Isaiah 50:1

CHAPTER L

In this chapter God vindicates his dealings with his people,

whose alienation is owing to themselves, 1.

And, by allusion to the temporal deliverances connected with

the drying up of the Red Sea and the Euphrates, asserts his

power to save, 2, 3;

namely, by the obedience and sufferings of the Messiah, 4-6;

who was at length to prove victorious over all his enemies,

7-9.

The two last verses exhort to faith and trust in God in the

most disconsolate circumstances; with a denunciation of

vengeance on those who should trust to their own devices,

10, 11.

NOTES ON CHAP. L

Verse Isaiah 50:1. 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, Deuteronomy 24:1. And fathers, being oppressed with debt, often sold their children, which they might do for a time, till the year of release, Exodus 21:7. That this was frequently practised, 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, 2 Kings 4:1, complains "that the creditor is come to take unto him her two sons to be bondmen." And in the parable, Matthew 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.