Isaiah 50 WBT
Summary: The LORD asks rhetorically whether He has divorced or sold His people into debt, clarifying it was their own iniquities that caused their exile, not any failure or weakness on His part, for His hand is not shortened. The Servant speaks again, describing being taught by the LORD to sustain the weary with a word, and his own obedience under suffering — giving his back to those who struck him and his cheeks to those who plucked his beard, not hiding his face from shame and spitting, confident "the Lord GOD will help me" (v. 7). The chapter calls those who fear the LORD and obey His Servant's voice, yet walk in darkness, to trust in the name of the LORD even without light. It closes warning those who instead kindle their own fires of self-reliance that they will lie down in sorrow.
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.
2Why, 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 becometh putrid, because [there is] no water, and dieth for thirst.
3I clothe the heavens with blackness, and I make sackcloth their covering.
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 my ear to hear as the learned.
5The Lord GOD opened my 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.
8[He is] near that justifieth me; who will contend with me? let us stand together; who [is] my 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.
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 rely upon his God.
11Behold, all ye that kindle a fire, that encompass [yourselves] with sparks: walk in the light of your fire, and in the sparks [that] ye have kindled. This shall ye have of my hand; ye shall lie down in sorrow.
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