Chapter Fifty

1-3. Israel’s sins and transgressions as the reason for God’s abandonment of it. 4-9. The self-denying service of the people by the Messiah, assisted by the Lord Himself. 10-11. Encouragement of believers in the Messiah-Savior and a terrible judgment over those who do not believe in Him.

Isa 50:1-3. The introductory section of the present chapter is so closely connected with the content of the preceding one that many commentators do not separate them at all, but begin the independent section of chapter 50 only from the fourth verse (Bp. Peter, Dillmann, Duhm, etc.). In chapter 49, in response to Zion’s complaint that the Lord forgot and abandoned it (14), the prophet answered thoroughly that the Lord never forgot and cannot forget His faithful Zion, and that He, on the contrary, will multiply, exalt, glorify, and set it high above all its enemies. But, as we have repeatedly noted above, all these promises referred only to the “faithful Zion,” that is, to the spiritual Israel, or the New Testament Church, where only a small “remnant” of historical, carnal Israel will enter; the majority of it will remain outside the Church and beyond God’s special care for it. Finding it just that the aforesaid complaint of being abandoned and forsaken by God also came from this majority, the prophet does not leave his answer unclear, convincingly proving that the responsibility for such a sad outcome lies not with God, Who did everything to preserve and keep the Jewish people with Him, but with this same disobedient and perfidious people.

Isaiah 50:1. Thus says the Lord: Where is the bill of your mother’s divorce, by which I sent her away? Or which of My creditors did I sell you to? Behold, you are sold for your iniquities, and your mother is sent away for your transgressions. “Where is the bill of your mother’s divorce, with which I sent her away?” Based on the context of the speech, by “mother” of the sons of Israel complaining here (Isa 49:14) should be understood Zion, or Jerusalem, as the spiritual-political center of all united Israel. The analogy of God’s relationship to Israel with a marriage or family union in general is one of the most commonly used images in the Bible, especially frequently encountered in the reproving and exhorting speeches of the prophets (Hos 2:4; Jer 3:1; Ezek 16 and Ezek 17 chapters and others). Particularly instructive in this respect is the allegorical image of an adulterous wife, detailed in the first three chapters of the prophet Hosea (1-3 chapters). But the main point here, properly speaking, is not this. From the universally recognized analogy of the Highest’s relationship to Zion as a husband to wife, the prophet wants to derive the answer to the posed question: why did the Lord abandon the majority of Israel? Ordinarily, when such mutual separation between spouses occurs among the Hebrews, it is always based on a bill of divorce, which according to the law the husband must give to the wife he is dismissing, indicating the very reason for the divorce (Deut 24:1-3). Consequently, when the initiative for divorce comes from the husband, the wife always possesses a special, important document, often completely rehabilitating her in the eyes of strangers, third parties. The prophet now demands from the wife sent away by God, Israel, the presentation of this document. It turns out that the mother of Israel’s sons does not have such a document; consequently, the Lord, as the other party in this broken marriage, cannot be blamed even in the slightest for this divorce, which entirely falls to the account of the second, solely guilty party, that is, the mother of Israel herself. “Behold, you are sold for your iniquities, and your mother is sent away for your transgressions.” Herein lies the true reason that the majority of Israel found itself deprived of divine protection. It is not from the Lord that the rejection of His people comes (Rom 11:1-2) and He did not sell His children. They themselves rejected the Holy and Righteous One (Acts 3:14) and one of His disciples sold his Teacher (St. Petersburg Professor).

Isaiah 50:2. Why, when I came, was there no one, and when I called, no one answered? Is My hand shortened at all, that it cannot redeem? Or have I no power to deliver? Behold, by My rebuke I dry up the sea, I turn the rivers into a desert; the fish in them stink for lack of water and die of thirst. “Why, when I came, was there no one, and when I called, no one answered?” If the Lord had given Israel a bill of divorce, He would bear a certain measure of responsibility for the separation that occurred. In reality, however, He did not sympathize with or contribute to such a separation, but on the contrary, cared for its strengthening and power, although He did not meet a corresponding response from the other side. “Behold, by My rebuke I dry up the sea, I turn the rivers into a desert; the fish in them stink for lack of water and die of thirst.” These words give a fairly transparent hint at facts of God’s visitation of Israel, that is, the rendering of help and protection to it, as, for example, at the crossing of the Hebrews through the Red Sea (Exod 14), or at the dividing of the waters of the Jordan in the time of Joshua (Josh 3:1), or at the turning of water into blood during the Egyptian plagues (Exod 7:20-21). But Jerusalem, which beat the prophets and stoned those sent from the Lord, did not understand even on the day of the solemn entry of the Lord into it that which served for its salvation and peace, as the Lord Jesus Christ Himself witnessed (Matt 23:37).

