A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 51: Your Mother’s Divorcement

A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 51: Your Mother’s Divorcement 

In our last discussion of Isaiah and the final portion of Isaiah chapter 49, we hope to have demonstrated how the children of Israel had moved to A Place of Their Own, as the prophet Nathan had much earlier communicated to king David, in 2 Samuel chapter 7, and as Isaiah had prophesied in that chapter, where he also indicated that in captivity, the children of Israel would multiply greatly, and their enemies would shrink from them, in verse 19 where we read: “19 For thy waste and thy desolate places, and the land of thy destruction, shall even now be too narrow by reason of the inhabitants, and they that swallowed thee up shall be far away.” Then he indicated that they would seek to migrate to a different location, where we then read: “20 The children which thou shalt have, after thou hast lost the other, shall say again in thine ears, The place is too strait for me: give place to me that I may dwell.” The subsequent verses then describe Israel as “desolate, a captive, and removing to and fro”, which is also indicative of their becoming a migratory people and leaving the places of their captivity and making a new home in another land.

In recent portions of this Commentary, we have already cited Isaiah chapter 66 in reference to this outcome, where we read in reference to these same people: “19 And I will set a sign among them, and I will send those that escape of them unto the nations, to Tarshish, Pul, and Lud, that draw the bow, to Tubal, and Javan, to the isles afar off, that have not heard my fame, neither have seen my glory; and they shall declare my glory among the [Nations].” As we had said, all of these places are located in the north and west, from the coasts of the Black Sea to Anatolia and then west to modern Italy and Iberia. Historically, beginning about a hundred years after the time of Isaiah, from the fall of Assyria the people known as Khumri or Kimmerians did migrate in that direction, and they were followed by their kindred for several centuries, who were also known by the names Sakae, Scythian and Galatae, but later as Saxons, Goths, Alans or or by numerous other and later names.

There is another aspect of this prophecy in Isaiah chapter 54, because there these same captive children of Israel are promised that they would inherit the Nations, which is a reference to the Genesis 10 nations. So as Isaiah chapter 49 had proceeded, Yahweh had ensured the children of Israel that the nations and kings of the earth, even those whom had taken them captive, would all become subject to them. This is the inheritance which today, Jews claim for themselves. But here Yahweh is speaking to Israel in captivity, and the people from whom the Judaeans of the second temple period had descended are not in captivity at this point, as they remain in Jerusalem. So this is not promised to Jews, and in any event, Jews should not even be confused with Judah.

So here we have a necessary digression: It was not given to Judah to inherit the promises of Abraham, but to Ephraim. This is why we read, in Genesis chapter 48: “3 And Jacob said unto Joseph, God Almighty appeared unto me at Luz in the land of Canaan, and blessed me, 4 And said unto me, Behold, I will make thee fruitful, and multiply thee, and I will make of thee a multitude of people; and will give this land to thy seed after thee for an everlasting possession. 5 And now thy two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, which were born unto thee in the land of Egypt before I came unto thee into Egypt, are mine; as Reuben and Simeon, they shall be mine.” So Jacob appointed Ephraim and Manasseh to the privilege of being heirs in place of his two oldest sons, Reuben and Simeon, with whom he also had reasons to be displeased. He mentioned the blessings he received at Bethel, or Luz, indicating that he was passing those blessings on to Joseph’s sons.

So later in that chapter of Genesis, it is more explicit that Jacob had passed the blessing of Abraham on to Ephraim and Manasseh, but he placed the younger Ephraim before his elder brother, where we read:

16 The Angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads; and let my name [Israel] be named on them, and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; and let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth. 17 And when Joseph saw that his father laid his right hand upon the head of Ephraim, it displeased him: and he held up his father's hand, to remove it from Ephraim's head unto Manasseh's head. 18 And Joseph said unto his father, Not so, my father: for this is the firstborn; put thy right hand upon his head. 19 And his father refused, and said, I know it, my son, I know it: he also shall become a people, and he also shall be great: but truly his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his seed shall become a multitude of nations. 20 And he blessed them that day, saying, In thee shall Israel bless, saying, God make thee as Ephraim and as Manasseh: and he set Ephraim before Manasseh.

