“Thus 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.”
Away. Such a one could not be received again, if she had taken another husband, Deuteronomy xxiv. 3. Some explain this of the captives. But God restored them to favour. It seems rather to relate to the reprobation (Calmet) of the synagogue, which will never again become the true Church, (Haydock) though many of Israel will be converted, Romans xi. 25. — Sold you, as a father might do, Exodus xxi. 1., and Matthew xviii. 15. St. Ambrose (Tob.[Tobias?] viii.) inveighs against such cruel parents, as the Christian religion had not then entirely repressed this inhumanity. (Calmet) — God rejected the synagogue, not out of hard-heartedness or want, but because of her sins. (Worthington)
“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 stinketh, because there is no water, and dieth for thirst.”
Hear. My spouse had gone after other lovers. The people refused to hear the prophets; and the priests were become as corrupt as the rest, when the city was taken by the Chaldeans and by the Romans. (Calmet) — Sea. Babylon, chap. xxi. (Haydock) — I could work the same miracles, as I did when Israel came out of Egypt.
“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.”
Weary. Isaias speaks in the name of Christ, whose words carried conviction and comfort along with them, John vi. 69., and vii. 46. (Calmet) — Wakeneth. Literally, “lifteth up.” Cynthius aurem—Vellit. (Ec. vi.) — Hear, or obey. (Haydock) — Christ preached more powerfully than Isaias, and continues to do so by his pastors. (St. Jerome) (Worthington)
“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.”
Spit. The greatest indignity, Job xxx. 10., and Deuteronomy xxv. 9. Yet this was the treatment of our Saviour, Luke xviii. 31., and Matthew xxvi. 67. (Calmet) — “The great Grotius, (I wish he were great in explaining the prophets)” applies this to Jeremias. (Houbigant)
“For 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.”
Rock. Christ heard the accusations of his enemies unmoved, as he had not been afraid to blame the conduct of the Pharisees.
“Who 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.”
Light. The faithful are exhorted to take courage, while the Romans will destroy the rebellious Jews, (ver. 11.; Calmet) and the wicked shall dwell in hell fire. (Menochius)