lem, how it could be reconciled with, "They look upon me, the same whom they have pierced." In this endeavour they took different and equally unsuccessful ways. a. They changed without hesitation the unpleasant into. And thus is the text without farther remark cited in the Talmud, and in En Israel, p. 117. Thus, according to a remarkable passage of Rabanus Maurus contra Judæos, n. 12, (in Wagenseil, Sota, p. 68,) it was found even in hist time (IX.) in the margin of many manuscripts: "Ubi nos juxta fidem scripturæ sanctæ in persona dei legimus: Et adspicient ad me quem confixerunt: illi, quamvis in ipso textu libri, divino nutu terrente, non fuerint ausi mutare, tamen extrinsecus e latere annotatum habent: Adspicient ad eum, quem confixerunt. Et sic tradunt suis discipulis, ut, sicut in textu continetur, transscribant, et, sicut foris annotatum est, legant, ut teneant videlicet, quod juxta eorum dementiam Judai aspiciant ad eum, quem confixerunt Gog et Magog." In the thirteenth century this reading had forced its way into the text of many manuscripts. Comp. Raim. Martini, p. 411. Lips.: “Nota, quod aliqui Judæi, hujusmodi tam evidens sacræ scripturæ testimonium sufferre non valentes, literam in hoc loco falsificant, et dicunt r, ut sic non de deo, sed de alio possit intelligi; " comp. the same, p. 855, where he appeals, in reply, to the ancient manuscripts, the whole body of which have. The reading also actually occurs in 49 Codd. Kennic., and in 13 De Rossi, besides in the original text of several Rabbinical writings, while in their editions it is in part expunged; comp. De Rossi, I. c. That the reading is correct, surely needs no extensive proof. It is grammatically the more difficult; it is opposed to the favorite opinions of the Jews; it is found in all the translations, whose testimony is here the more complete, since even those of Aq., Symm., Theod. are preserved in a Scholion of the Cod. Barber.; it is found in by far the most numerous and best manuscripts. - More difficult is the question, whether the reading originated from doctrinal interest, and affords an example of a corruption of the text, attempted by the Jews, as Wagenseil especially, 1. c., has endeavoured to show, while Hackspan (De Usu Librr. Rabbinic. p. 295), and De Rossi, assert the contrary. We must decide in favor of the former. It is true, indeed, that examples are not wanting, in which the Keri, in passages where the construction is suddenly changed from the first person to the third, endeavours to restore grammatical correctness; but, as yet, they did not venture to receive these proposed emendations into the - first meets us in the Talmud, its Jews is too obvious; in like order to be able to refer the is read, to him whom they 66 text; here where the reading connexion with the interest of the manner, as in the Jalkut, where, in passage to the Messiah Ben Joseph, have pierced," which deviation from the Talmud clearly shows how little they were induced by external reasons to depart from the received interpretation. Had the emendation been occasioned here by the grammatical anomaly, why did it occur to no one instead of hy to ready? When De Rossi urges, against the supposition of an intended corruption, that no Jewish polemic refutes the Christian interpretation by appealing to the reading ", this fact might easily be turned against him. It furnishes a clear testimony to their evil conscience; had they attained to the reading rs in a lawful manner, they would not have failed to appeal to it. They use it, however, cautiously, more for their own quiet than for controversy against their enemies; and, as they saw that the object could not be accomplished, that the corruption could not possibly be introduced into all manuscripts, and that attention was awakened to the subject, they entirely relinquished this reading and resorted to less doubtful methods. b. They gave to n another meaning: "They look with weeping to me, because they, the heathen, had pierced him, the son of Joseph." This understanding of requires a clos er examination, because it is repeated by recent interpreters. That cannot mean precisely because needs no proof. Still the assumed sense might in two respects be defended with some plausibility. First by the assumption of an accus. absol.: They look to me, in reference to him whom they have pierced." But the alleged ac. abs. is in Hebrew a pure invention of the empirical grammarians, as any one may easily convince himself by a view of the examples cited in its favor by Gesenius, Lehrg. p. 725, and Comm. zu Jes. 53: 8. Does not the acc. of the noun in such passages as Is. 8:13; "The Lord of Hosts, him shall ye sanctify," depend on the same transitive verb as the pronoun ? Among the cited passages, however, with the exception of Is. 53: 8, the interpretation of which is plainly erroneous, there is not one, where such a dependence cannot be shown, unlike the passage before us, or where the apparent accus. absol. is not one altogether usual, and explained from a confounding of two constructions as Zech. 8: 17: ban, a combination of, "all this I hate," and "all this is that which I hate.” Another way of understanding it is, "And they look to him, that they have pierced." It is true, that sometimes thus occurs e. g. Ezek. 36 : 27 : "I will make, p, that ye walk in my laws." But in this case, as also in all the passages where this construction occurs, (comp. 1 Sam. 2: 22-24, 11: 19, Esth. 5: 11,) a transitive verb must precede. is here, as always, a sign of the accus., and the accus. is governed by the transitive verb; the whole proposition following ♫ is treated as a noun in the accus., see e. g. the cited passage of Ezekiel, i. q., "I will make your walking in my laws," comp. Ewald, p. 648. Accordingly, therefore, that is never the signification, but only in certain cases, with which the passage before us has nothing in common, the sense of x ♫§. It is scarcely worth the trouble to remark, against the already obsolete explanation of the Messiah Ben Joseph in general, that it is a mere invention of the later Jews, which is shown, even by the remark of Kimchi against the reference of this passage to him, "Sed hoc interpretamentum miror cur ita occultarint, neque ejus generaliter meminerint," never to have obtained general approbation, and which the more intelligent, either like Maimonides by their silence, or like Manasseh Ben Israel expressly, reject. It is of more importance to give prominence to a remark, which concerns not this interpretation alone, but the whole of the kind to which it belongs. The looking upon him who was pierced, the loud lamentation over his death, is here represented, as a consequence of the spirit of grace poured out upon Israel, as a sign of his genuine conversion, the fruits of which are described in chap. 13: 1-6. But how can the lamentation over a leader, slain by enemies, be represented as a consequence of conversion? 