Matthew Poole and continuators on Isaiah 50:1

1 THus saith the LORD , Where is the bill of your mothers 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 your selves▪ and for your transgressions is your mother put away .

This is another Sermon begun here, and continued in the next Chapter. The main scope of it is to vindicate Gods Justice, and to convince the Jews that they were the causes of all their calamities which they imputed to God.

God had formerly espoused the Israelites to himself in a kind of Matrimonial Covenant, but seemed to cast them off when he sent them to Babylon, and did wholly reject them afterward from being his People, and took the Gentiles into their stead; which great and wonderful change was foretold in the Old Testament, as hath been already observed, and we shall see again, and accomplished in the New. And because God foresaw that those strange dispensations would provoke the Jews to murmur and quarrel with God, for casting them off without sufficient cause, as indeed they were always prone to accuse God, and to vindicate themselves, he bids them produce their Bill of divorce: For those Husbands which put away their Wives meerly out of Levity or Passion, were obliged to give their Wives a Bill of divorce, which vindicated the Wives Innocency, and declared that the Husbands Will and Pleasure was the cause of the Divorce; of which see the notes on Deut. 24. 1. Mat. 19. 3.

Have I any creditors to whom I was obliged or willing to sell you for the payment of my Debts? Produce then the Bill of sale to witness against me. Parents might, and in some cases were forced to [illegible: 1+ letters]ll their Children to their Creditors: of which see on Exod. 21. 7. & 2 Kin. 4. 1.

You can blame none but your selves and your own sins, for all your captivities and miseries.

Marginal references: Hos. 2. 2.; See 2 Kings 4. 1.