Isaia 50:1 Commento

In this chapter, I. Those to whom God sends are justly charged with bringing all the troubles they were in upon themselves, by their own wilfulness and obstinacy, it being made to appear that God was able and ready to help them if they had been fit for deliverance (Isa 50:1-3). II. He by whom God sends produces his commission (Isa 50:4), alleges his own readiness to submit to all the services and sufferings he was called to in the execution of it (Isa 50:5, Isa 50:6), and assures himself that God, who sent him, would stand by him and bear him out against all opposition (Isa 50:7-9). III. The message that is sent is life and death, good and evil, the blessing and the curse, comfort to desponding saints and terror to presuming sinners (Isa 50:10, Isa 50:11). Now all this seems to have a double reference, 1. To the unbelieving Jews in Babylon, who quarrelled with God for his dealings with them, and to the prophet Isaiah, who, though dead long before the captivity, yet, prophesying so plainly and fully of it, saw fit to produce his credentials, to justify what he had said. 2. To the unbelieving Jews in our Saviour's time, whose own fault it was that they were rejected, Christ having preached much to them, and suffered much from them, and being herein borne up by a divine power. The "contents" of this chapter, in our Bibles, give this sense of it, very concisely, thus: - "Christ shows that the dereliction of the Jews is not to be imputed to him, by his ability to save, by his obedience in that work, and by his confidence in divine assistance." The prophet concludes with an exhortation to trust in God and not in ourselves.

Those who have professed to be the people of God, and yet seem to be dealt severely with, are apt to complain of God, and to lay the fault upon him, as if he had been hard with them. But, in answer to their murmurings, we have here, I. A challenge given them to prove, or produce any evidence, that the quarrel began on God's side, Isa 50:1. They could not say that he had done them any wrong or had acted arbitrarily. 1. He had been a husband to them; and husbands were then allowed a power to put away their wives upon any little disgust: if their wives found not favour in their eyes, they made nothing of giving them a bill of divorce, Deu 24:1; Mat 19:7. But they could not say that God had dealt so with them. It is true they were now separated from him, and had abode many days without ephod, altar, or sacrifice; but whose fault was that? They could not say that God had given their mother a bill of divorce; let them produce it if they can, for a bill of divorce was given into the hand of her that was divorced. 2. He had been a father to them; and fathers had then a power to sell their children for slaves to their creditors, in satisfaction for the debts they were not otherwise able to pay. Now it is true the Jews were sold to the Babylonians then, and afterwards to the Romans; but did God sell them for payment of his debts? No, he was not indebted to any of those to whom they were sold, or, if he had sold them, he did not increase his wealth by their price, Psa 44:12. When God chastens his children, it is neither for his pleasure (Heb 12:10) nor for his profit. All that are saved are saved by a prerogative of grace, but those that perish are cut off by an act of divine holiness and justice, not of absolute sovereignty. II. A charge exhibited against them, showing them that they were themselves the authors of their own ruin: "Behold, for your iniquities, for the pleasure of them and the gratification of your own base lusts, you have sold yourselves, for your iniquities you are sold; not as children are sold by their parents, to pay their debts, but as malefactors are sold by the judges, to punish them for their crimes. You sold yourselves to work wickedness, and therefore God justly sold you into the hands of your enemies, Ch2 12:5, Ch2 12:8. It is for your transgressions that your mother is put away, for her whoredoms and adulteries," which were always allowed to be a just cause of divorce. The Jews were sent into Babylon for their idolatry, a sin which broke the marriage covenant, and were at last rejected for crucifying the Lord of glory; these were the iniquities for which they were sold and put away. III. The confirmation of this challenge and this charge. 1. It is plain that it was owing to themselves that they were cast off; for God came and offered them his favour, offered them his helping hand, either to prevent their trouble or to deliver them out of it, but they slighted him and all the tenders of his grace. "Do you lay it upon me?" (says God); "tell me, then, wherefore, when I came, was there no man to meet me, when I called, was there none to answer me?" Isa 50:2. God came to them by his servants the prophets, demanding the fruits of his vineyard (Mat 21:34); he sent them his messengers, rising up betimes and sending them (Jer 35:15); he called to them to leave their sins, and so prevent their own ruin: but was there no man, or next to none, that had any regard to the warnings which the prophets gave them, none that answered the calls of God, or complied with the messages he sent them; and this was it for which they were sold and put away. Because they mocked the messengers of the Lord, therefore, God brought upon them the king of the Chaldeans, Ch2 36:16, Ch2 36:17. Last of all he sent unto them his Son. He came to his own, but his own received him not; he called them to himself, but there were none that answered; he would have gathered Jerusalem's children together, but they would not; they knew not, because they would not know, the things that belonged to their peace, nor the day of their visitation, and for that transgression it was that they were put away and their house was left desolate, Mat 21:41; Mat 23:37, Mat 23:38; Luk 19:41, Luk 19:42. When God calls men to happiness, and they will not answer, they are justly left to be miserable. 2. It is plain that it was not owing to a want of power in God, for he is almighty, and could have recovered them from so great a death; nor was it owing to a want of power in Christ, for he is able to save to the uttermost. The unbelieving Jews in Babylon thought they were not delivered because their God was not able to deliver them; and those in Christ's time were ready to ask, in scorn, Can this man save us? For himself he cannot save. "But" (says God) "is my hand shortened at all, or is it weakened?" Can any limits be set to Omnipotence? Cannot he redeem who is the great Redeemer? Has he no power to deliver whose all power is? To put to silence, and for ever to put to shame, their doubts concerning his power, he here gives unquestionable proofs of it. (1.) He can, when he pleases, dry up the seas, and make the rivers a wilderness. He did so for Israel when he redeemed them out of Egypt, and he can do so again for their redemption out of Babylon. It is done at his rebuke, as easily as with a word's speaking. He can so dry up the rivers as to leave the fish to die for want of water, and to putrefy. When God turned the waters of Egypt into blood he slew the fish, Psa 105:29. 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. (2.) He can, when he pleases, eclipse the lights of heaven, clothe then with blackness, and make sackcloth their covering (Isa 50:3) by thick and dark clouds interposing, which he balances, Job 36:32; Job 37:16.