So Jacob passed the names of his fathers onto Ephraim and Manasseh alone, distinguishing them above all of his other sons. Then in the blessings for his other sons which are recorded in Genesis chapter 49, none of them had been promised to become a great nation, although nationhood was certainly implied for at least some of them. But Judah was bequeathed the family scepter, or position of rulership over the family, which was later narrowed to the house of David within Judah. This is not necessarily a blessing, but a burden of responsibility, since only Yahweh God is rightfully the king of Israel.

So it is not the lot of Judah to inherit the nations, or to directly inherit the blessings of Abraham, and as we have demonstrated in many other places, modern jews are not even mainly descended from them. Rather, modern jews are a mixture of a small minority of Judaeans with a preponderance of Edomites and others. It is odd, that today, modern jews do not recognize or distinguish a house of David even among jews, although there are a few crackpots who have made claims of such descent. Modern jews do not even require patrilineal descent in order to be considered a jew, as they consider one a jew only if one’s mother was a jew. Modern jews certainly do not recognize the fact that Yahshua Christ is the legitimate heir to the inheritance of David, but they generally make no claims for themselves. So if there is no house of David ruling over the children of Israel, then there are no nations of Israel, so either God or jews are liars. But of course, God is true, and jews are history’s oldest and most consistent liars.

There is an interesting parallel in the history of Judah himself, as Malachi 2:11 observes the fact that Judah had “married the daughter of a strange god”, which is a reference to Judah’s Canaanite wife, and the later people of the remnant of Judah in Palestine had married themselves to the Edomites about two hundred years before the time of Christ. Then it was also Judah who had wanted to profit by selling Joseph into slavery to the Ishmaelites, in Genesis chapter 37 (37:26), and the people who represent Judah today, whether they be true Judah or jews, are still trying to sell Joseph, or the European nations, to the Arabs, who may marginally represent Ishmael. But the Messiah who has come from Judah has also promised to save Ephraim and Manasseh. In the end, all the house of David shall be ashamed for the death of many millions of Uriahs, and for the adultery which they have committed in the process.

Returning to our discussion of the children of Israel in captivity here in Isaiah, throughout these final chapters Isaiah will return to the themes we have seen here, and continue to describe how they would move to a place of their own. But from the time when the law was given at Sinai, the nation of Israel as a whole had also been considered the wife, or bride, of Yahweh their God. The nation was married to its God at Sinai, when the people agreed to obey His law, and He in turn promised to feed, shelter, nourish and defend them, as an earthly husband is expected to provide for his wife. In Jeremiah chapter 31, in the promise of a new covenant which would be made with the houses of Judah and Israel, we read where it would be made:

32 Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD:

Yahweh became the Husband of Israel when the people were organized under His law at Sinai, and when the first laws were read to them, as it is described in Exodus chapter 19, we read:

6 And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel. 7 And Moses came and called for the elders of the people, and laid before their faces all these words which the LORD commanded him. 8 And all the people answered together, and said, All that the LORD hath spoken we will do. And Moses returned the words of the people unto the LORD.

It was said that this covenant was forever, and it was forever, if the people had kept the law. The covenant at Sinai was contingent upon the people keeping the law, and they failed, so the Word of Yahweh announced the breaking of the Sinai covenant in Zechariah chapter 11 where we read:

9 Then said I, I will not feed you: that that dieth, let it die; and that that is to be cut off, let it be cut off; and let the rest eat every one the flesh of another. 10 And I took my staff, even Beauty, and cut it asunder, that I might break my covenant which I had made with all the people. 11 And it was broken in that day: and so the poor of the flock that waited upon me knew that it was the word of the LORD.

Only the Sinai covenant was made with “all the people”, but Christ had come “to confirm the promises made unto the fathers”, as Paul had attested in Romans chapter 15. So the new covenant has little to do with the Sinai covenant, except that it is made with the same people, for which Paul had cited Jeremiah chapter 31 where he wrote in Hebrews chapter 8:

7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second. 8 For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah:

The consequences of this marriage arrangement between Yahweh and Israel are found in Deuteronomy chapter 30, where Israel had been given blessings as the consequence of obedience, but curses as the consequence of disobedience, and we read:

9 And the LORD thy God will make thee plenteous in every work of thine hand, in the fruit of thy body, and in the fruit of thy cattle, and in the fruit of thy land, for good: for the LORD will again rejoice over thee for good, as he rejoiced over thy fathers: 10 If thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to keep his commandments and his statutes which are written in this book of the law, and if thou turn unto the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul.

