Isaiah 50:3
in Isaiah 50I clothe the heavens in black and make sackcloth their covering.”
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
I clothe the heavens with blackness, and I make sackcloth their covering.
KJV
I clothe the heavens with blackness, and I make sackcloth their covering.
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This verse in Isaiah 50
Commentary
10 notes on this verseAnd what follows: I will clothe the heavens in darkness, and its covering will be like sackcloth; or everything that is above us, let us understand as heaven, just as those flying creatures that are in the air are called celestial; and the opposing powers are said to be celestial, which move between heaven and earth. Or certainly, the heavens are clothed in darkness when they are covered with clouds. According to what is written: Who covers the heavens with clouds, and gives rain to the earth (Psalm 147:8).
This site's exposition
Is my hand shortened at all
on Isaiah 50:2-3
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.
The record, by era
The Church Fathers1 voice
"I will clothe the sky with shadows, and I will change its cover to be like mourning cloth." He has done this and will do it. For he did it when he was crucified: "From the sixth hour to the ninth the shadows covered the …
The Medieval Church1 voice
Second, he shows signs of his power in the heavens: I will clothe the aerial heavens with darkness, as in Egypt (Exod 10:21); who covers the heaven with clouds (Ps 146[147]:8).
The Puritans and the Awakening2 voices
I clothe the heavens with blackness,.... With gross and thick darkness; perhaps referring to the three days' darkness the Egyptians were in, Exo 10:12, or with thick and black clouds, as in tempestuous weather frequently; or by eclipses of the sun; there was an extraordinary instance of great darkness at the time of Christ's crucifixion, Mat 27:45. and I make sackcloth their covering; that being black, and used in times of mourning; the allusion may be to the tents of Kedar, which were covered with sackcloth, or such like black stuff.
We suppose the prophet Isaiah to say something of himself in these verses, engaging and encouraging himself to go on in his work as a prophet, notwithstanding the many hardships he met with, not doubting but that God would stand by him and strengthen him; but, like David, he speaks of himself as a type of Christ, who is here prophesied of and promised to be the Saviour.
The Nineteenth Century1 voice
A commentator
Albert Barnes1798–1870
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
I clothe the heavens with blackness - With the dark clouds of a tempest - perhaps with an allusion to the remarkable clouds and tempests that encircled the brow of Sinai when he gave the law. Or possibly alluding to the thick darkness which he brought over the land of Egypt (Exo 10:21; Grotius). In the previous verse, he had stated what he did on the earth, and referred to the exhibitions of his great power there.
3 more voices on this verse
The Nineteenth Century3 voices
A commentator
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown1802–1910
Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)
proposed
heavens . . . blackness--another of the judgments on Egypt to be repeated hereafter on the last enemy of God's people (Ex 10:21). sackcloth-- (Re 6:12).
quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — starts-lowercase
A commentator
Charles Spurgeon1834–1892
The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 2827: “The Redeemer Described by Himself” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition) · Written before 1892.
proposed
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.
A commentator
Charles Spurgeon1834–1892
The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 2827: “The Redeemer Described by Himself” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition) · Written before 1892.
proposed
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."
How the passage was read
What the Jewish commentators add
On the verses either side of this one
Why have I come to draw near to you, and none of you turns to Me?
1 more on this passage, in their own words ▾
gave me a tongue for teaching Isaiah was saying, The Lord sent me and gave me a tongue fit to teach, in order to know to establish a time for the faint and thirsty to hear the words of the Holy One, blessed be He.
This section is reception history: how the passage was read and kept in the Jewish tradition. Where a reading parts from an essential of the Christian faith, the section says so at that point.
Texts and citation data: Sefaria; each excerpt follows its version’s licence. 4 further sources are cited on this chapter that carry no English text this site may quote or only restate the verse.
The words behind it
6 Hebrew wordsEvery Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.
| Hebrew | Sound | Meaning | Word study | In the Bible |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| אַלְבִּ֥ישׁ | ʾalbish | I clothe | H3847 → | 110 times |
| שָׁמַ֖יִם | shamayim | [the] heavens | H8064 → | 421 times |
| קַדְר֑וּת | kadrut | darkness | H6940 → | |
| וְשַׂ֖ק | vesak | and sackcloth | H8242 → | 49 times |
| אָשִׂ֥ים | ʾasim | I make | H7760 → | 584 times |
| כְּסוּתָֽם׃ ס | kesutam | covering their | H3682 → |
אַלְבִּ֥ישׁI clothe
ʾalbishH3847 →110 times
שָׁמַ֖יִם[the] heavens
shamayimH8064 →421 times
קַדְר֑וּתdarkness
kadrutH6940 →
וְשַׂ֖קand sackcloth
vesakH8242 →49 times
אָשִׂ֥יםI make
ʾasimH7760 →584 times
כְּסוּתָֽם׃ סcovering their
kesutamH3682 →
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
The walk
8 stopsEach card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.
Through
Revelation 6:12And when I saw the Lamb open the sixth seal, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black like sackcloth of goat hair, and the whole moon turned blood red,
it leads to
- Matthew 24:29
Immediately after the tribulation of those days: ‘The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will…
- Joel 2:10
Before them the earth quakes; the heavens tremble. The sun and moon grow dark, and the stars lose their brightness.
- Acts 2:19–20
I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke.
- Mark 13:24–25
But in those days, after that tribulation: ‘The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light;
- Joel 3:15
The sun and moon will grow dark, and the stars will no longer shine.
- Matthew 24:29
Through
Matthew 27:45From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land.
it leads to
- Amos 8:9
And in that day, declares the Lord GOD, I will make the sun go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the daytime.
- Mark 15:33–34
From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land.
- Luke 23:44–45
It was now about the sixth hour, and darkness came over all the land until the ninth hour.
- Amos 8:9
Where this verse is studied
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Studies2
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About Isaiah
This page draws on 10 works. Open the list of works
This page draws on Albert Barnes, Notes on the Book of Isaiah; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Charles Spurgeon, The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 2827: “The Redeemer Described by Himself” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition); Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jerome, Commentary on Isaiah; John Calvin, Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Isaiah; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763); Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible; Theodoret of Cyrus, COMMENTARY ON ISAIAH 16:50.3 and Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Isaiah.