Biblion Bible Commentary
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I Gave My Back to the Strikers
Isaiah 50:1-11
1 Yahweh says, “Where is the bill of your mother’s divorce, with which I have put her away? Or to which of my creditors have I sold you? Behold, you were sold for your iniquities, and your mother was put away for your transgressions. · WEB
The third Servant Song: a man wakened every morning to be taught, who does not turn back when the beating starts.
Where is the bill of your mother's divorce, with which I have put her away? Or to which of my creditors have I sold you? Isaiah 50:1.
The chapter opens with two legal questions and both are rhetorical. No divorce certificate exists and no creditor was paid, which means the separation was not a transaction. You were sold for your iniquities — they went for nothing, and nobody received the money.
Is my hand shortened at all, that it can't redeem? Isaiah 50:2.
The question the exile raised.
The Lord Yahweh has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with words him who is weary Isaiah 50:4.
The third Servant Song, and it opens with a description of speech. The tongue is of those who are taught — a learner's tongue, not a master's — and its stated purpose is to hold up one tired person with a word. That is the whole use to which the training is put.
He awakens morning by morning, he awakens my ear to hear as those who are taught.
Daily, and the servant is described as a pupil who is woken for the lesson. Nothing in the song has him speaking from his own resources.
The Lord Yahweh has opened my ear. I was not rebellious. I have not turned back Isaiah 50:5.
And the ear opened in the morning is the ear that hears what the next verse contains.
I gave my back to those who beat me, and my cheeks to those who plucked off the hair. I didn't hide my face from shame and spitting Isaiah 50:6.
Three assaults, and every verb is active. He gave his back; he did not hide his face. What is described is not endurance under compulsion but submission arranged in advance, and each of the three is recorded in the accounts of the trial and the crucifixion Matthew 26:67 Matthew 27:26.
Plucking out the beard was among the gravest humiliations available in that culture, and it is placed between a flogging and being spat on.
Therefore I have set my face like a flint, and I know that I won't be disappointed Isaiah 50:7.
The same face that was not hidden is set like stone. Luke uses the phrase when Jesus turns toward Jerusalem for the last time Luke 9:51.
He who justifies me is near. Who will bring charges against me? Let us stand up together Isaiah 50:8.
A courtroom challenge issued by the man being beaten, and Paul takes it up almost word for word about believers Romans 8:33–34.
Who among you fears Yahweh and obeys the voice of his servant? He who walks in darkness and has no light, let him trust in Yahweh's name Isaiah 50:10.
The application, and it does not promise light. It tells a man who has none what to do in the dark — and the alternative is described in the last verse: people who kindle their own fires and walk by them, and lie down in sorrow Isaiah 50:11.
settled What this mark means