Then a little further on in the chapter:

15 See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil; 16 In that I command thee this day to love the LORD thy God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments and his statutes and his judgments, that thou mayest live and multiply: and the LORD thy God shall bless thee in the land whither thou goest to possess it.

For an adulterous wife, the penalty is death, so the alternative to obedience is death. However, while in the meantime it is evident that Yahweh God chose divorce, that does not remove the obligation of the law, which holds the wife liable to death. So Paul explained the remedy which Yahweh had chosen, in Romans chapter 7 where he wrote in part:

2 For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband.

Paul had spoken those words in relation to sin and deliverance from death, and even today many fools in pulpits think that he was merely digressing with a lesson on everyday marriage relations, rather than explaining how Israel had been released from the penalty of the law which had required death.

Now, as we proceed with Isaiah chapter 50, the Word of Yahweh through the prophet turns from having blessed Israel with promises of restoration, to admonishing Israel with the reasons for their captivity, which is a continual pattern that we have seen from the very beginning of Isaiah:

1 Thus 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. 

The ministry of Hosea seems to have endured at least nearly as long as that of Isaiah, having begun during the rule of Uzziah, and ending in that of Hezekiah, which is attested by each prophet. However since Samaria was destroyed in the sixth year of Hezekiah’s rule, the ministry of Hosea probably did not endure until this time, at least over twenty years later, since he was a prophet in Israel and not in Judah. But it is plausible that Hosea had been the first of the prophets to describe the nation of Israel as both the allegorical mother of the people of Israel, and as the wife of Yahweh, while also describing the failure of Israel to remain a separate people loyal to Yahweh the Husband as adultery and whoredom. This is evident because these analogies are found in Hosea chapter 2, closer to the beginning of the prophet’s ministry, where we read:

1 Say ye unto your brethren, Ammi [my people]; and to your sisters, Ruhamah [beloved]. 2 Plead with your mother, plead: for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband: let her therefore put away her whoredoms out of her sight, and her adulteries from between her breasts; 3 Lest I strip her naked, and set her as in the day that she was born, and make her as a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and slay her with thirst. 4 And I will not have mercy upon her children; for they be the children of whoredoms. 5 For their mother hath played the harlot: she that conceived them hath done shamefully: for she said, I will go after my lovers, that give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, mine oil and my drink.

Then as the chapter continues, it is made clear that the substance of her sin was indeed tantamount to a wife’s having committed adultery:

5 For their mother hath played the harlot: she that conceived them hath done shamefully: for she said, I will go after my lovers, that give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, mine oil and my drink. 6 Therefore, behold, I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and make a wall, that she shall not find her paths. 7 And she shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtake them; and she shall seek them, but shall not find them: then shall she say, I will go and return to my first husband; for then was it better with me than now. 8 For she did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, which they prepared for Baal. 9 Therefore will I return, and take away my corn in the time thereof, and my wine in the season thereof, and will recover my wool and my flax given to cover her nakedness. 10 And now will I discover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and none shall deliver her out of mine hand.

So Hosea did announce Yahweh’s divorce of Israel, but here in Isaiah, it is evident that Israel in captivity could not have been able to produce the divorce decree, which a divorced wife would have been expected to retain. Later in Jeremiah, Yahweh address both Judah and Israel as sisters, although much of Judah was with Israel in Assyrian captivity at the time, and he explains that Israel had been divorced, which we find in Jeremiah chapter 3:

6 The LORD said also unto me in the days of Josiah the king, Hast thou seen that which backsliding Israel hath done? she is gone up upon every high mountain and under every green tree, and there hath played the harlot. 7 And I said after she had done all these things, Turn thou unto me. But she returned not. And her treacherous sister Judah saw it. 8 And I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played the harlot also. 9 And it came to pass through the lightness of her whoredom, that she defiled the land, and committed adultery with stones and with stocks. 10 And yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah hath not turned unto me with her whole heart, but feignedly, saith the LORD.

