Isaiah 50
Isaiah 50 opens in the middle of an argument. The people have been muttering that God has thrown them away - cast off like a divorced wife, sold off like a debtor's children - and the LORD answers the charge head-on: Where is the bill of your mother's divorcement, whom I have put away? or which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you? (v. 1). There is no certificate, because there was no divorce; there is no creditor, because no sale was ever made. The truth is the reverse of the complaint: for your iniquities have ye sold yourselves. If God seems far off, it is not because His arm is too short to reach. He who dries up the sea and clothes the heavens in mourning has lost none of His power to save.3
Then the voice changes. A single figure begins to speak - the Servant - and this is the third of the four great Servant Songs that run through this part of Isaiah. He describes a life of listening and a calling to comfort: The Lord GOD hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary (v. 4). He is wakened morning by morning to hear, and He does not pull back from what He hears. His obedience leads Him straight into suffering He does not resist: I gave my back to the smiters… I hid not my face from shame and spitting (v. 6). And through all of it His confidence holds, because the Lord GOD will help me (v. 7).2
The Song closes like a courtroom in which the verdict is already certain. The Servant stands and calls for any accuser to step forward: He is near that justifieth me; who will contend with me?… who is he that shall condemn me? (vv. 8-9). No charge will stand. Then the chapter turns to the reader and lays down two roads. To the one walking in darkness with no light, it says: let him trust in the name of the LORD, and stay upon his God (v. 10). To the one who would rather walk by a fire of his own kindling, it gives a sober warning - ye shall lie down in sorrow (v. 11). The Servant's steady trust and the reader's choice turn out to be the same question asked twice.
Tap any highlighted phrase to jump to the commentary that unpacks it.
Isaiah 50:1-3Is My Hand Shortened, That It Cannot Redeem?
1Thus saith the LORD, Where is the bill of your mother's divorcement, whom I have put away? or which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you? Behold, for your iniquities have ye sold yourselves, and for your transgressions is your mother put away. 2Wherefore, when I came, was there no man? when I called, was there none to answer? Is my hand shortened at all, that it cannot redeem? or have I no power to deliver? behold, at my rebuke I dry up the sea, I make the rivers a wilderness: their fish stinketh, because there is no water, and dieth for thirst. 3I clothe the heavens with blackness, and I make sackcloth their covering.
The chapter opens with God answering a complaint that has not even been spoken aloud, but that hangs in the air over a people in exile: You have abandoned us. You have cast us off. The LORD takes up the two images His people would have reached for and turns them inside out. A man who divorced his wife handed her a bill of divorcement, a legal certificate releasing her; a man crushed by debt might be forced to sell his own children to a creditor. So God asks: where is the certificate? Which creditor holds the receipt? Where is the bill of your mother's divorcement, whom I have put away? or which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you? (v. 1). The questions answer themselves. There is no document, because there was no divorce; there is no buyer, because there was no sale. The covenant was never dissolved from God's side. And then the real cause is named without flinching: for your iniquities have ye sold yourselves. The separation is real, but the people authored it. They were not handed over by a God who tired of them; they walked out, and walked into bondage, on their own feet. It is a piercing thing to hear - that the distance we feel from God is so often a distance we created - and Isaiah states it plainly so that the rest of the chapter can offer a way back.
Having cleared away the false charge, the LORD presses a second question, and this one is about power: Wherefore, when I came, was there no man? when I called, was there none to answer? Is my hand shortened at all, that it cannot redeem? or have I no power to deliver? (v. 2). The complaint behind exile is not only you abandoned us but you could not save us. God meets it by pointing to what His hand has done. A shortened hand is the Hebrew way of saying an arm too weak to reach, a strength run out. Is that the trouble? Hardly. At my rebuke I dry up the sea - the memory of the Red Sea is unmistakable, the waters that fled at His word - I make the rivers a wilderness… I clothe the heavens with blackness, and I make sackcloth their covering (vv. 2-3). The God speaking here commands the sea and dresses the sky in mourning at will. His arm is not short. The point lands with quiet force: when God seems silent, the explanation is never that He has run out of power. He came, and no one was there to meet Him; He called, and no one answered. The failure was on the side of the people who would not turn, not on the side of a God who could not act.
Isaiah 50:4-9I Gave My Back to the Smiters
4The Lord GOD hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary: he wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned. 5The Lord GOD hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back. 6I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting. 7For the Lord GOD will help me; therefore shall I not be confounded: therefore have I set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed. 8He is near that justifieth me; who will contend with me? let us stand together: who is mine adversary? let him come near to me. 9Behold, the Lord GOD will help me; who is he that shall condemn me? lo, they all shall wax old as a garment; the moth shall eat them up.