Isaiah 50:3. I clothe the heavens with darkness and make sackcloth their covering. “I clothe the heavens with darkness and make sackcloth their covering.” It is hardly necessary here to seek indications of any specific historical facts: apparently, this is the customary reference in the Holy Scripture of both covenants to the Almighty of the Creator, having its full sense also in the present case, as testimony to the immutability and faithfulness of the Highest, presenting a complete contrast to the treachery of the Jewish people (Jer 4:28; Ezek 32:7-8; Joel 2:10; Joel 3:15; Luke 21:25). In view of all this, the guilt of Israel itself for its rejection by God becomes obvious to all, and the judgment of the Lord Himself: “Behold, your house is left... empty” (Matt 23:38) is completely understandable and profoundly just.

Isaiah 50:4. The Lord God has given Me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary; He awakens Me morning by morning; He awakens My ear to hear as the learned. Isaiah 50:5. The Lord God has opened My ear, and I was not rebellious; I did not turn away backward. From the fourth verse begins a new speech, or more precisely, a return to one that occurred earlier—about the Son of God, His service, and characteristics (Isa 49:2-8 and Isa 52:6-7). Its connection with the preceding chapter 49 will become completely natural and clear if we exclude from the content of these two chapters the involuntary digressions (Isa 49:14; Isa 50:3), caused by the necessity to examine the unfounded complaints of Israel against the Most High.

Isaiah 49:2. “The Lord God has given Me the tongue of the learned, that I should speak a word in season to him that is weary... (He) has opened My ear, and I was not rebellious, I did not turn away backward.” Even blessed Jerome complained that the Jews of his time, wishing to distort the meaning of messianic prophecies, interpreted, among other things, the present passage in the sense that they referred it to the personality of the prophet Isaiah himself and saw in it a simple divine encouragement to the prophet not to lose heart and not to weaken in his preaching to the people. In exactly the same way, the majority of the newest, rationalistically-minded exegetes (Grotius, Calvin, Baur, Gesenius, Umbreit, Hitzig, Hoffmann, Knobel, Briggs and many others) deal with this prophecy. But a more careful analysis of this prophecy and an impartial comparison of it, both with the context of the speech and with parallels, convinces us that the subject of the speech here is not the prophet, but the Messiah already known to us. The very first testimony that the speaker gives here about himself, that the Lord gave him the tongue of the learned, gives both a strong refutation of the rationalistic hypothesis (“the prophet would hardly have glorified his own virtues”—Orelli justly remarks—page 183) and weighty support for our opinion, insofar as it reveals a very close similarity of this image with an earlier, undoubtedly messianic place: “and made My mouth like a sharp sword” (Isaiah 49:2 our commentary on this passage). The power of His word and the tongue of His divine wisdom the Messiah revealed even as a twelve-year-old child in the Jerusalem temple before the assembly of scribes and Pharisees (Luke 2:47). Concerning His subsequent, properly messianic preaching, the Savior, all the evangelists agree in remarking: “and they were astonished at His teaching, for His word was with authority” (Luke 4:32; Matt 7:28-29). Regarding the content and origin of this preaching, the prophet, as is his custom, proposes a special image. The relationship of the Highest to His Servant he compares with the relationship of a careful and insistent teacher to a diligent and attentive student: just as such a teacher daily awakens his student in the morning and in every way maintains his attention and hearing (“awakens his ear”), so the Lord opens the ear of him who listens to Him and places in it the content of a certain teaching. It is curious that this image (“You have opened my ears for me”) appears again in one psalm, which generally has a rather close relationship to the passage under consideration from the prophet Isaiah (Ps 39:7). But an interesting history occurred with the text of that psalm: The Hebrew masoretic text translated it literally: “You have opened my ears.” The Septuagint and our Slavic translation, however, translated it quite differently: “A body you have prepared for me.” This translation should be recognized as very ancient and authoritative, because the apostle Paul in his Epistle to the Hebrews cites precisely it (Heb 10:5) and sees in it a prophecy of the great sacrifice of Golgotha. Indeed, the connection of this prophecy of Isaiah with the idea of sacrifice becomes evident from the subsequent context: I was not rebellious, I did not turn away backward. Obviously, the Messiah, depicted here in the position of an attentive student (“with open ear”), is also drawn as a very obedient student, as the apostle confirms, saying: “He humbled Himself, becoming obedient even to death, and death on a cross.” (Phil 2:8). The general sense of the two verses we are examining here will therefore be as follows. The Messiah will receive from God a wonderful gift of persuasion and wisdom, which He will direct chiefly toward helping all those who are weary in the difficult struggle of life against religious, moral, and social injustice (Isa 42:7; Isa 61:1-2; Matt 11:28). And all this—both the words and the deeds of the Messiah—is not a product of His own imagination, but the direct revelation of the will of God Himself; “I can do nothing of Myself. As I hear, I judge, and My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of the Father who sent Me” (John 5:30). “I... do nothing of Myself, but as My Father taught Me, so I speak. And He who sent Me is with Me; the Father has not left Me alone, for I always do those things that please Him” (John 8:28-29). The Son is so “learned obedience” to God the Father that for this reason He goes to the greatest self-sacrifice of humiliation and servitude, down to shameful death itself: “Behold, I come; in the scroll of the book it is written of Me: I delight to do Your will, O My God” (Ps 39:8-9). “Not My will, but Yours be done” (Luke 22:42); although, indeed, both of these wills, in virtue of the consubstantiality of the Godhead, coincide perfectly with one another: “I and My Father are one” (John 10:30).

