Reflections on Isaiah 50

Isaiah 50 (Contemporary English Version)
1. The LORD says, "Children, I didn't divorce your mother or sell you to pay debts; I divorced her and sold you because of your sins.
   
2. I came and called out, but you didn't answer. Have I lost my power to rescue and save? At my command oceans and rivers turn into deserts; fish rot and stink for lack of water.
   
3. I make the sky turn dark like the sackcloth you wear at funerals."
   
4. The LORD God gives me the right words to encourage the weary. Each morning he awakens me eager to learn his teaching;
   
5. he made me willing to listen and not rebel or run away.
   
6. I let them beat my back and pull out my beard. I didn't turn aside when they insulted me and spit in my face.
   
7. But the LORD God keeps me from being disgraced. So I refuse to give up, because I know God will never let me down.
   
8. My protector is nearby; no one can stand here to accuse me of wrong.
   
9. The LORD God will help me and prove I am innocent. My accusers will wear out like moth-eaten clothes.
   
10. None of you respect the LORD or obey his servant. You walk in the dark instead of the light; you don't trust the name of the LORD your God.
    
11. Go ahead and walk in the light of the fires you have set. But with his own hand, the LORD will punish you and make you suffer.

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In the opening verses of this chapter the Lord makes it plain that Israel is to blame for her exile to Babylon. The Lord acknowledges that He has divorced her, a reference to Jeremiah 3:8, but it was not for insignificant issues that He did so. Rather it was Israel's own iniquity, her own adulterous unfaithfulness with idols that brought it about. Neither did the Lord 'sell' Israel to Babylon to fulfill a debt to this nation. No, it was Israel's transgressions that brought about this tragedy. Then He asks of them why they had ignored Him. Did they think He was powerless to deliver them?

For whatever reasons they rejected God in this period of their history, they also rejected His Son, the Messiah, at a later period. Though the Messiah was faithful, the people beat Him and scorned Him and then crucified Him. Following the Babylonian exile Israel may have intensified their faithfulness to the observance of the worship practices God had prescribed for them, but when the Messiah came on the scene their hearts were no nearer to Him than before. They had become comfortable in their legalistic observance of the law, but it was not the Lord on whom they were relying, but rather their own piety. The arrival of the Messiah turned all of their practices upside down which they could not tolerate.

We all need to heed the words of hope in verses 10 and 11. Regardless of our past, we need to trust "in the name of the LORD" and lean on Him, for if we persist in following a path of rebellion against God, we "will lie down in a place of torment."