INTRODUCTION TO ISAIAH 50 This chapter is a prophecy of the rejection of the Jews, for their neglect and contempt of the Messiah; and of his discharge of his office as Mediator, and fitness for it. The rejection of the Jews is signified by the divorce of a woman from her husband, and by persons selling their children to their creditors; which is not to be charged upon the Lord, but was owing to their own iniquities, Isa 50:1, particularly their disregard of the Messiah, and inattention to him, as if he was an insufficient Saviour; whereas his power to redeem is evident, from his drying up the sea and rivers below, and clothing the heavens above with black clouds, and eclipsing the luminaries thereof, Isa 50:2, his fitness for his prophetic office is expressed in Isa 50:4. His obedience to his Father, and his patience in sufferings, while performing his priestly office, Isa 50:5, and his faith and confidence in the Lord, as man and Mediator, that he should be helped, carried through his work, and acquitted; and not be confounded, overcome, and condemned, Isa 50:7, and the chapter is closed with an exhortation to the saints to trust in the Lord in the darkest times; and a threatening to such who trust in themselves, and in their own doings, Isa 50:10.

Thus saith the Lord,.... Here begins a new discourse or prophecy, and therefore thus prefaced, and is continued in the following chapter: where is the bill of your mother's divorcement, whom I have put away? these words are directed to the Jews, who stood in the same relation to the Jewish church, or synagogue, as children to a mother; and so the Targum interprets "your mother" by "your congregation", or synagogue; who were rejected from being a church and people; had a "loammi" written upon them, which became very manifest when their city and temple were destroyed by the Romans; and this is signified by a divorce, alluding to the law of divorce among the Jews, Deu 24:1, when a man put away his wife, he gave her a bill of divorce, assigning the causes of his putting her away. Now, the Lord, either as denying that he had put away their mother, the Jewish church, she having departed from him herself, and therefore challenges them to produce any such bill; a bill of divorce being always put into the woman's hands, and so capable of being produced by her; or if there was such an one, see Jer 3:8, he requires it might be looked into, and seen whether the fault was his, or the cause in themselves, which latter would appear: or which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you? referring to a practice used, that when men were in debt, and could not pay their debts, they sold their children for the payment of them; see Exo 21:7, but this could not be the case here; the Lord has no creditors, not any to whom he is indebted, nor could any advantage possibly accrue to him by the sale of them; it is true they were sold to the Romans, or delivered into their hands, which, though a loss to them, was no gain to him; nor was it he that sold them, but they themselves; he was not the cause of it, but their own sins, as follows: behold, for your iniquities have ye sold yourselves; or, "are sold" (w); they were sold for them, or delivered up into the hands of their enemies on account of them; they had sold themselves to work wickedness, and therefore it was but just that they should be sold, and become slaves: and for your transgressions is your mother put away; and they her children along with her, out of their own land, and from being the church and people of God. (w) Sept. "venditi estis", Pagninus, Montanus, Piscator, Cocceias, Vitringa.

