John Calvin Commentary Isaiah 50:1

"Thus saith Jehovah, Where is the bill of your mother`s divorcement, wherewith I have put her away? or which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you? Behold, for your iniquities were ye sold, and for your transgressions was your mother put away." — Isaiah 50:1 (ASV)

Where is that bill of divorcement? There are various interpretations of this passage, but very few commentators have understood the Prophet’s meaning. To gain a general understanding, we must observe the union by which the Lord everywhere testifies that his people are bound to him: he occupies the place of a husband, and we occupy the place of a wife. It is a spiritual marriage, consecrated by his eternal doctrine and sealed by the blood of Christ. Therefore, just as he takes us under his protection as a dearly beloved wife, on condition that we preserve our fidelity to him by chastity; so when we have been unfaithful to him, he rejects us; and then he is said to issue a lawful divorce against us, as when a husband banishes an adulterous wife from his house.

Thus, when the Jews were oppressed by so many and great calamities that it was easy to conclude God had rejected and divorced them, the cause of the divorce became the subject of inquiry. Now, as people are usually eloquent in apologizing for themselves and try to shift the blame to God, the Jews at that time also complained about their condition, as if the Lord had wronged them by divorcing them. They were far from thinking that their crimes had voided the promises and annulled the covenant. They even blamed their ancestors, as if they were punished for the sins of others. Hence those taunts and complaints which Ezekiel relates.

Our fathers ate a sour grape, and our teeth are set on edge (Ezekiel 18:2).

Since speeches of this kind were widespread among them, the Lord demands that they produce the “bill of divorcement,” by which they might prove they are free from blame and were rejected without cause.

Now, a “bill of divorcement” was granted to wives who were unjustly divorced, for by it the husband was compelled to testify that his wife had lived chastely and honorably, making it evident that the only reason for the divorce was that she did not please the husband.

Thus the woman was free to go away, and the blame rested solely on the husband, to whose sullenness and bad temper the cause of the divorce was ascribed (Deuteronomy 24:1). This law of divorcement, as Ezekiel shows (Matthew 19:8), was given by Moses on account of the hard-heartedness of that nation.

By a highly appropriate metaphor, therefore, the Lord shows that he is not the author of the divorce, but that the people went away by their own fault and followed their lusts, so that they had utterly broken the bond of marriage. This is the reason he asks where is “that bill” of which they boasted; for there is emphasis in the demonstrative pronoun, זה (zeh), that, by which he intended to expose their idle excuses. It is as if he had said that they cast off the accusation and lay blame on God, as if they had been provided with a defense, whereas they had violated the bond of marriage and could produce nothing to make the divorce lawful.

Or who is the creditor to whom I sold you? By another metaphor, he demonstrates the same thing. When a man was overwhelmed by debt, so that he could not satisfy his creditors, he was compelled to give his children in payment. The Lord therefore asks, “Has he been constrained to do this? Has he sold them, or given them in payment to another creditor? Is he like spendthrifts or bad managers, who allow themselves to be overwhelmed by debt?” It is as if he had said, “You cannot bring this reproach against me; and therefore it is evident that, on account of your transgressions, you have been sold and reduced to slavery.”

Lo, for your iniquities you have been sold. Thus the Lord defends his majesty from all slanders and refutes them by this second clause, in which he declares that it is by their own fault that the Jews have been divorced and “sold.”

The same mode of expression is employed by Paul when he says that we are sold under sin (Romans 7:14), but in a different sense, just as the Hebrew writers are accustomed to speak of abandoned men whose wickedness is desperate. Here, however, the Prophet intended merely to charge the Jews with guilt, because by their own transgressions they had brought upon themselves all the evils that they endured.

If it is asked, “Did the Lord divorce his heritage? Did he make void the covenant?” Certainly not. But the Lord is said to “divorce,” as he is elsewhere said to profane his heritage (Psalms 89:39; Ezekiel 24:21), because no other conclusion can be drawn from present appearances. For when he did not bestow upon them his accustomed favor, it was a kind of divorce or rejection. In a word, we should attend to these two contrasts: that the wife is divorced either by the husband’s fault or because she is unchaste and adulterous; and likewise, that children are sold either for their father’s poverty or by their own fault. And thus the course of argument in this passage will be clear.