Isaiah 50King James Version
The third Servant Song. 'I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting.' The servant is willing to suffer for the mission.
The third Servant Song: God did not divorce Israel nor sell her for debt; why was no one there when he called? The servant speaks: God opened his ear each morning; he gave his back to the smiters and his face not hidden from shame and spitting. Those who fear the LORD but walk in darkness should trust the name of God, not their own fire.
The servant's obedience is not natural strength but a trained ear opened morning by morning. The willingness to be struck and shamed flows from that discipline.
verse: "The Lord GOD hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary: he wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned", the servant's authority comes from dailiness, the opened ear, not from extraordinary endowment.
The servant's experience is described as if it has already happened: the back offered to the smiters, the beard plucked, the face spat upon. The morning ear-opening frames all of it as a practice maintained across many days before the suffering arrived.
God, questioning why Israel did not respond. The servant, speaking his own experience of training and suffering. Those who fear the LORD but walk in darkness, given pastoral counsel. Those who kindle their own fire, warned they will lie down in sorrow.
The third Servant Song is the most introspective of the four. It establishes that the servant's suffering is voluntary, not accidental, coming from deliberate obedience rather than helplessness. The morning-by-morning ear-opening is formative for the New Testament portrait of Jesus in prayer. Peter quotes verse 6 as fulfilled in Christ's passion.
For when you feel shamed or publicly humiliated for doing what you believed was right. The servant does not experience his humiliation as defeat but as the cost of a commitment already made.
1Thus saith the LORD, Where is the bill of your mother's divorcement, whom I have put away? or which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you? Behold, for your iniquities have ye sold yourselves, and for your transgressions is your mother put away.
2Wherefore, 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 stinketh, because there is no water, and dieth for thirst.
3I clothe the heavens with blackness, and I make sackcloth their covering.
4The Lord GOD hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary: he wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned.
5The Lord GOD hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back.
6I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting.
7For the Lord GOD will help me; therefore shall I not be confounded: therefore have I set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed.
8He is near that justifieth me; who will contend with me? let us stand together: who is mine adversary? let him come near to me.
9Behold, the Lord GOD will help me; who is he that shall condemn me? lo, they all shall wax old as a garment; the moth shall eat them up.
10Who is among you that feareth the LORD, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness, and hath no light? let him trust in the name of the LORD, and stay upon his God.
11Behold, all ye that kindle a fire, that compass yourselves about with sparks: walk in the light of your fire, and in the sparks that ye have kindled. This shall ye have of mine hand; ye shall lie down in sorrow.