Much later, it is apparent that Judah, which was actually only the remnant of Judah left behind in Jerusalem, was also divorced by Yahweh, so we read in Jeremiah chapter 33, where the Word of Yahweh is addressing the enemies of Israel:

24 Considerest thou not what this people have spoken, saying, The two families which the LORD hath chosen, he hath even cast them off? thus they have despised my people, that they should be no more a nation before them. 25 Thus saith the LORD; If my covenant be not with day and night, and if I have not appointed the ordinances of heaven and earth; 26 Then will I cast away the seed of Jacob, and David my servant, so that I will not take any of his seed to be rulers over the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: for I will cause their captivity to return, and have mercy on them.

This passage informs us that even in captivity, and even having been divorced from Yahweh, the two families, Israel and Judah, would always be nations, and would always have descendants of the house of David ruling over them. Otherwise there would be no day and night, or heaven and earth. While Jeremiah only suggested here that Judah must also have been divorced, the full divorce decree concerning Judah is found in the words of his own contemporary prophet, Ezekiel, in Ezekiel chapter 23. While the text is lengthy, it is important to understand that all of Judah was also divorced, and that the covenant was broken with all of Israel in that act of divorce, without exception. But while we will omit some of the verses, there are Christians, even Identity Christians, who debate this even now. First, we see an allegory similar to that of Jeremiah, which described Israel and Judah as sisters:

1 The word of the LORD came again unto me, saying, 2 Son of man, there were two women, the daughters of one mother: 3 And they committed whoredoms in Egypt; they committed whoredoms in their youth: there were their breasts pressed, and there they bruised the teats of their virginity. 4 And the names of them were Aholah the elder, and Aholibah her sister: and they were mine, and they bare sons and daughters. Thus were their names; Samaria is Aholah, and Jerusalem Aholibah.

Aholah is defined as meaning she who has a tent and Aholibah as a tent in her. Then where it continues the sin of both Israel and Judah is described as adultery, as Jeremiah also had done:

5 And Aholah played the harlot when she was mine; and she doted on her lovers, on the Assyrians her neighbours… 7 Thus she committed her whoredoms with them, with all them that were the chosen men of Assyria, and with all on whom she doted: with all their idols she defiled herself.

Now there is even a reference to the golden calves of Jeroboam I:

8 Neither left she her whoredoms brought from Egypt: for in her youth they lay with her, and they bruised the breasts of her virginity, and poured their whoredom upon her.

The allegories in Ezekiel are often quite graphic. In chapter 16 the prophet illustrated the whoredom of the children of Israel and wrote:

25 Thou hast built thy high place at every head of the way, and hast made thy beauty to be abhorred, and hast opened thy feet to every one that passed by, and multiplied thy whoredoms.

The phrase “opened thy feet” is a medieval euphemism agreeing with the prudery of the time, as the Hebrew actually means “spread thy legs”, as we might state in modern times.

Now to return to Ezekiel chapter 23:

25 Thou hast built thy high place at every head of the way, and hast made thy beauty to be abhorred, and hast opened thy feet to every one that passed by, and multiplied thy whoredoms.

And finally the punishment of Israel is announced, which much of Judah had also suffered:

9 Wherefore I have delivered her into the hand of her lovers, into the hand of the Assyrians, upon whom she doted. 10 These discovered her nakedness: they took her sons and her daughters, and slew her with the sword: and she became famous among women; for they had executed judgment upon her.

Having seen the fate of Israel, Judah should have repented, but instead we read:

11 And when her sister Aholibah saw this, she was more corrupt in her inordinate love than she, and in her whoredoms more than her sister in her whoredoms. 12 She doted upon the Assyrians her neighbours… 13 Then I saw that she was defiled, that they took both one way…

This describes the fate suffered by Israel and Judah at the hands of the Assyrians. Ahaz and Hezekiah had each dealt favorably with Assyria and paid tribute to the empire when it was to their own advantage, until Hezekiah began to revolt. But now, we must remember that in Isaiah chapter 39, Hezekiah had also shown too much kindness to the Babylonian emissaries, for which he was promised punishment in the future suffering of his own sons:

14 And that she increased her whoredoms: for when she saw men pourtrayed upon the wall, the images of the Chaldeans pourtrayed with vermilion, 15 Girded with girdles upon their loins, exceeding in dyed attire upon their heads, all of them princes to look to, after the manner of the Babylonians of Chaldea… 17 And the Babylonians came to her into the bed of love, and they defiled her with their whoredom, and she was polluted with them, and her mind was alienated from them.

