Chapter 50 presents the disobedient Israel versus the obedient servant. Verses 1-3 present the people who have been disobedient to the Lord. They are charged with responsibility for their having been in captivity and having divorced themselves from the Lord and condemned because of their unbelief, disobedience, and disregard for God's power. In verses 4-9 the coming of the Servant is foretold. This Servant is Jesus and He was to come as one who would be obedient to suffering rejection and death. The wondrous thing given in verses 7-9 is that the Servant would conquer as a courageous champion. His strength would be His dependence upon God, doing His will, and defying all opposition. In verses 10 and 11 the way is given to those who are seeking to come out of darkness into light. That way is by trusting in the Lord.
In chapters 51 and 52 the redemption of Israel and the restoration of that country is prophesied. Israel's release from sufferings of the captivity is as certain as God's wondrous works of the past. It is a part of God's eternal plan, building from Abraham and Sarah, through the ages, a redeemed world of endless glory.
Verses 1-12 of chapter 52 give us a picture of Jerusalem in the Kingdom Age. The last three verses of the chapter give a vision of God's Servant, who was so marred that His appearance was not as the Son of man, not even human. The brutality of the treatment given to our Saviour can be followed in Matthew 26:67,68 and 27:27-30. One of the glorious proofs that He was and is our Saviour is that human hands could not destroy Him. He gave Himself to the brutality of the crowd, but He has been exalted and is today seated at the right hand of the Father. We serve a living Saviour, one who bore our sin and overcame every punishment that wicked men could deliver.
One of my favorite verses is chapter 53:6, "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." This great chapter is one of the best loved chapters in all the Bible. It records, in vivid detail, how our Saviour was to suffer and die. It is so vivid that one would almost think of Isaiah as standing at the foot of the cross. It speaks of it in past tense as though, in his mind, it had already happened. Yet it was written seven centuries before Calvary.
Chapter 54 tells how the servant of God, by his suffering, would lead His people onward and upward to heights of endless glory.
