{"collection":"Bible & Christianity","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/bib/cmt/jfb/isa050.htm","path":"bib/cmt/jfb/isa050.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/bib/cmt/jfb/isa050.htm","text":"A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, by Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown [1882]\nWhere . . . 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).\nbill . . . whom--rather, \"the bill with which I have put her away\" [MAURER].\nI--Messiah.\nno man--willing to believe in and obey Me (Isa 52:1, Isa 52:3). The same Divine Person had \"come\" by His prophets in the Old Testament (appealing to them, but in vain, Jer 7:25-26), who was about to come under the New Testament.\nhand shortened--the Oriental emblem of weakness, as the long stretched-out hand is of power (Isa 59:1). Notwithstanding your sins, I can still \"redeem\" you from your bondage and dispersion.\ndry up . . . sea-- (Exo 14:21). The second exodus shall exceed, while it resembles in wonders, the first (Isa 11:11, Isa 11:15; Isa 51:15).\nmake . . . rivers . . . wilderness--turn the prosperity of Israel's foes into adversity.\nfish stinketh--the very judgment inflicted on their Egyptian enemies at the first exodus (Exo 7:18, Exo 7:21).\nheavens . . . blackness--another of the judgments on Egypt to be repeated hereafter on the last enemy of God's people (Exo 10:21).\nsackcloth-- (Rev 6:12).\nMessiah, as \"the servant of Jehovah\" (Isa 42:1), declares that the office has been assigned to Him of encouraging the \"weary\" exiles of Israel by \"words in season\" suited to their case; and that, whatever suffering it is to cost Himself, He does not shrink from it (Isa 50:5-6), for that He knows His cause will triumph at last (Isa 50:7-8).\nlearned--not in mere human learning, but in divinely taught modes of instruction and eloquence (Isa 49:2; Exo 4:11; Mat 7:28-29; Mat 13:54).\nspeak a word in season-- (Pro 15:23; Pro 25:11). Literally, \"to succor by words,\" namely, in their season of need, the \"weary\" dispersed ones of Israel (Deu 28:65-67). Also, the spiritual \"weary\" (Isa 42:3; Mat 11:28).\nwakeneth morning by morning, &c.--Compare \"daily rising up early\" (Jer 7:25; Mar 1:35). The image is drawn from a master wakening his pupils early for instruction.\nwakeneth . . . ear--prepares me for receiving His divine instructions.\nas the learned--as one taught by Him. He \"learned obedience,\" experimentally, \"by the things which He suffered\"; thus gaining that practical learning which adapted Him for \"speaking a word in season\" to suffering men (Heb 5:8).\nopened . . . ear--(See on Isa 42:20; Isa 48:8); that is, hath made me obediently attentive (but MAURER, \"hath informed me of my duty\"), as a servant to his master (compare Psa 40:6-8, with Phi 2:7; Isa 42:1; Isa 49:3, Isa 49:6; Isa 52:13; Isa 53:11; Mat 20:28; Luk 22:27).\nnot rebellious--but, on the contrary, most willing to do the Father's will in proclaiming and procuring salvation for man, at the cost of His own sufferings (Heb 10:5-10).\nsmiters--with scourges and with the open hand (Isa 52:14; Mar 14:65). Literally fulfilled (Mat 27:26; Mat 26:27; Luk 18:33). To \"pluck the hair\" is the highest insult that can be offered an Oriental (Sa2 10:4; Lam 3:30). \"I gave\" implies the voluntary nature of His sufferings; His example corresponds to His precept (Mat 5:39).\nspitting--To spit in another's presence is an insult in the East, much more on one; most of all in the face (Job 30:10; Mat 27:30; Luk 18:32).\nSample of His not being \"discouraged\" (Isa 42:4; Isa 49:5).\nset . . . face like . . . flint--set Myself resolutely, not to be daunted from My work of love by shame or suffering (Eze 3:8-9).\n(Isa 49:4). The believer, by virtue of his oneness with Christ, uses the same language (Psa 138:8; Rom 8:32-34). But \"justify\" in His case, is God's judicial acceptance and vindication of Him on the ground of His own righteousness (Luk 23:44-47; Rom 1:4; Ti1 3:16, with which compare Pe1 3:18); in their case, on the ground of His righteousness and meritorious death imputed to them (Rom 5:19).\nstand together--in judgment, to try the issue.\nadversary--literally, \"master of my cause,\" that is, who has real ground of accusation against me, so that he can demand judgment to be given in his favor (compare Zac 3:1, &c. Rev 12:10).\n(Compare \"deal,\" or \"proper,\" Isa 52:13, Margin; Isa 53:10; Psa 118:6; Jer 23:5).\nas a garment-- (Isa 51:6, Isa 51:8; Psa 102:26). A leading constituent of wealth in the East is change of raiment, which is always liable to the inroads of the moth; hence the frequency of the image in Scripture.\nMessiah exhorts the godly after His example (Isa 49:4-5; Isa 42:4) when in circumstances of trial (\"darkness,\" Isa 47:5), to trust in the arm of Jehovah alone.\nWho is, &c.--that is, Whosoever (Jdg 7:3).\nobeyeth . . . servant--namely, Messiah. The godly \"honor the Son, even as they honor the Father\" (Joh 5:23).\ndarkness-- (Mic 7:8-9). God never had a son who was not sometimes in the dark. For even Christ, His only Son, cried out, \"My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?\"\nlight--rather, \"splendor\"; bright sunshine; for the servant of God is never wholly without \"light\" [VITRINGA]. A godly man's way may be dark, but his end shall be peace and light. A wicked man's way may be bright, but his end shall be utter darkness (Psa 112:4; Psa 97:11; Psa 37:24).\nlet him trust in the name of the Lord--as Messiah did (Isa 50:8-9).\nIn contrast to the godly (Isa 50:10), the wicked, in times of darkness, instead of trusting in God, trust in themselves (kindle a light for themselves to walk by) (Ecc 11:9). The image is continued from Isa 50:10, \"darkness\"; human devices for salvation (Pro 19:21; Pro 16:9, Pro 16:25) are like the spark that goes out in an instant in darkness (compare Job 18:6; Job 21:17, with Psa 18:28).\nsparks--not a steady light, but blazing sparks extinguished in a moment.\nwalk--not a command, but implying that as surely as they would do so, they should lie down in sorrow (Jer 3:25). In exact proportion to mystic Babylon's previous \"glorifying\" of herself shall be her sorrow (Mat 25:30; Mat 8:12; Rev 18:7).","title":"A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments: Isaiah: Isaiah Chapter 50","type":"page"}