Isaiah 50:6. I gave My back to those who beat Me, and My cheeks to those who struck Me; I did not hide My face from insults and spitting. “I gave My back to the smiters and My cheeks to those plucking out the beard; I did not hide My face from shame and spitting.” If the end of the preceding verse still spoke rather obscurely of the state of voluntary humiliation and crucifixion death of the Messiah, this verse speaks of all this with such striking prophetic clarity as strongly reminds us of the historical narratives of the evangelists (Matt 26:67; Matt 27:26-30; John 19:1-4; and others). “All that was typological in the personality of Job (Job 30:10), that was depicted typologically-prophetically about suffering in the psalms of David (Ps 21:17-18), of which the prophet Jeremiah spoke in his mournful speeches (Jer 20:10), all this finds perfect fulfillment in the personality of the Messiah” (Delitzsch). Hebraists find that instead of the word “smiters” should stand “tearing out the hair from me.” This is already such a detail of torments about which the evangelists are silent; but that it was quite possible is attested by an analogous case from the post-exilic period (Nehem 13:25). On the whole, in the force of its pictorial quality and clarity, this verse can be placed in parallel only with chapter 53 of the prophet Isaiah (verse 5 and following).

Isaiah 50:7. The Lord God helps Me; therefore I am not confounded; therefore I have set My face like a flint, and I know that I will not be ashamed. From verses 7-9 comes the clarification of the true character of such voluntary humiliation of the Messiah. In the eyes of self-deluded Jews, such humiliation of the Messiah could shake His authority and give occasion for refusing to recognize Him as the Messiah. The prophet hastens here to prevent this false excuse and disperse this prejudice, continuing to speak again from the Face of the Messiah Himself. “Humiliated by men and abandoned by all (Matt 26:31; Mark 14:27), He does not lose heart and does not come into confusion, knowing that the Lord, His Father, is his helper and defender (John 16:32; John 8:29), that no one can convict Him “of sin” (John 8:46); and all his opponents, being at the same time opponents of God (John 12:47-50), will perish from moral corruption (John 8:24) like a garment from moths” (Commentary, St. Petersburg Professor, page 787). “I am not ashamed... I set My face like a flint, and I know I will not be ashamed.” Since the Messiah did not commit any morally transgressive deed for which He should be ashamed, and since everything He did was done from the Face of God Himself and with His ever-present help, He can hold His face high, look boldly everyone in the eye, and be unyielding and firm as a flint before all expressions of human hatred and malice. It is curious that such characteristic expressions as “to be in shame” and “to hold one’s face” occur also in the first part of the book of the prophet Isaiah (Isa 29:22; Isa 37:27).

Isaiah 50:8. Behold, the Lord God will help Me; who is he that condemns Me? Behold, they all shall grow old as a garment; the moth shall eat them up. Isaiah 50:9. Behold, the Lord God helps Me; who is he that condemns Me? Behold, all they that rise up against Me shall be as a worn-out garment, and the moth shall consume them. “He that justifies Me is near... Behold, the Lord God helps Me.” In these words the prophet, as it were, contrasts the unjust judgment of unrighteous judges with the eternal judgment of Divine Justice, before which this temporal humiliation appeared as a source of eternal glory, both of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself and of all who believed in Him (Rom 1:4; 1 Tim 3:16; Acts 3 and others). The very drama in the picture of this judgment is also very characteristic of both parts of the book of the prophet Isaiah (Isa 1:18; Isa 3:13-14; Isa 5:3; Isa 34:5; Isa 41:1 and others). Isa 50:10-11. The last two verses form the natural conclusion of the speech, the first preaching encouragement and at the same time a call to “those who have hearkened” to the voice of the Messiah, while the second announces the heavy fate of those who resist Him.

