Isaiah, Week 10, Day 2: Isaiah 50

Day Two: Read Isaiah 50

1. Why was Israel sent into captivity?   Because of her iniquities and transgressions

 2. Describe the servant of Isaiah 50:4-9.   

* With words of the taught, he is able to sustain the weary. (v 4)  The Lord has opened his ear to wisdom (v5).  He did not rebel or turn away (v5).

Andrew MacLaren points out that Jesus faithfully followed His father's will/wisdom:

He Himself has said, ‘As the Father taught Me, I speak these things.’ With emphatic repetition, He was continually making that assertion, as, for instance, ‘I have not spoken of Myself, but the Father which sent Me, He gave Me a commandment what I should say, and what I should speak . . . the things therefore which I speak, even as the Father hath said unto Me, so I speak.’

*He made himself open to abuse (v.6)  The Lord helps him, so he is determined, "set my face like flint" (v7-9).

The sequence in this context is worth noting. We had first Christ’s communion with God and communications from the Father; then the perfect submission of His Will; then that submission expressed in His voluntary sufferings; and now we have His immovable steadfastness of resistance to the temptation, which lay in these sufferings, to depart from His attitude of submission, and to abandon His work.

The perfect inflexible resolve.

‘Face like a flint’ seems to be quoted in Luk_9:51; ‘Steadily set His face.’ The whole story of the Gospels gives the one impression of a life steadfast in its great resolve. There are no traces of His ever faltering in His purpose, none of His ever suffering Himself to be diverted from it, no parentheses and no digressions. There are no blunders either. But what a contrast in this respect to all other lives!  Mark’s Gospel, which is eminently the gospel of the Servant, is full of energy and of this inflexible resolve, which speak in such sayings as ‘I must be about My Father’s business’; ‘I must work the works of My Father while it is day.’ That last journey, during which He ‘steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem,’ is but a type of the whole. Christ’s life was a continuous or rather a continually repeated effort. -Andrew MacLaren

 3. How many times is the name "Lord GOD" found? Give verses. Four times--verses 3, 4, 7,  and  9  Adonai Elohim

4. What are the two different responses to the Servant of the Lord described in verses 10 and 11.

Verse 10--person fears in the Lord, obeys the voice of His servant, walks in darkness--urged to trust and stay upon the Lord.

"There are times when the most that we can do is to trust even in the great darkness, ‘Though He slay me yet will I trust in Him.’ Submissive silence is sometimes the most eloquent confession of faith. ‘I was dumb, I opened not my mouth, because Thou didst it.’" 

How can we face the troubles of life without Him? God calls us when in darkness, and by the darkness, to trust in His name and stay ourselves on Him. Happy are we if we answer ‘Though the fig-tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines . . . yet I will rejoice in the Lord, and joy in the God of my salvation.’ -

 And the highest hope and nearest possible approach to joy is sometimes ‘Unto the upright there ariseth light in the darkness.’ -Andrew MacLaren

Verse 11--person that kindles a fire and compasses himself with sparks--walk in the light of your fire and the sparks you have kindled, and lay down in sorrow.

In this comparison, a person who fears the Lord and looks to the Lord is contrasted with a person who creates his own "light" or fire.  The contrasting results are that the person will be subject to what they respect/follow--their own light, which leads to sorrow, or walking in the darkness and trusting the Lord, which leads to sparks.