50:1 Thus saith the LORD, Where [is] the {a} bill of your mother's divorcement, {b} whom I have put away? or which of my creditors [is it] {c} to whom I have sold you? Behold, for your iniquities have ye sold yourselves, and for your transgressions is your mother put away.
(a) Meaning, that he has not forsaken her, but through her own opportunity as in Ho 2:2.
(b) Who would declare that I have cut her off: meaning, that they could show no one.
(c) Signifying, that he sold them not for any debt or poverty, but that they sold themselves to sins to buy their own lusts and pleasures.
50:1 Thus saith the Lord - The scope of this and the next chapter , is to vindicate God's justice and to convince the Jews that they were the causes of their own calamities. Behold - You can blame none but yourselves and your own sins, for all your captivities and miseries.
50:1-3 Those who have professed to be people of God, and seem to be dealt severely with, are apt to complain, as if God had been hard with them. Here is an answer for such murmurings; God never deprived any of their advantages, except for their sins. The Jews were sent into Babylon for their idolatry, a sin which broke the covenant; and they were at last rejected for crucifying the Lord of glory. God called on them to leave their sins, and prevent their own ruin. Last of all, the Son came to his own, but his own received him not. When God calls men to happiness, and they will not answer, they are justly left to be miserable. To silence doubts concerning his power, proofs of it are given. The wonders which attended his sufferings and death, proclaimed that he was the Son of God, Mt 27:54.