Hear what the prophet says: “You have been sold for your sins, and for your iniquities I sent your mother away.” You see, therefore, that we are all creatures of God. But each one is sold for his own sins and, for his own iniquities, separates from his Creator. We, therefore, belong to God insofar as we have been created by him. But we have become slaves of the devil insofar as we have been sold for our sins. Christ came, however, and “bought us back” when we were serving that lord to whom we sold ourselves by sinning. And so [Christ] appears to have recovered as his own those whom he created; to have acquired as people belonging to another, indeed, those who had sought another Lord for themselves by sinning.

But Joseph was sold into Egypt, because Christ was going to come to those to whom it was said: For your sins you have been sold. And therefore, He redeemed them with His own blood, who had sold themselves by their own sins. But Christ, who was sold, is held by the assumption of the condition, not by the price of guilt, because He Himself did not commit sin. Therefore, He contracted our debt, not His own money; He took away the handwriting, removed the lender, stripped off the debtor: He alone paid what was owed by all.

(Chapter 50, Verse 1) Thus says the Lord: Who is this bill of divorce of your mother, whom I have sent away? Or to whom have I sold you? Behold, because of your iniquities you were sold, and because of your sins your mother was sent away. For I came and there was no man; I called, and there was none to answer. LXX: Thus says the Lord: What is this bill of divorce of your mother, whom I have sent away? Or to whom have I sold you, to the creditor and exactor of me? Behold, you have been sold for your sins, and for your iniquities I have dismissed your mother. For I came, and there was no man: I called, and there was none that obeyed. After the calling of the nations, and the kings and princes, the nourishers and the nurses, and the captivity of the strong and the mighty, whose prey was distributed to the Apostles, and after the fury of the demons, who were satiated with their own flesh and intoxicated with their own blood: when all flesh knew that the Redeemer and the strong God of Jacob himself, speaks to the people of Judah concerning Zion, which he had previously said: The Lord has forsaken me, and the Lord has forgotten me. Do you think that I, through my stubbornness, have cast down your earthly Jerusalem and that because of my rigid mind, I gave her a bill of divorce, and rather, as is true, you understand that she has departed from me because of her own fault? For when I said to her, 'Stop acting unjustly, learn to do good, listen to me,' she did not want to listen but turned her back on me as she departed. Therefore, I spoke to her children: Woe to them, for they have departed from me. Those who acted wickedly against me have been made evident. And against her, You, your departure and your wickedness will reprove you; and you will know that it is evil for you to leave me. But perhaps you cannot show a certificate of divorce, and one of my creditors demanding money, with me having nothing to give back, do you accept a repayment of debt? It is not so: but I will show you why I have abandoned the mother with her children. Your crimes and sins have sold you to demons, so that, entangled in the pleasures of this present age, you would abandon both your parent and that wife. I could not continue to hold your adulterous mother any longer, but I allowed her to leave willingly. And it is true that each person is sold by their own sins, as we are abandoned by our own free will, either led to goodness or led to evil, and the Apostle Paul teaches: 'But I am carnal, sold under sin' (Rom. VII, 14). For whoever commits sin is a slave to sin (John VIII). And just as misers and plunderers are slaves to money, so every sin dominates sinners. To whom it is said: Let not sin reign in your mortal body (Rom. VI, 12). But so that you may know, I did not reject your mother’s soul; rather, she withdrew of her own accord. After many benefits, I assumed a human body, and I spoke not through the prophets, but in person. I came, and I was not a man, nor a human being. For all men, leaving the image of a man and of a human being, took on the images of beasts and serpents. Therefore, due to her wickedness, it is said to Herod: Go, and tell this fox (Luc. XIII, 32). And to the Pharisees: 'Brood of vipers' (Matthew 23:33). And to the lustful: 'They have become insane horses longing for females' (Jeremiah 5:8). And about the indulgent: 'Do not cast your pearls before swine' (Matthew 7:6). And to the shameless: 'Do not give what is holy to the dogs' (Matthew 7:6). And in general, about everyone: 'The vision of the beasts that were in the wilderness' (Isaiah 30). So the Lord came, but did not find a man. For when man was in honor, he did not understand; he was compared to dumb animals and became like them' (Psalm 49:13). I called, he said, them as if they were rational animals, and I said: Incline your ear to the words of my mouth (Psalm 77), and my people did not hear my voice. I cried out, and said: Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let them drink (John 7:37). And in another place: Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden (Matthew 11:28). And there was no one to hear; therefore I spoke to them in the Gospel: You have not seen the form of God, nor have you heard his voice, because you do not have his word abiding in you (John 5:37, 38).

