrades stood alone. It is a similar winnowing process through which we see our prophet's thought pass with regard to Israel. Him, too, experience teaches, that "the many are called, but the few chosen." Perhaps the first traces of distinction between the real servant and the whole nation are to be found in the programme of his mission (Isaiah 42:1-7). (Prof. G. A. Smith, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles. |
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