Isaiah 50

Isaiah 50:1

Thus saith the LORD, Where is the bill of your mother’s divorceement, 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.

How willing ye are, to put off the fault and cause of your punishment, from yourselves, to me, saith the Lord! as if I had put you away, and cast you off, being once my acknowledged wife, without all just reason; or, being once my acknowledged children, had sold you to my creditors: go to, then; let the bill of divorce be shewed, that it may appear why I rejected you; and let it be known how and to which of my creditors I have, upon any contract, put you over: no, ye people of Israel, ye are they, who have sold yourselves for your iniquity, and for your wicked and adulterous misdemeanours are ye put away.

Isaiah 50:2

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?

Whereas ye ought to have sought me, I have sought you, and been disregarded: when I came to you in my gracious solicitations, and invited and called you by my loving admonitions, you turned the deaf ear, and gave no respect unto me: what means this neglect of yours? Am I now less able to help and redeem you than I formerly was?

Isaiah 50:3

I clothe the heavens with blackness, and I make sackcloth their covering.

As I did then overspread Egypt with a three days’ darkness, so I can still, when I please, vail the face of heaven with blackness, and put it into a mourning habit.

Isaiah 50:4

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: he wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned.

God the Father hath given to me, the Messiah his Eternal Word and Son, power to express him fully and exquisitely unto his people; that I should be able to speak comfortably to the weary and distressed souls: he doth not intermit to furnish me continually with his good spirit; but ever assisteth me with his divine and inseparable grace, to all the acts of my mediation.

Isaiah 50:8

He is near that justifieth me; who will contend with me?

My God is with me, yea, He is in me, and one with me, and I with him, so as I cannot but be borne out against all that shall stubbornly contend with me.

Isaiah 50:10

That walketh in darkness, and hath no light.

That seeth nothing but cause of discomfort and dejection, without all appearance of mitigation. VOL. III. C C

Isaiah 50:11

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 you have of mine hand; ye shall lie down in sorrow.

Behold, all ye, that, out of your own thoughts raise up to yourselves imaginary comforts, not fetching true grounds of consolation from above; make use of those your own devices; please yourselves in your own projects: all, that ye shall get at my hands, is sorrow and disappointment.