That last phrase, from them, is a translation of a Hebrew preposition מן or min (# 4480) accompanied with a suffix which serves as a masculine plural pronoun. In their definition for this word, Brown-Driver-Briggs explain that, among many other things, it may describe “the immediate, or efficient, cause (chiefly poetic) in consequence of, at, by” [1] So with this, here we would assert that the final clause of verse 17 should be translated “and her mind was alienated on account of them”, that Judah’s mind was alienated from Yahweh as a consequence of the relationship with Babylon. 

So as we continue it becomes even more manifest that Yahweh had divorced Judah, as He had also divorced Israel, and that He is declaring that divorce here in Ezekiel:

18 So she discovered her whoredoms, and discovered her nakedness: then my mind was alienated from her, like as my mind was alienated from her sister. 19 Yet she multiplied her whoredoms, in calling to remembrance the days of her youth, wherein she had played the harlot in the land of Egypt. … 22 Therefore, O Aholibah, thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will raise up thy lovers against thee, from whom [or on account of whom] thy mind is alienated, and I will bring them against thee on every side; 23 The Babylonians, and all the Chaldeans, Pekod, and Shoa, and Koa, and all the Assyrians with them… 24 And they shall come against thee with chariots…

Then as a result of this punishment, the Word of Yahweh says:

27 Thus will I make thy lewdness to cease from thee, and thy whoredom brought from the land of Egypt… 28 For thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will deliver thee into the hand of them whom thou hatest, into the hand of them from whom [again. on account of whom] thy mind is alienated: 29 And they shall deal with thee hatefully, and shall take away all thy labour, and shall leave thee naked and bare: and the nakedness of thy whoredoms shall be discovered, both thy lewdness and thy whoredoms. 30 I will do these things unto thee, because thou hast gone a whoring after the heathen, and because thou art polluted with their idols.

The fate of Judah is the same as the fate of Israel, where next we read:

31 Thou hast walked in the way of thy sister; therefore will I give her cup into thine hand. 32 Thus saith the Lord GOD; Thou shalt drink of thy sister's cup deep and large: thou shalt be laughed to scorn and had in derision; it containeth much. 33 Thou shalt be filled with drunkenness and sorrow, with the cup of astonishment and desolation, with the cup of thy sister Samaria.

Further on, Yahweh mentions explicitly the adultery which both Israel and Judah had committed against Him:

36 The LORD said moreover unto me; Son of man, wilt thou judge Aholah and Aholibah? yea, declare unto them their abominations; 37 That they have committed adultery, and blood is in their hands, and with their idols have they committed adultery, and have also caused their sons, whom they bare unto me, to pass for them through the fire, to devour them. 38 Moreover this they have done unto me: they have defiled my sanctuary in the same day, and have profaned my sabbaths. 39 For when they had slain their children to their idols, then they came the same day into my sanctuary to profane it; and, lo, thus have they done in the midst of mine house.

So we would insist that Ezekiel chapter 23 is the bill of divorcement for Judah, and along with the passage in Jeremiah chapter 33 which mentions the two families which Yahweh had cast off, there is no further proof needed to understand that Yahweh divorced Judah just as He had divorced Israel. As that chapter closes, the punishment is described more graphically, and while stoning is mentioned, which is the appropriate punishment for adultery required by the law, not all of Israel or Judah would suffer that fate. So returning to Jeremiah, in chapter 30 we read:

9 But they shall serve the LORD their God, and David their king, whom I will raise up unto them. 10 Therefore fear thou not, O my servant Jacob, saith the LORD; neither be dismayed, O Israel: for, lo, I will save thee from afar, and thy seed from the land of their captivity; and Jacob shall return, and shall be in rest, and be quiet, and none shall make him afraid. 11 For I am with thee, saith the LORD, to save thee: though I make a full end of all nations whither I have scattered thee, yet will I not make a full end of thee: but I will correct thee in measure, and will not leave thee altogether unpunished.

