Isaiah 50 KJV
Israel's Sin and the Servant's Obedience
Isaiah Chapter 50: Israel's Sin and the Servant's Obedience
The bill of divorcement motif in verse 1 deliberately echoes Deuteronomy 24 yet inverts it: God rhetorically asks for the document that would prove He has cast Israel off, thereby underscoring that no legal rupture has occurred and the covenant remains intact despite exile.
1hus saith the LORD, Where is the bill of your motherโs divorcement, whom I have put away? or which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you? Behold, for your iniquities have ye sold yourselves, and for your transgressions is your mother put away.
2 Wherefore, when I came, was there no man? when I called, was there none to answer? Is my hand shortened at all, that it cannot redeem? or have I no power to deliver? behold, at my rebuke I dry up the sea, I make the rivers a wilderness: their fish stinketh, because there is no water, and dieth for thirst.
3 I clothe the heavens with blackness, and I make sackcloth their covering.
4 The Lord GOD hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary: he wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned.
5 The Lord GOD hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back.
6 I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting.
7 For the Lord GOD will help me; therefore shall I not be confounded: therefore have I set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed.
8 He is near that justifieth me; who will contend with me? let us stand together: who is mine adversary? let him come near to me.
9 Behold, the Lord GOD will help me; who is he that shall condemn me? lo, they all shall wax old as a garment; the moth shall eat them up.
10 Who is among you that feareth the LORD, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness, and hath no light? let him trust in the name of the LORD, and stay upon his God.
11 Behold, all ye that kindle a fire, that compass yourselves about with sparks: walk in the light of your fire, and in the sparks that ye have kindled. This shall ye have of mine hand; ye shall lie down in sorrow.
โ โ arrow keys to navigate chapters ยท spacebar to play/pause audio
Did You Know?
The bill of divorcement motif in verse 1 deliberately echoes Deuteronomy 24 yet inverts it: God rhetorically asks for the document that would prove He has cast Israel off, thereby underscoring that no legal rupture has occurred and the covenant remains intact despite exile.
The Servantโs claim that the Lord โhath opened mine earโ (v. 4) alludes to the ear-piercing ritual of Exodus 21:6, transforming the mark of perpetual voluntary servitude into an image of daily prophetic attentiveness rather than physical bondage.
Verse 6โs reference to offering the cheeks to those who pluck off the beard invokes a specific ancient Near Eastern gesture of extreme public degradation; the Servantโs willing submission therefore functions as a reversal of honor-shame codes rather than mere passive endurance.
The abrupt shift from divine speech (vv. 1โ3) to first-person Servant testimony (vv. 4โ9) enacts the theological move from corporate Israel to an individual righteous remnant, prefiguring later Jewish and Christian readings that distinguish the nation from its ideal representative.
The closing fire imagery (v. 11) draws on both the โsmoking firebrandsโ of Isaiah 7:4 and the self-kindled flames of pagan divination, creating a deliberate contrast between trust in the Servantโs voice and autonomous attempts to manufacture oneโs own light in darkness.
Commentary & Study Notes Jamieson-Fausset-Brown (1871) ยท Public Domain Where... mothers divorcement โ Zion is "the mother"; the Jews are the children; and God the Husband and Father (Isa 54:5; 62:5; Jer 3:14). GESENIUS thinks that God means by the queโฆ
Classic verse-by-verse commentary on Isaiah 50 from Jamieson, Fausset & Brown (1871). Covers: The judgments on Israel were provoked by their crimes, yet they are not finally cast off by God.
- 1
- Where... mothers divorcement โ Zion is "the mother"; the Jews are the children; and God the Husband and Father (Isa 54:5; 62:5; Jer 3:14). GESENIUS thinks that God means by the question to deny that He had given "a bill of divorcement" to her, as was often done on slight pretexts by a husband (De 24:1), or that He had "sold" His and her "children," as a poor parent sometimes did (Ex 21:7; 2Ki 4:1; Ne 5:5) under pressure of his "creditors"; that it was they who sold themselves through their own sins. MAURER explains, "Show the bill of your mother's divorcement, whom...; produce the creditors to whom ye have been sold; so it will be seen that it was not from any caprice of Mine, but through your own fault, your mother has been put away, and you sold" (Isa 52:3). HORSLEY best explains (as the antithesis between "I" and "yourselves" shows, though LOWTH translates, "Ye are sold") I have never given your mother a regular bill of divorcement; I have merely "put her away" for a time, and can, therefore, by right as her husband still take her back on her submission; I have not made you, the children, over to any "creditor" to satisfy a debt; I therefore still have the right of a father over you, and can take you back on repentance, though as rebellious children you have sold yourselves to sin and its penalty (1Ki 21:25). bill... whom โ rather, "the bill with which I have put her away" [MAURER].
- 2
- I โ Messiah. no man โ willing to believe in and obey Me (Isa 52:1, 3). The same Divine Person had "come" by His prophets in the Old Testament (appealing to them, but in vain, Jer 7:25, 26), who was about to come under the New Testament. hand shortened โ the Oriental emblem of weakness, as the long stretched-out hand is of power (Isa 59:1). Notwithstanding your sins, I can still "redeem" you from your bondage and dispersion. dry up... sea โ (Ex 14:21). The second exodus shall exceed, while it resembles in wonders, the first (Isa 11:11, 15; 51:15). make... rivers... wilderness โ turn the prosperity of Israel's foes into adversity. fish stinketh โ the very judgment inflicted on their Egyptian enemies at the first exodus (Ex 7:18, 21).
Read all 11 notes on Isaiah 50 โ