God never sends away anyone who makes his home with him, and he rejects none of those who walk uprightly. He allows them to be forever associated and firmly joined to him as a way of obtaining help. However, everyone who opposes or fights against his divine teaching falls completely away from the glory of God and shows that he is a lover of pleasure rather than a lover of God. Therefore, like one who lived with the mother of the Jews God says, “What kind of bill of divorce did your mother have when I sent her away?” For no one could prove that I hated her and despised her. Instead, he would rather have to accuse her of deserting me.… It says, “I came,” that is, I took human form and appeared to those in Israel, and there was no man among them, that is, no one with a heart who was able to recognize the season of redemption. “I called, but no one listened.” … For he was in a form like ours, and yet he was God the Word, having become man by taking on flesh born of a woman. But those who knew this and were not ignorant of the depth of the mystery of his divinity knew that he was able to do all things because he was God by nature and suitable for the redemption of everyone under heaven.

For he compares himself with a husband who is his wife’s master and householder. For what master is obliged to let you go? But you have been transgressors from the beginning and so cast out, “sold to your iniquities,” enslaved by them, who were before independent and free. And finally, since God did not wait for you but came to you, and coming down to a lowly dignity, he became man. But no one answered him as he was calling for salvation. He adds “there was not one person,” since the mass of those not answering are deemed to be as nothing. Whereas those who answered, a few out of the nations will be exempted from the fate of the nations; as with Lot in the days of Sodom, they will be brought out. For the Lord did not think fit to make the holy land available to many. And the barren fig tree was a sign of that.

“Did my hand reap the crop? And did it drop?” that is, Is it tired and weakened? He is inspired by what happens to the harvesters, from whose hands the ears escape. For he teaches, through these words, that it is from them that the cause of their afflictions derives and not from him.

Thus says the Lord: what is this. Here he begins to remove the impediments to their liberation. And first, he removes the impediments; second, he applies the remedies: who has believed our report (ch. 53). Concerning the first, he removes three impediments: first, the lack of divine benefits; second, the dejection of persons: give ear to me, you that follow (ch. 51); third, poverty of goods: arise, arise (ch. 52). Concerning the first, he does three things: first, he excludes the impediment; second, he gives himself as an example: the Lord has given (Isa 50:4); third, he deduces salutary counsel: who is there among you that fears the Lord (Isa 50:10). Concerning the first, he does two things: first, he excludes the lack of divine benefits on the part of the divine will; second, on the part of the divine power: is my hand shortened (Isa 50:2). Concerning the first, he does three things. First, he excludes the lack of divine will, as though of his own accord God did not wish to benefit them, excluding a twofold manner of alienation, namely, the manner of alienating a wife, which occurred through a bill of divorce, as is said in Deuteronomy 24:1, which indeed was permitted to them because of the hardness of their hearts (Matt 19:8). What is this bill of the divorce of your mother? But, on the contrary, Jeremiah 3:8 says, because Israel had played the harlot, I had put her away. And to this is to be said that the Lord, considered in himself, did not repudiate them, but rather they, through their sins, put God away. He also excludes the manner of alienating a possession: or who is my creditor, to whom I sold you, as if to say: if I should sell you, who are my inheritance (Isa 19:25), to him, what should I repay, not having anything else? Thus it is clear, because I did not alienate you from my dominion, that I am ready to benefit you of my own accord. Second, he shows the sin of human will: behold you are sold for your iniquities: but I am a carnal man, sold under sin (Rom 7:14). Note on the words, you are sold for your iniquities (Isa 50:1), that man sells many things for sins: first, the virtue of his soul: they have given all their precious things for vile things (Lam 1:11); second, his heavenly inheritance: the Lord be merciful to me, and not let me sell the inheritance of my fathers (1 Kgs 21:3); third, the liberty of his soul: there is not a more wicked thing than to love money (Sir 10:10); fourth, the honor of divine love: the Lord loves the children of Israel (Hos 3:1).