Isaiah 50:10. Who among you fears the Lord, obeying the voice of His Servant? Who walks in darkness and has no light? Let him trust in the name of the Lord and rely upon his God. “Who among you fears the Lord, obeying the voice of His Servant?” The Septuagint translated the last verb, instead of the indicative form, in the imperative: “let him obey,” which, in view of the subsequent context, will apparently more correctly express the thought of the prophet. Here, therefore, an appeal is made to all those who fear the Lord and strive to come out of darkness into light, so that they would not stubbornly refuse to recognize the Messenger of God as the true Messiah, in Whom the fulfillment of the law and the prophets is concentrated (Matt 5:17).

Isaiah 50:11. Behold, all you that kindle a fire and gird yourselves about with firebrands, walk into the light of your fire and into the firebrands that you have kindled! This shall you have of My hand: you shall lie down in sorrow. “Behold, all you that kindle a fire... walk into the light of your fire.” This verse, as it were, develops the thought of verse 9 about the destruction of all enemies of the Messiah. They themselves by their delusions, vices, and direct enmity have prepared for themselves the terrible fire on which they will find their ultimate destruction. The historical fulfillment of this prophecy can be seen in the tragic account of the last days of Jerusalem (Josephus, “The Jewish War”). “This shall you have of My hand; you shall lie down in sorrow.” That is, for your wickedness God will allow you to receive terrible torments, as another prophet also says: “you shall lose the inheritance of your forefathers, which I gave you, and I will enslave you to your enemies, into a land which you do not know, because you have kindled the fire of My wrath; it will burn forever.” (Jer 17:4). Based on the context and comparison of parallels (Isa 49:2 and others), we must also ascribe this severe judgment to the Messiah. Although this, apparently, does not correspond to the image of the meek, humble, and loving Servant of the Lord, it should not be forgotten that, besides these predominant traits, there were other characteristics in the image of the Messiah, depicting Him as the Righteous Judge and impartial Rewarder (John 5:22; Matt 25). Some commentators (for example, The Pulpit Commentary) find that chapter 50 has no connection with the preceding narrative and is a brief fragment from some lost work, which the compilers of the book of the prophet Isaiah considered necessary to preserve for posterity and include in this book. But a more careful and serious analysis of this chapter clearly shows both its close kinship with the preceding messianic sections (chapters 42 and 49) and its introductory character with respect to the important following chapters (52-53). Much debate in exegetical literature has also been provoked by the question of the subject of the prophecy of this chapter, that is, to whom the predictions contained here refer. We have already seen that most rabbinic and rationalistic commentators consider the subject of the prophecy to be the prophet himself (see commentary on verse 4). Others (Paulus, Seinecke) refer it not to an individual person, but to a collective, understanding by it the best part of the suffering Jewish nation. Against such a peculiar view speaks the direct meaning of the text, analogy with other Old Testament parallels, and especially the striking coincidence with evangelical narratives; we pointed to all this opportunely in the very interpretation of the text. Here, in addition to what has been said, we consider it necessary to add that the Christian antiquity already recognized the messianic meaning of this chapter. Thus, Saint Justin the Martyr in his “Apology,” verse 6 of chapter 50, considers it the clearest prophecy of the sufferings of Jesus Christ. Tertullian in the Fourth Book against Marcion, verse 6 of chapter 50, places it on a level with messianic psalms (2, 21) and chapter 53 of Isaiah, referring all of this to the sufferings of the Savior. In the same way, do Holy Irenaeus of Lyons, blessed Jerome, Saint Cyprian, and others. Finally, many medieval and modern exegetes (Cornelius a Lapide, Calmet, Allioli, Paulus, Hengstenberg, Dillmann, Orelli, etc.) also recognize the Christological significance of this prophecy. See more detail in the dissertation of I. Grigoriev “Prophecies of Isaiah about the Messiah and His Kingdom,” pages 175-178. On this basis, the Holy Church offers the prophecy of this chapter as a patristic reading in the Friday of Holy Week at the third hour (Isa 50:4-11 verse). * * * Also, apparently, one can interpret it as a prophecy about the granting to believers of the Body of Christ in communion with the Lord? Editor’s note.