50. Isaiah Chapter Fifty

Isaiah Chapter 50

Two facts stand out prominently in this chapter: (1) the responsibility attaching to Israel for her state of rejection, (2) the steadfastness and faithfulness of the Servant of Jehovah. In Isaiah 50:1 the Lord asks two questions by way of protest, each repudiating the idea that the evils which had befallen the nation were the result of arbitrary dealings on His part. Nay, their state was due to their transgressions.

“Where,” He says, “is the bill of your mother’s divorcement, wherewith I have put her away?” (r.v.). This is a denial by the Lord that He had broken off the relation in which He stood to Zion (Israel’s mother). He had betrothed Zion to Himself, and she had no bill of divorce to show, by means of which He had put her away, thus removing the possibility of receiving her back in case she should have married another (see Deuteronomy 24:14, and especially Deuteronomy 24:4). Her sad condition of being put away was not caused by any such proceedings.

Further, He asks “or which of My creditors is it to whom I have sold you?” That Israel was sold and exiled was true, but Jehovah had not been in the position of being indebted to creditors. In other words, His having given her into the hands of Gentile powers was not through His giving way to their constraint, as if He was discharging a debt by so doing. Nay, they were sold for their iniquities, and Zion, their mother, was put away for their transgression. The mother suffered through the perverseness of her children. Sinners often put down the evils that come upon them to any cause except their own transgressions. But there are further questions, questions in a different manner of divine protestations, telling of Jehovah’s power in the exercise of mercy, and all leading to a personal testimony by Messiah Himself.

“Wherefore, when I came, was there no man?” (Isaiah 50:2). The past tense is prophetic. He “came,” not merely by His prophets, nor would He come simply by deliverance from captivity. He would come in the Person of His Servant, the Messiah-Redeemer Himself. But how was it that there was no man, none willing to receive the message? (cp. Isaiah 53:1). How was it that “when He called, there was none to answer”? His hand was not shortened (an emblem of weakness) that it could not redeem (cp. Isaiah 59:1). He who could dry up the sea, make rivers a wilderness, clothe the heavens with blackness and make sackcloth their covering (telling especially of His retributive judgments upon Babylon), had power to deliver. And with this in view, He would send His Servant. Eventually He came, and declared at the outset of His ministry, that He had been sent “to proclaim release to the captives … to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord” (Luke 4:18). Instead of receiving Him and His message, they cast Him forth to destroy Him. So now there follows, in Isaiah 50:4, in the words of Christ Himself, a description of His testimony as the Sent One, His obedience to Him who sent Him, His sufferings and His vindication.

God spake to prophets by special and periodic revelations, by visions and dreams. With the Servant of Jehovah it was different. Here He discloses the secret of His inner life in the days of His flesh, and the secret source of His ministry and ways: “The Lord God hath given Me the tongue of them that are taught, that I should know how to sustain with words him that is weary: He wakeneth morning by morning, He wakeneth Mine ear to hear as they that are taught.” A joyous lowliness and condescension breathe through His illustration taken from discipleship. In the days of the fulfillment of this prophecy He says “My teaching is not Mine, but His that sent Me” (John 7:16); again, “as the Father hath taught Me, I speak these things” (John 8:28), and “I speak the things which I have seen with My Father” (John 8:38); and again, “the Father which sent Me, He hath given Me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak” (John 12:49; cp. John 14:10, John 14:24).

How He “sustained with words” the weary is told out in the Gospel narratives, both in His public ministry (e.g., Matthew 11:28) and in the comfort He gave to the widow, the diseased, the distressed and the tempest-tossed. The Lord daily listened to His Heavenly Father’s voice. In this He sets us an example. It was His joy to say “I do always the things that are pleasing to Him” (John 8:29), and it is only as we are attentive to His voice day by day that we can fulfill His will, enabling us to say with the apostle, “we make it our aim … to be well-pleasing unto Him.”

