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Prophets and Kings
“He was oppressed, and He was afflicted,
Yet He opened not His mouth:
He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter,
And as a sheep before her shearers is dumb,
So He openeth not His mouth.
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“He was taken from prison and from judgment:
And who shall declare His generation?
For He was cut off out of the land of the living:
For the transgression of My people was He stricken.
“And He made His grave with the wicked,
And with the rich in His death;
Because He had done no violence,
Neither was any deceit in His mouth.”
Isaiah 53:1-9
.
Of the suffering Saviour Jehovah Himself declared through
Zechariah, “Awake, O sword, against My Shepherd, and against the
Man that is My Fellow.”
Zechariah 13:7
. As the substitute and surety
for sinful man, Christ was to suffer under divine justice. He was to
understand what justice meant. He was to know what it means for
sinners to stand before God without an intercessor.
Through the psalmist the Redeemer had prophesied of Himself:
“Reproach hath broken My heart;
And I am full of heaviness:
And I looked for some to take pity,
But there was none;
And for comforters,
But I found none.
They gave Me also gall for My meat;
And in My thirst they gave Me vinegar to
drink.”
Psalm 69:20, 21
.