Isaiah50chapter 50

Isaiah 50:1

Where is the bill of your mother’s divorcement: The Lord answers Israel's exile with a legal question rather than an accusation first: where is the bill of your mother's divorcement, whom I have put away, or which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you? No such document exists and no such sale ever happened; for your iniquities have ye sold yourselves, and for your transgressions is your mother put away, so the separation is Israel's own doing, not an act that severed the covenant from the Lord's side. Matthew Henry reads the whole opening as the Lord defending his own faithfulness before he ever asks for theirs.

Isaiah 50:2-3

Is my hand shortened at all: The Lord asks why, when he came and called, there was no man to answer, and turns the silence back on Israel rather than on any weakness of his own: is my hand shortened at all, that it cannot redeem? or have I no power to deliver? He answers with the same power that opened the exodus, at my rebuke I dry up the sea, I make the rivers a wilderness, and clothes the heavens with blackness as with sackcloth, cosmic authority pressed into the service of covenant argument. Barnes reads the unanswered call as evidence against Israel rather than any admission that the Lord's arm has grown weak.

Isaiah 50:4

the tongue of the learned: The Lord God has given the servant the tongue of the learned, a disciple's speech rather than a natural gift, so that he may speak a word in season to him that is weary. The gift is renewed daily rather than granted once: he wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned, a discipline of listening that precedes any word spoken. Delitzsch reads the verse as the servant's own testimony to a daily dependence, the ear opened before the tongue is used.

Isaiah 50:5

The Lord God hath opened mine ear: The Lord God hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back: the servant's obedience answers the daily opening of the previous verse with a daily willingness that never resisted what he heard. The older writers read this verse as the servant's own account of a will fully surrendered before any suffering is named, obedience first and cost second. John Gill reads the opened ear against the pierced ear of the willing servant in Exodus 21:6, bound for life, though the vocabulary differs and the connection is his own reading rather than the text's own citation.

Isaiah 50:6

I gave my back to the smiters: 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, a description of scourging and mockery the Gospels record almost verbatim in the passion, which Delitzsch reads as prophecy fulfilled to the letter rather than as coincidence. The servant does not merely endure the violence but gives himself to it, a willingness the verb itself carries, and the shame of spitting is named alongside the pain of the blows. This is the third servant song's own approach to the fourth song's cross, the same suffering named here in smaller compass.

Isaiah 50:7

have I set my face like a flint: 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: the same confidence that endured the smiting in the previous verse now turns forward, language the Gospel of Luke echoes when it says the Lord stedfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem. Barnes reads the flint as unmovable resolve rather than hardness toward the people he goes to save. The help of the Lord is named as the ground of the resolve, not the servant's own strength alone.

Isaiah 50:8-9

He is near that justifieth me: He is near that justifieth me: who will contend with me? The servant speaks as a defendant confident of vindication, let us stand together, who is mine adversary, let him come near to me, language Paul draws on in Romans 8:33, who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect, though the New Testament does not formally cite this verse. Verse 9 answers the challenge before it is raised, the Lord God will help me, who is he that shall condemn me, and the accusers are pictured wearing out like a moth-eaten garment while the servant stands. Calvin reads the confidence as the pattern every believer may claim in Christ, the servant's own assurance made available to those united to him.

Isaiah 50:10

that feareth the Lord: The song turns to address the reader directly: who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness, and hath no light? The verse names a real condition, a believer obedient yet without any felt comfort, and answers it with a call rather than a rebuke, let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God. Matthew Henry reads the verse as pastoral counsel for the soul that walks by faith without any sensible light to walk by.

Isaiah 50:11

that kindle a fire: The song's final verse turns from comfort to warning, addressed to all ye that kindle a fire, that compass yourselves about with sparks, those who would rather manufacture their own light than trust the Lord in darkness, the very condition just named in the verse before. The Lord tells them plainly to walk in the light of their own fire and their own sparks, and just as plainly what it earns them, this shall ye have of mine hand, ye shall lie down in sorrow. Barnes reads the warning as the necessary companion to the previous verse's comfort, the same chapter holding out trust and self-reliance as the only two roads before the reader.