3. Still wider do those err, who, as Kimchi, Jarchi, and Manasseh Ben Israel, (in Hulsius, Theol. Jud. p. 513), by him who was pierced, understand every Israelite, who fell in the war against Gog and Magog: " Omnes lamentabuntur ob unius interitum, ac si integer exercitus cæsus esset." These also follow, partly the false reading, and partly give to the untenable meaning because, as Kimchi explains it by way. They are also liable to the last objection urged against the foregoing explanation. Nor can they justify the unnatural supposition of a change of the subject in 17, and the omission of the suff. This unfortunate explanation has been occasioned especially by the fear of yielding too much to the Christians, by interpreting the passage of the Messiah Ben Joseph. There was the more reason for this fear, since they felt how danger29 VOL. II. ous it must be to attempt to prove the existence of the fictitious Messiah Ben Joseph, since, if they failed, the reference of the passage to Messiah Ben David, could not be avoided, so long as the Messianic interpretation in general prevailed. How strong this fear was, appears from the circumstance, that, in a Polish edition of Jarchi, the passage where he designates the explanation of the Messiah Ben Joseph, as ancient and confirmed in the Talmud, is omitted; comp. Steph. le Moyne ad Jerem. 23: 6, p. 134. 2. By the Christians. In the Christian church, as could not but be expected, the reference to Christ has always prevailed. It is therefore superfluous to cite the numerous names of its defenders, among whom even J. D. Michaelis on the passage belongs, although he ungrammatically explains: "They will look upon me, and upon him, whom they have pierced." We shall occupy ourselves only with the exceptions from the rule, those who give up the Messianic interpretation; and we can here be brief, since the refutation is already contained in what precedes. 1. In the footsteps of the Seventy, and the Chaldee, though independent of them, follows in a measure Calvin on the passage, and on John 19:37: "Metaphorice hic accipitur confixio pro continua irritatione, ac si diceret: Judæos sua pervicacia fuisse quasi accinctos ad bellum, ut deum pungerent ac configerent sua malitia, vel telis rebellionis suæ. Sensus - hic est: Quum Judæi secure multis modis provocassent deum, aliquando pœnitentiam acturos, quia scil. incipient terreri dei judicio, quum prius nemo eorum cogitaret de reddenda vitæ ratione." Still the essential difference between Calvin and the Jewish and Rationalist interpreters, who advance this explanation, is not to be overlooked. According to him, the prophecy is indeed in the first instance to be understood figuratively, and referred to God; it happened however by a special divine guidance, that it was also literally fulfilled in Christ, united with God by unity of being, that his history constituted a visible symbol of its contents. That he here had in view a much closer relation of the prophecy to the fulfilment in Christ, than the so-called mystical sense of Grotius, which properly, as Reuss, Opusce. I. p. 74 ff., has already shown, was a mere shadow without the substance, appears from the whole of the following explanation, in which his figurative understanding of the passage seems entirely to disappear. The explanation of Calvin in former times met with general contradiction; Lampe bitterly complains, that the private view of Calvin was attributed to the reformed church, with a view to cast reproach upon it. Besides an anonymous writer in Martini, De Tribus Elohim, c. 112, and the Socinian Smalcius, it found a defender only in Grotius. From him it has been eagerly borrowed by recent interpreters, as Rosenmüller, Eichhorn, Theiner. 2. The interpretation of the Messiah Ben Joseph has been of late so far defended, as that several refer the prophecy to the death of a distinguished Jewish commander. Jahn, Einl. II. 2, p. 671, hit upon Judas Maccabeus and translates: They will look on Jehovah on account of him, whom they have pierced," and thus bears testimony himself against his interpretation. A commander of the Jews, who lost his life in that war (who he was, is uncertain,) is conjectured by Bauer, Schol. ad h. l. He translates, following the interpretation of n as acc. absol., which has already been shown to be inadmissible: "Respicient ad me, deum, opis imploranda causa, quod attinet ad eum, quem transfixerunt." In favor of the same view Bertholdt also seems to decide, Einl. IV. p. 1716. 3. The merit of finding out a new interpretation belongs, among the non-Jewish, and at the same time non-Messianic interpreters, only to Vogel. He asserts on Cappelli Crit. Sacr. I. p. 140, that the prophet speaks not of the Messiah, but of himself! V. 11. "At that time there shall be a great lamentation in Jerusalem, like the lamentation of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddo." The prophet here exerts himself to the utmost in order to make the lamentation appear as great, and as general, as possible, and therefore to refute every reference of his prophecy to any event, which was only a prelude of its proper object. The lamentation of Hadadrimmon was here not a lamentation, which happened at Hadadrimmon, but which belonged to that place, so far as there was the object of it, as there the pious King Josiah was slain. That the lamentation over him, who was pierced, is compared particularly |