When the eunuch raised the question in regard to the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, "Of whom speaketh the prophet this? of himself? or of some other man?" Philip settled it for him in a few minutes; and for unsophisticated believers it has been settled ever since. But the critics who have discovered that Isaiah did not write the last half of the book which bears his name, and have propounded a new interpretation of much of it, have also, at least some of them, discovered that Philip was mistaken in his interpretation. Professor Smend, of Gottingen, has published a very elaborate work on "The History of the Religion of the Old Testament," in which he gives a totally different answer to the eunuch's question. He is represented in the July Thinker as follows: "Professor Smend agrees with Professor Duhm in supposing that there was some Israelite saint of rare piety and meekness who was misunderstood and martyred, and whose sufferings and death were believed to atone for the sin of his people, of whom no distinct trace can be found in any other part of the Hebrew Scriptures or in Jewish tradition. This unknown martyr was regarded by the equally unknown author of these hymns, and by the not less unknown compiler, usually designated as Deutero-Isaiah, as the spiritual father of men who would establish a new Israel, which would be converted to Jehovah, and would obtain pardon from him on the basis [57] of the atonement provided by the martyr's death. The innocent sufferer would, by his unmerited suffering and death, atone for and restore the sinful people, and so live again in Israel, and thereby carry out Jehovah's purpose for the world. The age which witnessed this unprecedented martyrdom is virtually pronounced undiscoverable by Professor Duhm, although he half hints that it may have lain between the Exile and Maccabean period. Such writers seem to have adopted the rule, anything to get rid of the truth.

[SEBC 57-58]