Albert Barnes Commentary Isaiah 50:2

"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 stink, because there is no water, and die for thirst." — Isaiah 50:2 (ASV)

Why, when I came, was there no one? - That is, when I came to call you to repentance, why was there no one from the nation to yield obedience? The sense is that they had not been punished without warning. He had called them to repentance, but no one heard His voice. The Chaldee renders this, ‘Why did I send my prophets, and they did not turn? They prophesied, but they did not pay attention.’

When I called, was there no one to answer? - No one obeyed or regarded My voice. It was not, therefore, His fault that they had been punished, but it was because they did not listen to the messengers whom He had sent to them.

Is My hand shortened at all? - The meaning of this is that it was not because God was unable to save that they had been punished in this way. The hand, in the Scriptures, is an emblem of strength, as it is the instrument by which we accomplish our purposes. To shorten the hand, that is, to cut it off, is an emblem of diminishing or destroying our ability to execute any purpose . So in Numbers 11:23: Is the LORD’s hand waxed short?

That it cannot redeem? - That it cannot rescue or deliver you. The idea is that it was not because He was less able to save them than He had been in former times that they were sold into captivity and sighed in bondage.

Behold, at My rebuke - At My chiding—as a father rebukes a disobedient child, or as a man would rebuke an excited multitude. Similar language is used of the Savior when He stilled the tempest on the Sea of Gennesaret: Then He arose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm (Matthew 8:26).

The reference here is undoubtedly to the fact that God dried up the Red Sea or made a way for the children of Israel to pass through it. The idea is that He who had power to perform such a stupendous miracle as that also had power to deliver His people at any time. Therefore, it was for no lack of power in Him that the Jews were suffering in exile.

I make the rivers a wilderness - I dry up streams at will and have power even to make the beds of rivers, and all the country watered by them, a pathless and unfruitful desert.

Their fish stink - The waters leave them, and the fish die and putrefy. It is not uncommon in the East for large streams and even rivers to be dried up in this way by the intense heat of the sun and by being lost in the sand.

Thus the river Barrady, which flows through the fertile plain on which Damascus is situated and which is divided into innumerable streams and canals to water the city and the gardens adjacent to it, after flowing a short distance from the city is wholly lost—partly absorbed in the sands and partly dried up by the intense rays of the sun (see Jones’ ‘Excursions to Jerusalem, Egypt, etc.’). The idea here is that it was God who had power to dry up those streams, and He who could do that could save and vindicate His people.