The Servant's first words are not about His suffering but about His ear and His tongue. The Lord GOD hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary (v. 4). This is the calling underneath everything that follows: a tongue trained to say the right thing to a person at the end of their strength. Note the aim of all that learning - not to win debates or impress crowds, but to speak a word in season to him that is weary. And note where the trained tongue comes from. It begins with a trained ear. He wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned. The Servant is pictured as a pupil roused at dawn, day after day, to sit and listen before He ever speaks. His authority to comfort the weary is drawn from a lifetime of listening to God first. The order matters and corrects a habit we fall into easily: we want the words to give others without the long, daily, unglamorous work of hearing. The Servant's power to say the right thing rests on His willingness to be wakened, morning by morning, and to hear.1
The Servant continues: The Lord GOD hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back (v. 5). The opened ear of verse 4 now becomes the obedient will of verse 5 - and the link between them is the whole point. To truly hear God is already to be on the way to obeying Him; the Servant does not separate the listening from the doing. I was not rebellious is set against the entire history of the people just described, who would not answer when God called (v. 2). Where they turned away, He does not. Neither turned away back - He does not start down the path of obedience and then retreat when He sees where it leads. And He has, by now, seen exactly where it leads, because the next verse spells it out. That is what makes this verse so weighty: the Servant says I was not rebellious with full knowledge of the cost. His obedience is not the ease of someone who does not yet understand the price. It is the steadiness of someone who understands the price completely and does not turn back anyway.
Now the cost is named, and it is brutal: I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting (v. 6). Every clause is an act of submission rather than a thing merely suffered. He gave His back to be flogged; He offered His cheeks to those who tore out His beard, an act of utter contempt in that world; He did not hide His face from the spitting and the shame. He could have turned away, shielded Himself, refused - and chose not to. Yet the verse that follows is not a cry of despair but a declaration of confidence: For the Lord GOD will help me; therefore shall I not be confounded: therefore have I set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed (v. 7). Flint is the hardest of common stones, the rock struck to make fire and shaped into blades. To set one's face like a flint is to fix it with absolute, unbending resolve. The same face He would not hide from the spitting (v. 6) He now sets like stone toward His task (v. 7). And the source of that resolve is named twice over: the Lord GOD will help me. The Servant is not steeled by His own grit. He is unshakeable because He is certain He will not be abandoned.1
The Song closes in the language of a courtroom, and the Servant speaks like a defendant who already knows the verdict: He is near that justifieth me; who will contend with me? let us stand together: who is mine adversary? let him come near to me (v. 8). The challenge is bold to the point of defiance - let any accuser step forward and stand here beside me. But the boldness is not self-confidence; it rests entirely on the One standing with Him: He is near that justifieth me. The God who declares Him in the right is close at hand, and so no charge can stand. The next verse repeats the ground and then dismisses every opponent: Behold, the Lord GOD will help me; who is he that shall condemn me? lo, they all shall wax old as a garment; the moth shall eat them up (v. 9). The accusers are real, but they are not durable. Set against the help of the Lord GOD, they are like an old coat - fraying, moth-eaten, on their way to nothing. The Servant who was struck and spat upon does not answer His abusers with their own weapons. He simply trusts the One who will vindicate Him, and lets time and God reduce every accusation to a worn-out rag.
Isaiah 50:10-11Walk in the Light of the LORD, Not Your Own Fire
10Who is among you that feareth the LORD, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness, and hath no light? let him trust in the name of the LORD, and stay upon his God. 11Behold, all ye that kindle a fire, that compass yourselves about with sparks: walk in the light of your fire, and in the sparks that ye have kindled. This shall ye have of mine hand; ye shall lie down in sorrow.
After the Servant has spoken, the chapter turns to the listener with a searching question: Who is among you that feareth the LORD, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness, and hath no light? (v. 10). It describes a very particular kind of person - one who genuinely fears the LORD and obeys the Servant's voice, and who is nonetheless walking in darkness, and hath no light. This is worth dwelling on. The darkness here is not the result of sin or disobedience; it falls on the faithful one, the very person who is listening and obeying. Sometimes the obedient walk leads straight into a stretch of road where nothing can be seen ahead. To such a person the counsel is not find a light of your own but something harder and better: let him trust in the name of the LORD, and stay upon his God. To stay upon God is to lean the whole weight of yourself on Him, the way a tired traveler leans on a staff. When you cannot see the way, you are not told to manufacture sight; you are told to lean. Faith here is not the absence of darkness but trust held onto in the middle of it - resting on who God is when you cannot make out where He is taking you.
