Thus saith the Lord— In the preceding period of the last chapter, a doubt respecting the great enemy of the church was removed: but another doubt exercised the afflicted church about the same time in which we have placed the scene of this prophesy: for as at that time the Jewish nation was engaged in a war with the Romans, which seemed to threaten the entire destruction of their state, the true church, among the Jews, plainly perceived from hence, that God had entirely cast off and divorced this people, which was a matter of great affliction to them. Therefore the distressed Sion wanted comfort in this respect, which God gives in these words, teaching, first, that he had publicly divorced their mother, and delivered her to the power of the Romans, being wholly compelled by reasons of justice for their enormous crimes and iniquities; the greater of which was, their contempt of that salvation which he had offered them: Isaiah 50:1.—middle of 2. Wherefore when I came,—and when I called, refers to the appearance of the Son of God among the Jews, and his calling them to repent, and accept his salvation. See John 7:28. Secondly, That he wanted not power to save; concerning which he speaks in very magnificent terms, alluding to the deliverance from Egypt:—middle of Isaiah 50:2-3. See Habakkuk 3:8. Vitringa thinks that the third verse alludes to the overthrow of Sennacherib's army. See Revelation 6:12. The mystical signification is, that the Son of God, as the avenger of his church, can easily destroy, utterly subvert, and reduce to blackness and desolation, the greatest empires which oppose the designs of his kingdom and providence. See Vitringa.
Related Commentaries of Isaiah 50:1
Isaiah 50:1-3
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.
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.
3 I clothe the heavens with blackness, and I make sackcloth their covering.