Returning to Hosea chapter 2, after we read the proclamation that Yahweh would divorce Israel, which is worded in a manner so as to also include Judah, and after some of the circumstances of her punishment are described, we read a promise of reconciliation:

14 Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her. 15 And I will give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope: and she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt. 16 And it shall be at that day, saith the LORD, that thou shalt call me Ishi; and shalt call me no more Baali. 17 For I will take away the names of Baalim out of her mouth, and they shall no more be remembered by their name…. 19 And I will betroth thee unto me for ever; yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness, and in mercies. 20 I will even betroth thee unto me in faithfulness: and thou shalt know the LORD.

Earlier. in Hosea chapter 1, the prophet was told to have three children, and to name the first, which was a boy, Jezreel, which means God Sows, then to name the second, a daughter, Loruhamah, which means No Mercy, and then to name the third, a boy, Loammi, which means Not My People. So the names of the children indicated the intentions of Yahweh God to punish Israel for their sins. But after the period of punishment further described in Hosea chapter 2, and the promises to betroth Israel to Himself once again, we read:

21 And it shall come to pass in that day, I will hear, saith the LORD, I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth; 22 And the earth shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil; and they shall hear Jezreel. 23 And I will sow her unto me in the earth; and I will have mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy; and I will say to them which were not my people, Thou art my people; and they shall say, Thou art my God.

However the law prevented Yahweh from betrothing Israel to Himself again after Israel had committed adultery, even describing such an act as an abomination. This is found in Deuteronomy chapter 24:

1 When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her: then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house. 2 And when she is departed out of his house, she may go and be another man's wife. 3 And if the latter husband hate her, and write her a bill of divorcement, and giveth it in her hand, and sendeth her out of his house; or if the latter husband die, which took her to be his wife; 4 Her former husband, which sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after that she is defiled; for that is abomination before the LORD: and thou shalt not cause the land to sin, which the LORD thy God giveth thee for an inheritance.

For this reason did Christ, who is Yahweh God incarnate, die on the cross, that the promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, as well as the prophecy we have just cited from Hosea chapter 2, could all be fulfilled. So Paul explained that in Romans chapter 7, in the very context of sin, punishment, deliverance and reconciliation:

1 Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth? 2 For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. 3 So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man. 4 Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.

This is why Christ described Himself as the Bridegroom, in an event recorded in Matthew chapter 9, Mark chapter 2 and Luke chapter 5, and represented Himself in that same manner in Matthew chapter 25. Then, in Revelation chapter 21, the City of God which descends from heaven, and which has the names of the twelve tribes of Israel on its gates, is described as having been “prepared as a bride adorned for her husband”, and later in the chapter John is beckoned to “Come hither, I will shew thee the bride, the Lamb's wife.” The city is not a literal city, since the apostles are its foundations. So the city is an allegory for the people of Israel whom Yahweh has promised to betroth to Him once again, and that promise is fulfilled in Christ.

Now, continuing with Isaiah chapter 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? 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. 

Of course, the questions are all rhetorical. Where Yahweh had asked why there was no man, nor anyone to answer His call, it indicates that no one in Israel could answer the call, or had even cared that it had been made, as they were all put off for their idolatry. But it also indicates that no one in Israel was even capable of answering the call, the purpose of which is explained in the questions which follow, where Yahweh asked whether His hand is too short to redeem Israel, and whether He had power to deliver them. Being God, He certainly could redeem Israel, and that is answered in the final clause of the verse, where He is portrayed as having said “I dry up the sea, I make the rivers a wilderness.”

