Isaias 50:1
Thus saith the Lord: What is this bill of the divorce of your mother, with which I have put her away? or who is my creditor, to whom I sold you: behold you are sold for your iniquities, and for your wicked deeds have I put your mother away.
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- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Hæc dicit Dominus : Quis est hic liber repudii matris vestræ, quo dimisi eam ? aut quis est creditor meus, cui vendidi vos ? Ecce in iniquitatibus vestris venditi estis, et in sceleribus vestris dimisi matrem vestram.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- Οὕτως λέγει Κύριος Ποῖον τὸ βιβλίον τοῦ ἀποστασίου τῆς μητρὸς ὑμῶν, ᾧ ἐξαπέστειλα αὐτήν; ἢ τίνι ὑπόχρεῳ πέπρακα ὑμᾶς; ἰδοὺ ταῖς ἁμαρτίαις ὑμῶν ἐπράθητε, καὶ ταῖς ἀνομίαις ὑμῶν ἐξαπέστειλα τὴν μητέρα ὑμῶν.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- כֹּ֣ה אָמַ֣ר יְהוָ֗ה אֵ֣י זֶ֠ה סֵ֣פֶר כְּרִית֤וּת אִמְּכֶם֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר שִׁלַּחְתִּ֔יהָ א֚וֹ מִ֣י מִנּוֹשַׁ֔י אֲשֶׁר מָכַ֥רְתִּי אֶתְכֶ֖ם ל֑וֹ הֵ֤ן בַּעֲוֺנֹֽתֵיכֶם֙ נִמְכַּרְתֶּ֔ם וּבְפִשְׁעֵיכֶ֖ם שֻׁלְּחָ֥ה אִמְּכֶֽם
Haydock's commentary
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)
Where a note speaks of the Jewish people, the Church teaches that the Passion cannot be charged against all the Jews then living, nor against the Jews of today, and that all sinners were its authors (CCC 597, 598).
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
Clement of Alexandria The Stromata, or Miscellanies, Book III
Quod autem “ex consensu ad tempus orationi vacat” conjugium, doctrina est continentiæ. Adjecit enim illud quidem, “ex consensu,” ne quis dissolveret matrimonium; “ad tempus autem,” ne, dum ex necessitate exercet continentiam is, qui uxorem duxerit, labatur in peccatum, et dum suo conjugio parcit, alienum concupiscat. Qua ratione eum, qui se indecore getere existimat, quod virginem alat, recte cam dicit esse nuptum damrum. Verum unusquisque, tam is qui castitatem, delegit, quam is qui propter liberorum procreationem seipsum conjunxit matrimonio, in suo proposito firmiter debet perseverare, nec in deterius deflectere. Si enim vitæ suæ instimtum augere ac intendere porefit, majorem sibi apud Deum acquirit dignitatem, propter puram et ex ratione profectam continentiam. Si autem eam, quam elegit, regulam superaverit, in majorem deinde ad spem gloriam recidet. …
Origen Origen's Commentary on Matthew, Chapter XVII
But since the Apostle understands the words, “ And they twain shall be one flesh, ” of Christ and the church, we must say that Christ keeping the saying, “What God hath joined together let not man put asunder,” did not put away His former wife, so to speak, that is, the former synagogue, for any other cause than that that wife committed fornication, being made an adulteress by the evil one, and along with him plotted against her husband and slew Him, saying, “Away with such a fellow from the earth, crucify Him, crucify Him.” It was she therefore who herself revolted, rather than her husband who put her away and dismissed her; wherefore, reproaching her for falling away from him, it says in Isaiah, “Of what kind is the bill of your mother’s divorcement, with which I sent her away?” And He who at the beginning created Him “who is in the form of God” after the image, made Him male, and the …
St John Cassian The Conferences of John Cassian. Part III. Containing Conferences XVIII.-XXIV, Chapter XII. Of this also: “But we know that the law is spiritual,” etc
And this law the Apostle also calls spiritual saying: “But we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin.” For this law is spiritual which bids us eat in the sweat of our brow that “true bread which cometh down from heaven” but that sale under sin makes us carnal. What, I ask, or whose is that sin? Doubtless Adam’s, by whose fall and, if I may so say, ruinous transaction and fraudulent bargain we were sold. For when he was led astray by the persuasion of the serpent he brought all his descendants under the yoke of perpetual bondage, as they were alienated by taking the forbidden food. For this custom is generally observed between the buyer and seller, that one who wants to make himself over to the power of another, receives from his buyer a price for the loss of his liberty, and his consignment to perpetual slavery. …