Dublin, OH
Commentaries and Other Bible Study Helps - Prayer Tents - Prayer Tents
50:4-51:8 The Lord's Servant Taught, His People Attentive. The listening servant will sustain his listening people with a salvation that will last forever.
50:4-9 The servant of the Lord suffers in order to sustain others. This is the third of four Servant Songs, which anticipate the Messiah (see note on 42:1-9). This song focuses on the servant as a rejected prophet.
50:4 The Lord God. This title of the Sovereign Lord appears four times in this song (vv. 4, 5, 7, 9). The power of God takes the form of a servant. the tongue of those who are taught. The servant is a scholar, well schooled in the Word of God. he awakens my ear. Unlike the guilty silence of God's people (v. 2), the servant is responsive to God's Word (cf. 48:8).
50:6 those who strike. The gentle healer (42:3), patient worker (49:4), and wise comforter (50:4) is greeted with abusive opposition, and he accepts it. The description of the servant's rejection intensifies as the Servant Songs progress (49:7; 50:6; 52:14-53:9).
50:7 my face like a flint. The servant chose his sufferings willingly and he moves forward with resolute determination, confident in God's overruling help.
50:8-9 As 53:4-6 will make clear, the servant did not suffer because he was guilty but because others were guilty. For his innocence, God vindicated him (cf. 1 Tim. 3:16).
50:10-11 Isaiah defines the two responses to the servant of the Lord:
51:1-8 These verses follow 50:10, giving three incentives for obeying the voice of the servant: vv. 1-3, 4-6, 7-8.
51:1-3 The first incentive (cf. note on vv. 1-8) is that, if God could make a great nation from one barren couple (Abraham and Sarah), then he can revive barren Zion as a joyful new Eden. This encouragement is intended not for all, but for you who pursue righteousness, you who seek the Lord.
51:4-6 The second incentive (cf. note on vv. 1-8) is that the truth of the Lord is going out to the nations with a saving power that will outlast the universe.
51:7-8 The third incentive (cf. note on vv. 1-8) is that, like the servant of the Lord, though believers are reviled, they will also be eternally vindicated (cf. John 16:33).