Neither are the sea and the rivers literal in this passage. Rather, in Isaiah seas and rivers are frequently used as allegories for people. One example of this is found in Isaiah chapter 8:

7 Now therefore, behold, the Lord bringeth up upon them the waters of the river, strong and many, even the king of Assyria, and all his glory: and he shall come up over all his channels, and go over all his banks:

In this instance, the waters of the river are the armies of the Assyrians, and the channels and banks represent their own borders, so Assyria would seek conquest outside of its borders. Another example is found in Isaiah chapter 19:

3 And the spirit of Egypt shall fail in the midst thereof; and I will destroy the counsel thereof: and they shall seek to the idols, and to the charmers, and to them that have familiar spirits, and to the wizards. 4 And the Egyptians will I give over into the hand of a cruel lord; and a fierce king shall rule over them, saith the Lord, the LORD of hosts. 5 And the waters shall fail from the sea, and the river shall be wasted and dried up. 6 And they shall turn the rivers far away; and the brooks of defence shall be emptied and dried up: the reeds and flags shall wither. 7 The paper reeds by the brooks, by the mouth of the brooks, and every thing sown by the brooks, shall wither, be driven away, and be no more.

It was not the literal seas and rivers of Egypt which dried up, and they have never dried up in the past twenty-seven hundred years, since around 700 BC, not long after the time in which Isaiah had written those words. Rather, the race of the Egyptians had been diminished and weakened, while the reeds and flags represent the material production of the nation, which was also diminished along with its ability to defend itself.

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

These are also allegories, since the heavens are not covered with literal sackcloth when they are clothed with blackness. But rather, sackcloth is rough, and when the skies are clothed in blackness, it is because they are obscured by storm clouds, which cause the weather to be rough. So this is a contrast to the allegory in verse 2, where the literal meaning is that Yahweh causes drought, and here an allegorical interpretation is that He also causes storms. But on a deeper level of meaning, just as seas and rivers can represent people and nations, the children of Israel are also often described as the stars of heaven, so Yahweh can bring rough, or hard, times upon His people, an in that context sackcloth represents mourning.

As a digression, proponents of the flat earth psyop must take this passage literally, as they also insist that the earth is a literal circle having four literal corners. 

Now Isaiah himself is portrayed as having made a proclamation, which may be interpreted as a Messianic prophecy, If we imagine the words of the prophet belong in the mouth of the then future Messiah. It may also be interpreted as a message in the mouths of the righteous in Israel, those who recognize and accept the punishment of the nation, in which they also suffer, however that is unlikely since Yahweh has already proclaimed that there was no man to answer His call.

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. 

The Septuagint wants the word for weary here. However the word is found in The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible, and since there are no footnotes, it is apparently found in all of the surviving scrolls in which this particular passage is preserved. In the Hexapla of Origen, it appears in Origen’s Hebrew copy as well as the Old Latin translation of the Hebrew text. Apparently, the fragments containing the readings of Aquila and Symmachus are very incomplete, but the existing portion of the verse found in Aquila’s version has a verb, ὑποστηρίζω, which means to undergird or sustain, which may suggest the presence of a word such as weary. [2]

The reading of the verb in Aquila’s translation accords with the translation of this verse found in the New American Standard Bible, where the Hebrew word עות or auth (# 5790) is translated as sustain rather than as speak as it is here in the King James Version. The meaning of the word, or perhaps even the word itself, is considered dubious by Brown-Driver-Briggs, who mention that it may have been an error for another word, but also state that in this verse it is usually interpreted as help, although some others translate it as teach or edify. The Latin translations support the presence of the word, where in the Old Latin used by Origen the phrase may be translated to read “so that I may know how to help the weary with words”, and the Douay-Rheims translation of Jerome’s Vulgate has “that I should know how to uphold by word him that is weary”. With all of this evidence, we would favor the presence of the word for weary over its absence in our sources for the Septuagint. 

It is Yahweh God who is portrayed as giving power to the weary, or taking it away. However in the King James Version of the Bible, the word translated as weary here, יעף or yaph (# 3287), is also often translated as faint, as it is in Isaiah chapter 40 where we read:

28 Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding. 29 He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength.

There the word for weary is the Hebrew word יגע or yaga (# 3021), which is a synonym. The words are repeated in verses 30 and 31 in that chapter, and are translated in the same manner. However the word to the weary is not necessarily a word of encouragement, since in the subsequent verses the speaker describes himself as having been reviled for his words, and as strengthening his resolve in the face of opposition. For this, Paul had written in Hebrews chapter 12:

5 And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: 6 For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. 7 If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?