He says “The Lord God hath opened Mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away backward” (Isaiah 50:5). This was the very perfection of obedience. Compare Psalms 40:6, where, however, the word rendered to open signifies to dig, which may either refer to the custom of boring a servant’s ear, in token of perpetual service (Exodus 21:6), or be figurative simply of devotion to God’s will. Here in Isaiah a different word is used, with the latter meaning. The Lord Jesus knew all the suffering that lay before Him, and with undeviating steadfastness He pursued His pathway to the Cross. To that consummating act Isaiah 50:6 points: “I gave My back to the smilers, and My cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not My face from shame and spitting.” With striking detail this prophecy predicts what the Lord actually endured as recorded in the Gospel. He set His face to His persecutors without faltering, knowing that the words that follow would be fulfilled, that the Lord God would help Him and that He would not be ashamed. His example is an incentive to us, when called to suffer the pressure of fierce antagonism, so that with fixity of purpose we may fulfill that which the Lord has committed to us. We can never suffer as He did, but our life and testimony can be marked by the same characteristics as those which marked His. “We must through much tribulation enter the Kingdom,” but to suffer for His sake makes it all a glory and joy.

He looked to the future with confidence, and so may we. He says, “For the Lord God will help Me; therefore have I not been confounded [He had not suffered Himself to be overcome by mockery and opposition]: therefore have I set My face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed” (Isaiah 50:7, r.v.). The design of our Father is to give us such confidence in Him and in the assurance of His help, that we may be free from every tendency to despair under the weight of trouble. If we are walking in the path of obedience we can ever be assured of His present help and of deliverance and victory in His own way and time. The Lord knew that, in spite of every accusation both by man and by the spiritual foe, He would be triumphantly vindicated. He says “He is near that justifieth Me; who will contend with Me? let us stand up together [i.e., let the foe draw toward Me]: who is Mine adversary? let him come near to Me” (Isaiah 50:8). He does not say “He will justify Me” but “He is near” that will do so, which declares His consciousness of the presence of His Father, as, for instance, when standing before Caiaphas and his associates and before Pilate and his men of war. His justification took place in His resurrection. He was “declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness (that is the sinlessness which marked Him as the Holy One of God), by the resurrection of the dead” (Romans 1:4). This is further borne out by the clause in 1 Timothy 3:16, “justified in the spirit” (referring directly to His resurrection). A second time He says “Behold, the Lord God will help Me.” Such repeated expressions are characteristic of Isaiah’s prophecies. As for God’s accusers and foes they shall all “wax old,” or rather, fall to pieces like a worn-out garment, a prey to the moth, an insect which, working slowly and imperceptibly, accomplishes thoroughly its deadly destruction (Isaiah 50:9). That finishes the testimony of Messiah Himself. Just as the chapter opened with the declaration of Jehovah, so it closes. Here it is addressed first to the believer who fears the Lord and obeys the voice of His servant, a title which looks back to what has been stated concerning Him in Isaiah 50:4-5 that is, to the one who follows in His steps (Isaiah 50:10). A believer may be walking in darkness circumstantially and have no light, and in such conditions may be tempted to despondency. Sometimes a situation seems hopeless. A variety of trials and adverse circumstances may crowd upon him. Here then is the message, uplifting and soul-stirring. “Let him trust in the Name of the Lord, and stay upon His God.” True faith is tested faith, and proves its reality by standing the test. God is “a very present help in trouble.” Faith not only accepts this as a fact, but learns to lean upon God Himself and to prove the power and love of His almighty arm. That turns our darkness into light. The heart is cheered and, more still, is empowered to rise victorious over all that opposes, rejoicing in the light of His countenance. The next words (Isaiah 50:11) are addressed to unbelievers and to their presumptuous self-confidence. They kindle a fire and gird themselves about with firebrands, and walk proudly in the flickering flame which they have kindled. Not only so, their fire is kindled against the Lord and against His Christ. For this the divine retribution is inevitable. They must suffer from the effects of the burnings which they have kindled. It comes from the hand of Jehovah Himself. Their activities, with all their malice and hard-heartedness are brought to a terrible end and they “lie down in sorrow,” a contrast to the joyous restfulness of the believer who stays himself upon His God!