This and the following chapter contain a prophecy relating to the fall of Babylon, interspersed with several predictions relative to the restoration of Israel and Judah, who were to survive their oppressors, and, on their repentance, to be pardoned and brought to their own land. This chapter opens with a prediction of the complete destruction of all the Babylonish idols, and the utter desolation of Chaldea, through the instrumentality of a great northern nation, Jer 50:1-3. Israel and Judah shall be reinstated in the land of their forefathers after the total overthrow of the great Babylonish empire, Jer 50:4, Jer 50:5. Very oppressive and cruel bondage of the Jewish people during the captivity, Jer 50:6, Jer 50:7. The people of God are commanded to remove speedily from Babylon, because an assembly of great nations are coming out of the north to desolate the whole land, Jer 50:8-10. Babylon, the hammer of the whole earth, the great desolator of nations, shall itself become a desolation on account of its intolerable pride, and because of the iron yoke it has rejoiced to put upon a people whom a mysterious Providence had placed under its domination, vv. 11-34. The judgments which shall fall upon Chaldea, a country addicted to the grossest idolatry, and to every species of superstition, shall be most awful and general, as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, Jer 50:35-40. Character of the people appointed to execute the Divine judgments upon the oppressors of Israel, Jer 50:41-45. Great sensation among the nations at the very terrible and sudden fall of Babylon, Jer 50:46.

Thus saith the Lord - This chapter has been understood of the prophet himself; but it certainly speaks more clearly about Jesus of Nazareth than of Isaiah, the son of Amos. Where is the bill "Where is this bill" - Husbands, through moroseness or levity of temper, often sent bills of divorcement to their wives on slight occasions, as they were permitted to do by the law of Moses, Deu 24:1. And fathers, being oppressed with debt, often sold their children, which they might do for a time, till the year of release, Exo 21:7. That this was frequently practiced, appears from many passages of Scripture, and that the persons and the liberty of the children were answerable for the debts of the father. The widow, Kg2 4:1, complains "that the creditor is come to take unto him her two sons to be bondmen." And in the parable, Mat 18:25 : "The lord, forasmuch as his servant had not to pay, commands him to be sold, and his wife and children, and all that he had, and payment to be made." Sir John Chardin's MS. note on this place of Isaiah is as follows: En Orient on paye ses dettes avec ses esclaves, car ils sont des principaux meubles; et en plusieurs lieux on les paye aussi de ses enfans. "In the east they pay their debts by giving up their slaves, for these are their chief property of a disposable kind; and in many places they give their children to their creditors." But this, saith God, cannot be my case, I am not governed by any such motives, neither am I urged by any such necessity. Your captivity therefore and your afflictions are to be imputed to yourselves, and to your own folly and wickedness.

THE JUDGMENTS ON ISRAEL WERE PROVOKED BY THEIR CRIMES, YET THEY ARE NOT FINALLY CAST OFF BY GOD. (Isa 50:1-11) Where . . . mothers divorcement--Zion is "the mother"; the Jews are the children; and God the Husband and Father (Isa 54:5; Isa 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 (Deu 24:1), or that He had "sold" His and her "children," as a poor parent sometimes did (Exo 21:7; Kg2 4:1; Neh 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 (Kg1 21:25). bill . . . whom--rather, "the bill with which I have put her away" [MAURER].

The words are no longer addressed to Zion, but to her children. "Thus saith Jehovah, Where is your mother's bill of divorce, with which I put her away? Or where is one of my creditors, to whom I sold you? Behold, for your iniquities are ye sold, and for your transgressions is your mother put away." It was not He who had broken off the relation in which He stood to Zion; for the mother of Israel, whom Jehovah had betrothed to Himself, had no bill of divorce to show, with which Jehovah had put her away and thus renounced for ever the possibility of receiving her again (according to Deu 24:1-4), provided she should in the meantime have married another. Moreover, He had not yielded to outward constraint, and therefore given her up to a foreign power; for where was there on of His creditors (there is not any one) to whom He would have been obliged to relinquish His sons, because unable to pay His debts, and in this way to discharge them? - a harsh demand, which was frequently made by unfelling creditors of insolvent debtors (Exo 21:7; Kg2 4:1; Mat 18:25). On nōsheh, a creditor, see at Isa 24:2. Their present condition was indeed that of being sold and put away; but this was not the effect of despotic caprice, or the result of compulsion on the part of Jehovah. It was Israel itself that had broken off the relation in which it stood to Jehovah; they had been sold through their own faults, and "for your transgressions is your mother put away." Instead of וּבפשׁעיה we have וּבפשׁעיכם. This may be because the church, although on the one hand standing higher and being older than her children (i.e., her members at any particular time), is yet, on the other hand, orally affected by those to whom she has given birth, who have been trained by her, and recognised by her as her own.