Those who faint or grow weary of being chastened for their sins are also addressed by Paul in that passage, where he continued and wrote:

8 But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.

That very well may also have been the case in ancient Israel, at least on many occasions. For that reason, in reference to all of Israel, the Word of Yahweh had said in Ezekiel chapter 20, where the wilderness which is mentioned also describes the Place of Their Own which we had discussed presenting Isaiah chapter 49, and we read:

33 As I live, saith the Lord GOD, surely with a mighty hand, and with a stretched out arm, and with fury poured out, will I rule over you: 34 And I will bring you out from the people, and will gather you out of the countries wherein ye are scattered, with a mighty hand, and with a stretched out arm, and with fury poured out. 35 And I will bring you into the wilderness of the people, and there will I plead with you face to face. 36 Like as I pleaded with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so will I plead with you, saith the Lord GOD. 37 And I will cause you to pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant: 38 And I will purge out from among you the rebels, and them that transgress against me: I will bring them forth out of the country where they sojourn, and they shall not enter into the land of Israel: and ye shall know that I am the LORD.

Now to continue with this proclamation of Isaiah:

5 The Lord GOD hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back. 

All of the children of Israel in captivity had been characterized as having been rebellious, so Isaiah is speaking in contrast to them. However the next passage may persuade us even further to understand that these words spoken by Isaiah are actually a Messianic prophecy, and are spoken by Yahweh Himself on behaf of the promised Redeemer, and the redemption and deliverance mentioned here in the opening verse of the chapter:

6 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. 

Just a few passages later, in another Messianic prophecy found in Isaiah chapter 53, we read:

3 He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. 4 Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

That Christ was scourged and beaten, spat on and mocked, we see described in all four of the Gospel accounts, in Matthew chapters 26 and 27, Mark chapters 14 and 15, Luke chapters 22 and 23 and John chapters 18 and 19. So we read, in Matthew chapter 26:

67 Then did they spit in his face, and buffeted him; and others smote him with the palms of their hands, 68 Saying, Prophesy unto us, thou Christ, Who is he that smote thee?

But confidence and strength in chastisement come from faith in Yahweh God, so next we read:

7 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. 8 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. 9 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. 

Paul had used a similar analogy in Hebrews chapter 1 where we read:

10 And, Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands: 11 They shall perish; but thou remainest; and they all shall wax old as doth a garment;

It may seem that this bears no relation to this passage, but it does. Everything within the creation of Yahweh shall pass away, but His spirit which He has imparted to the Adamic man shall remain. However bastards do not have that spirit, so they cannot remain.

Later in that same Messianic prophecy of Isaiah chapter 53, we read more of this same confidence of the Messiah who would suffer these things, and from a man’s perspective as an example to men, the rewards which are bestowed on men who exhibit such faith:

11 He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities. 12 Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

Now the children of Israel in captivity are addressed with a question:

10 Who 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. 

This is a challenge to the children of Israel in captivity, so we see that even if any of them would obey Yahweh their God, in their state of captivity they would nevertheless have no light. However, as we had explained in our discussion of the first portion of Isaiah chapter 49, The Light of the Nations would not come to the captives of Israel until the time of Christ, when the Gospel was proclaimed to the nations of Europe and the Near East. So the righteous of Israel in captivity here would have only to trust in God and wait for the light to once again come into the world.

But the next verse seems to be a warning to those who would not trust in Yahweh their God:

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

It seems that these are men who would reject Yahweh, who would not await His light, and who would try to walk in their own light, which seems to be an allegory for their corrupt practices and pagan idolatry. Where it says that these men shall lie down in sorrow, in the closing verses of the prophecy of Amos, where he also wrote in relation to Israel as they were being cast out by Yahweh, we read:

8 Behold, the eyes of the Lord GOD are upon the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from off the face of the earth; saving that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, saith the LORD. 9 For, lo, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth. 10 All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword, which say, The evil shall not overtake nor prevent us.

This concludes our commentary on Isaiah through chapter 50.

Footnotes

1 The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon, Hendrickson Publishers, 2021, p. 579.

2 Origenis Hexaplorum, Fridericus Field, AA. M., Volume II, Clarendon Press, 1875, p. 527.

3 The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon, p. 736.