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We now come to a very important passage generally , quoted b y writers in defence of the deity of Christ , and upon which the advocates of Unitarianism have also frequently expressed their views , so that we may confine ourselves to a few remarks on our author ' s mode of treating it . Section xxi . Isa . ix . 5 . 6 :
" For a child is born to us : A son is given to us : And the sovereignty is upon his shoulder ; And his name is called Wonderful , Counsellor , God the mighty , Everlasting , Prince of peace : To the extent of [ his ] sovereignty and to [ his ] peace [ shall be ] no end , Upon the throne of David and upon his kingdom , To fix it and to establish it , in judgment and in righteousness From henceforth and for ever . "
The important points are the epithets " God the mighty" and * Everlasting / ' Now we observe , that though Rosenmiiller interprets the word as meaning God , he gives , even in his second edition , fortis as the proper sense of ^> N , ( which seems to have been the way it was understood by Aquila , Symmachus , and Theodotion , ) noting also that the teFm is applied to
Nebuchadnezzar ( Ezek . xxxi . 11 ) ; and Gesenius , as well as Bauer , translates * 1 O 3- ^ K " strong hero , " for which Dr . S . acknowledges that he has given a weighty reason , though he thinks it is outweighed by another consideration . But even not to press the argument from the use of the very same words in the plural CID ^ IM >^ N for mighty heroes ( Ezek . xxxii . 21 ) , and admitting that the form bx , when not used collectively , was appropriated to express deity , yet as its primitive meaning is the mighty one or the ruler ^
and it is not a peculiar name of the true and only God , there would be nothing at all surprising in its being used in poetry as an epithet of a mighty prince , whose power and greatness the writer was prophetically celebrating . Rosenmuller gives the following extract from the letter of a Persian king of a later age : ' * Chosroes , king of kings , sovereign of potentates , lord of the nations , prince of peace , saviour of men * in the estimation of gods a man , good , eternal ; in the estimation of men a god , most illustrious , most
glorious ; conqueror rising with the sun , and lending his eyes to the night . " We may here make allowance , in the spirit of Rosenmuller ' s caution , for some progress of the fashion of employing such appellations , and yet find enough to justify our interpreting all the titles in the text under consideration as fit to be applied to a royal and distinguished personage , without any reference to a nature different from that of other men , and this without altering the present Hebrew text or the generally-received construction of the words . Where Dr . S . has the epithet " Everlasting , " there are in the Hebrew two words which may be literally rendered * ' father of the age to come / ' as they are by the LXX . He maintains , indeed , that Tj / signifies " eternity ;" but this he cannot establish by any good evidence . ¦
** Enjedin , " says our author , speaking of the manner in which different interpreters have treated this text , " observes deep silence on this whole passage , " Truly he does so : to him Dr . S . might without any want of candour have attributed in this instance " the silence of death , " ( Scrip . Test , p . 185 , second edit , and our remarks on that place , ) as it is well known that his work ( which is posthumous ) only wanted for its completion notes on the Prophets , when death interrupted his labours . Dr . S . might have perceived that not this text in particular , but all the prophetic books are passed by in
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242 Dr . J . P . Smiths 'Scripture Testimony to the Messiah .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1831, page 242, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2596/page/26/
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