Isaiah 50

Chap. L. Ver. 1—11. God justifies his own conduct: Messiah predicts his own sufferings.—Jewish 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 till the year of release. ((Exodus 21:7).) That this was frequently practised appears from many passages of scripture. The widow ((2 Kings 4:1).) complains, that the creditor was come to take 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.

‘But this (saith God) cannot be my case;” I am not governed by any such motives, nor urged by any such necessity: your captivity, [your] folly and wickedness! Thus God justifies himself against the murmurs and repinings of his ungrateful [people]. At verse 4, the Messiah is evidently introduced, and some of his bitterest sufferings predicted, according to the interpretation of St. Matthew, ((Isaiah 26:67); xxvii. 26.) But he appeals to the Almighty Father as his protector, so far as was consistent with the great object of his incarnation. (See (Matthew 26:39, 53, 54).) The two last verses contain an exhortation to faith and confidence in God, with a warning to those who trusted in their own strength and righteousness.