Read & Study the Bible Online - Bible Portal
Matthew Henry

Matthew Henry's Complete Commentary - Isaiah 50:1-3

Those who have professed to be the people of God, and yet seem to be dealt severely with, are apt to complain of God, and to lay the fault upon him, as if he had been hard with them. But, in answer to their murmurings, we have here, I. A challenge given them to prove, or produce any evidence, that the quarrel began on God's side, Isa. 50:1. They could not say that he had done them any wrong or had acted arbitrarily. 1. He had been a husband to them; and husbands were then allowed a power to... read more

John Gill

John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Isaiah 50:1

Thus saith the Lord ,.... Here begins a new discourse or prophecy, and therefore thus prefaced, and is continued in the following chapter: where is the bill of your mother's divorcement, whom I have put away ? these words are directed to the Jews, who stood in the same relation to the Jewish church, or synagogue, as children to a mother; and so the Targum interprets "your mother" by "your congregation", or synagogue; who were rejected from being a church and people; had a "loammi"... read more

John Gill

John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Isaiah 50:2

Wherefore, when I came, was there no man ?.... The Targum is, "why have I sent my prophets, and they are not converted?' And so Aben Ezra and Kimchi interpret it of the prophets that prophesied unto them, to bring them to repentance: the Lord might be said to come by his prophets, his messengers; but they did not receive them, nor their messages, but despised and rejected them, and therefore were carried captive, 2 Chronicles 36:15 , but it is best to understand it of the coming of... read more

John Gill

John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Isaiah 50:3

I clothe the heavens with blackness ,.... With gross and thick darkness; perhaps referring to the three days' darkness the Egyptians were in, Exodus 10:12 , or with thick and black clouds, as in tempestuous weather frequently; or by eclipses of the sun; there was an extraordinary instance of great darkness at the time of Christ's crucifixion, Matthew 27:45 . and I make sackcloth their covering ; that being black, and used in times of mourning; the allusion may be to the tents of... read more

Adam Clarke

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible - 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... read more

Adam Clarke

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible - Isaiah 50:2

Their fish stinketh "Their fish is dried up" - For תבאש tibaosh , stinketh, read תיבש tibash , is dried up; so it stands in the Bodl. MS., and it is confirmed by the Septuagint, ξηρανθησονται , they shall be dried up. read more

Spence, H. D. M., etc.

The Pulpit Commentary - Isaiah 50:1

Where is the bill of your mother's divorcement? On account of her persistent "backsliding," God had "put away Israel," Judah's sister, and had "given her a bill of divorce" ( Isaiah 3:8 ). But he had not repudiated Judah; and her children were wrong to suppose themselves altogether cast off (see Isaiah 49:14 ). They had, in fact, by their transgressions, especially their idolatries, wilfully divorced themselves, or at any rate separated themselves, from God; but no sentence had gone... read more

Spence, H. D. M., etc.

The Pulpit Commentary - Isaiah 50:1

Selling ourselves. " For your iniquities have ye sold yourselves." Reference is to the right which fathers in the East possessed, of selling their children into slavery; and also to the power of judges to condemn malefactors to slavery. The Jews sold themselves to work wickedness, and the judgment which came upon them, in their being sold into the hands of their Babylonian enemies, was consequently, in fact, their own work. They might say that they were sold; God convicts them by... read more

Spence, H. D. M., etc.

The Pulpit Commentary - Isaiah 50:1-3

Explanation of exile. The Lord would impress on his exiled people that their calamities found their explanation not in him but in themselves; and we shall find, when we look, that this is the account of our estrangement and distance from God. I. WHAT ACCOUNTED FOR ISRAEL 'S EXILE ? 1 . It was not any fickleness in God. He had not acted toward Israel as a husband often acted toward the wife of whom he was weary; there had been no changeableness on his part. 2 . It was ... read more

Group of Brands