Isaiah 50: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

The LORD asks where his people's mother's divorce paper is, or which creditor bought them, and answers that they were sold because of their own sins. He asks why no one answered when he called, since his power to rescue has not grown short. A speaker then says that God wakes him each morning to teach him, and that he did not turn back when he was beaten, insulted and spat on. The one who declares him righteous is near. The chapter closes by calling those who fear the LORD to trust him, and warning those who walk by fire they light themselves that they will lie down in pain.

Claim by Claim

1. 50:1
   • The LORD speaks the words that follow.
   • The LORD asks where the certificate of divorce of their mother is.
   • The LORD speaks of having sent their mother away.
   • The LORD asks to which of his creditors he sold them.
   • They were sold because of their own iniquities.
   • Their mother was sent away because of their transgressions.
2. 50:2
   • The LORD asks why no one was there when he came.
   • The LORD asks why no one answered when he called.
   • The LORD asks whether his hand is too short to redeem.
   • The LORD asks whether he has no power to deliver.
   • At his rebuke he dries up the sea.
   • He turns rivers into a wilderness.
   • The fish of those waters stink because there is no water.
   • The fish die of thirst.
3. 50:3
   • The LORD clothes the heavens with darkness.
   • The LORD makes sackcloth their covering.
4. 50:4
   • The Lord GOD has given the speaker the tongue of those who are taught.
   • The purpose is that the speaker should know how to answer the weary with a word; the Hebrew verb here is of uncertain meaning, rendered as sustaining or as speaking in season.
   • The Lord GOD wakens the speaker morning by morning.
   • The Lord GOD wakens the speaker's ear to hear as those who are taught.
5. 50:5
   • The Lord GOD has opened the speaker's ear.
   • The speaker was not rebellious.
   • The speaker did not turn back.
6. 50:6
   • The speaker gave his back to those who struck him.
   • The speaker gave his cheeks to those who pulled out the hair.
   • The speaker did not hide his face from insults and from spitting.
7. 50:7
   • The Lord GOD will help the speaker.
   • Therefore the speaker is not disgraced.
   • Therefore the speaker has set his face like flint.
   • The speaker knows that he will not be put to shame.
8. 50:8
   • The one who declares the speaker righteous is near.
   • The speaker asks who will contend with him.
   • The speaker calls for them to stand together.
   • The speaker asks who is the master of his case against him.
   • The speaker tells such a one to come near to him.
9. 50:9
   • The Lord GOD will help the speaker.
   • The speaker asks who it is that will condemn him.
   • All of them will wear out like a garment.
   • The moth will eat them.
10. 50:10
    • The speaker asks who among them fears the LORD.
    • The speaker asks who among them obeys the voice of his servant.
    • Such a one walks in darkness and has no light.
    • Let him trust in the name of the LORD.
    • Let him lean upon his God.
11. 50:11
    • All of them kindle a fire.
    • They gird themselves about with firebrands.
    • They are told to walk in the light of their fire.
    • They are told to walk in the firebrands they have kindled.
    • This is what they will receive from the LORD's hand.
    • They will lie down in sorrow.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

50:1

"The LORD" printed in capitals stands in for the personal Hebrew name of God, which the King James translators replaced with a title. The divorce paper is a legal document: under Israelite law a husband who ended a marriage had to give the wife a written certificate of release, and without it she had no proof she was free to go. Selling children to a creditor was also a real legal practice (a debtor who could not pay could hand over his children to work off the debt as slaves. Both questions expect the answer "there is none": no document was ever written, no creditor was ever paid. The people are addressed as the children, and the nation) or the city Jerusalem, is pictured as their mother.

50:2

"Is my arm too short" is a Hebrew idiom for lacking the reach or power to act; it says nothing about the size of a limb. "Buy you back" translates the word for redeeming, paying the price to recover a relative or a piece of property that has passed into someone else's hands. Drying up the sea and turning rivers into desert echo the escape from Egypt through the sea and the crossing of the Jordan.

50:3

Sackcloth was coarse, dark cloth woven from goat hair, worn next to the skin as a public sign of mourning or distress. The darkening sky is pictured as the heavens putting on mourning clothes.

50:4

From here through verse 9 the speaker changes: an unnamed "I", identified only as the LORD's servant in verse 10, speaks instead of God. The King James has no quotation marks to mark the shift. "The tongue of someone who has been taught" translates a word meaning a pupil or disciple; the same word is used again at the end of the verse, so the speaker is both a learner and able to speak to others. "Wakes my ear" is an idiom for being roused to pay attention. Where the King James prints "Lord GOD," the Hebrew has a title plus the personal name of God.

50:5

"Opened my ears", literally "dug open the ear", is an idiom for being made able and willing to hear an instruction. In Hebrew, hearing and obeying are the same word, so the phrase carries both.

50:6

Tearing out a man's beard was among the gravest humiliations in that culture: a beard marked adult standing, and it was cut or torn off prisoners and captives to shame them. Spitting in someone's face was a formal public act of contempt, used in legal settings as well as in insult.

50:7

"Set my face" toward something is a Hebrew idiom for fixing on a course of action and refusing to be turned aside from it.

50:8

This verse and the next use courtroom language throughout. "Declares me in the right" is the verb for a judge acquitting an accused person. "Who has a charge to bring against me" is literally "who is the master of my case", the opposing party in a lawsuit. Standing and facing each other is what the two sides of a legal dispute do before a judge.

50:9

Clothing was expensive and handed down through a family, and moth damage was the standard image for something valuable quietly destroyed over time rather than struck down at a blow.

50:10

"Fears the LORD" is the ordinary Hebrew phrase for taking God seriously and holding him in awe; it does not mean being frightened of him. "His servant" points back to the speaker of verses 4-9. The Hebrew here can be divided in more than one way, either as a single question (who fears the LORD and yet walks in darkness?) or as two separate ones, and translations differ.

50:11

The word rendered "torches" means firebrands, burning sticks carried for light. The picture is of people kindling their own light rather than waiting in the dark and trusting, as verse 10 describes. "From my hand" is an idiom meaning "brought about by me." The final phrase is uncertain in Hebrew: it can be read as "you will lie down in pain" or as "you will lie down in a place of torment."