Isaiah 50:2

(Verse 2.) Has my hand been shortened and become small, that I cannot redeem? Or is there no power in me to deliver? Indeed, I will make the sea a desert, I will dry up the rivers. The fish will rot without water and die of thirst. I will clothe the heavens in darkness and make sackcloth their covering. LXX: Can my hand not save, or is it not strong enough to deliver?

Third, he sets out the argument: because I came, through inspiration, I called, through the prophets: I called, and you refused (Prov 1:24). Is my hand shortened? Here he excludes lack on the part of divine power, first excluding lack of power: shortened, that I …

When God turned the waters of Egypt into blood he slew the fish, Ps. cv. The expression our Saviour sometimes used concerning the power of faith, that it will remove mountains and plant sycamores in the sea, is not unlike this; if their faith could do that, no doubt their faith would save them, and therefore they were inexcusable if they perished in unbelief.

To answer - To come at my call. Is my hand - What is the reason of this contempt? Is it because you think I am either unwilling or unable to save you?

Wherefore, when I came, was there no man?....

I--Messiah. no man--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--the Oriental emblem of weakness, as the long stretched-out hand is of power (Isa 59:1).

WE spent this morning at the foot of the Cross. [Sermon #1362, Volume 23—MOURNING FOR CHRIST] I hope that some of us, at least, were helped by the Spirit of Grace and of Supplication to look unto Him whom we have pierced by our sins, and to "mourn for Him, as one mourns for his only son."

WE spent this morning at the foot of the Cross. [Sermon #1362, Volume 23—MOURNING FOR CHRIST] I hope that some of us, at least, were helped by the Spirit of Grace and of Supplication to look unto Him whom we have pierced by our sins, and to "mourn for Him, as one mourns for his only son." I thought that as we then found it so good to be there, we would go there, again, the more especially as we are afterwards to gather around the Communion Table where we shall again be reminded of the sacrificial death which the sacred Supper so clearly symbolizes. Let us come, then, under the guidance of God's Holy Spirit, very near to our Lord Jesus Christ. I pray that the Spirit of Christ may aid our meditations while I try, once more, to speak about His glorious and matchless Person, and the wondrous condescension which made Him undertake such gracious offices on our behalf and bear for us such awful and shameful griefs. I shall need no further preface to my discourse except to say that in my opinion these verses run on without any break, so that you are not to separate them and ascribe one to the Prophet, another to the Messiah, and another to Jehovah, Himself, but you must take the whole as the utterance of one Divine Person. That Jehovah-Jesus is the One who is speaking here is very clear from the last verse of the previous chapter—"I the Lord" ("I, Jehovah," it is,) "am your Savior and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob." It is Jehovah, as the Savior and Redeemer of His people, who is here manifesting Himself to us—and we must take the whole chapter as being uttered by Him. I.

Wherefore, when I came, was there no man? - That is, when I came to call you to repentance, why was there no man of the nation to yield obedience? The sense is, that they had not been punished without warning. He had called them to repentance, but no one heard his voice. The Chaldee renders this, ‘Wherefore did I send my prophets, and they did not turn? They prophesied, but they did not attend.’ When I called, was there none to answer? - None obeyed, or regarded my voice. It was not, therefore, by his fault that they had been punished, but it was because they did not listen to the messengers which he had sent unto them. Is my hand shortened at all? - The meaning of this is, that it was not because God was unable to save, that they had been thus punished. The hand, in the Scriptures, is an emblem of strength, as it is the instrument by which we accomplish our purposes. To shorten the hand, that is, to cut it off, is an emblem of diminishing, or destroying our ability to execute any purpose (see Isa 59:1). So in Num 11:23: ‘Is the Lord’s hand waxed short?’ That it cannot redeem? - That it cannot rescue or deliver you. The idea is, that it was not because he was less able to save them than he had been in former times, that they were sold into captivity, and sighed in bondage. Behold, at my rebuke - At my chiding - as a father rebukes a disobedient child, or as a man would rebuke an excited multitude. Similar language is used of the Saviour when he stilled the tempest on the sea of Gennesareth: ‘Then he arose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm’ Mat 8:26. The reference here is, undoubtedly, to the fact that God dried up the Red Sea, or made a way for the children of Israel to pass through it. […]