Against that picture the chapter sets its opposite, and the warning is sober: Behold, all ye that kindle a fire, that compass yourselves about with sparks: walk in the light of your fire, and in the sparks that ye have kindled. This shall ye have of mine hand; ye shall lie down in sorrow (v. 11). Here is the other response to the darkness. Rather than trust the name of the LORD and lean on God, this person strikes a light of his own - kindle a fire… compass yourselves about with sparks. It is an image of self-rescue, of refusing to wait in the dark and instead surrounding oneself with one's own small, manufactured glow. And God's response carries a terrible irony: walk in the light of your fire… This shall ye have of mine hand; ye shall lie down in sorrow. Very well, He says - walk by your own light, then. But your homemade fire will not last the night; it will gutter out, and you will lie down in sorrow in the dark you tried to escape. The contrast with verse 10 is the whole point of the chapter's ending. There are two ways to face a darkness you cannot dispel: trust the name of the LORD and lean on Him, or light your own fire and walk by sparks. One leads home; the other lies down in sorrow. The Servant who gave His back to the smiters has already shown which way is which - He walked the darkest road of all by trusting that the Lord GOD will help me, and was not put to shame.
Further study
- The Hebrew text of Isaiah 50 with Rashi, Ibn Ezra, and other classical commentators side by side - useful for leshon limmudim (v. 4, the “tongue of the learned”), for chalamish (v. 7, the “flint” the Servant sets His face like), and for the double divine title Adonai YHWH that the KJV renders “Lord GOD” across verses 4, 5, 7, and 9.
- Isaiah 50 ↔ the Passion Narratives · Luke 9 · Romans 8Intertextual BibleTraces the threads tying Isaiah 50 to the rest of Scripture - the back given to the smiters and the face given to shame and spitting (v. 6) read alongside the scourging and mockery of Jesus (Matt. 26:67; 27:26, 30), the face set like a flint (v. 7) read into he stedfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem (Luke 9:51), and the Servant's who is he that shall condemn me? (v. 9) read beside who is he that condemneth? (Rom. 8:34).
- Isaiah 50 - Translators' NotesNET BibleThe NET Bible's detailed footnotes on Isaiah 50 - the divorce-and-sale imagery of verse 1, the LORD's rhetorical questions about His own power in verses 2-3, the much-discussed phrase the tongue of the learned in verse 4, and the legal language of vindication that fills verses 8-9.
Where this echoes in Scripture
Is My Hand Shortened, That It Cannot Redeem?
- Numbers 11:23And the LORD said unto Moses, Is the LORD’s hand waxed short? thou shalt see now whether my word shall come to pass unto thee or not.The same image as verse 2 - the LORD’s hand is never too short to do what He has spoken.
- Isaiah 59:1Behold, the LORD’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear.Isaiah’s own restatement of verse 2 - not God’s weakness but the people’s sin makes the separation.
- Exodus 14:21and the LORD caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea dry land.The drying of the sea God points to in verse 2 - the proof of an arm that has already saved.
- Jeremiah 3:8I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not.The divorce imagery of verse 1 - the covenant pictured as a marriage the people, not God, broke.
I Gave My Back to the Smiters
- Matthew 27:26, 30when he had scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified... And they spit upon him... and smote him on the head.Verse 6 enacted - the back given to the scourge, the face to the spitting and the blows.
- Matthew 26:67Then did they spit in his face, and buffeted him; and others smote him with the palms of their hands.The shame and spitting of verse 6, done to Jesus on the night before the cross.
- Luke 9:51when the time was come that he should be received up, he stedfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem.The face set <em>like a flint</em> of verse 7 - the same fixed resolve toward the appointed suffering.
- Romans 8:33-34It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again.The Servant’s words of verses 8-9 turned outward - no charge can stand against those He justifies.
- Matthew 11:28Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.The Servant’s calling of verse 4 - the word in season for the weary, spoken in person.
Walk in the Light of the LORD, Not Your Own Fire
- John 8:12I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.The answer to verse 11 - the light worth walking by is not one we kindle, but the One the Servant points to.
- Psalm 27:1The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the LORD is the strength of my life.The trust of verse 10 - leaning on the LORD as light when the way ahead is dark.
- Proverbs 3:5Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.The same counsel as verse 10 - lean on God, not on a light of your own making.
- Isaiah 9:2The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.The promise behind verse 10 - light dawns on those in darkness, given by God rather than kindled by them.
- John 12:36While ye have light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light.The choice of verses 10-11 - trust the light God gives, rather than the sparks that gutter out.