Yeshayah 50:3

3 I clothe Shomayim with blackness, and I make sackcloth their covering.

Yeshayah 50:3 Meaning and Commentary

Isaiah 50:3

I clothe the heavens with blackness
With gross and thick darkness; perhaps referring to the three days' darkness the Egyptians were in, ( Exodus 10:12-23 ) , or with thick and black clouds, as in tempestuous weather frequently; or by eclipses of the sun; there was an extraordinary instance of great darkness at the time of Christ's crucifixion, ( Matthew 27:45 ) and I make sackcloth their covering;
that being black, and used in times of mourning; the allusion may be to the tents of Kedar, which were covered with sackcloth, or such like black stuff. The fall of the Pagan empire, through the power of Christ and his Gospel, is signified by the sun becoming black as sackcloth of hair, ( Revelation 6:12 ) . Jarchi interprets this parabolically of the princes of the nations, when the Lord shall come to take vengeance upon them; as Kimchi does the sea, and the rivers, in the preceding verse, of the good things of the nations of the world, which they had in great abundance, and should be destroyed.

Yeshayah 50:3 In-Context

1 0 Thus saith Hashem, Where is the Sefer Keritut (Bill of Divorce) by which I sent your Em (Mother) away? Or which Nosheh (Creditor) of Mine is it to whom I have sold you [into slavery]? Behold, for your avonot (iniquities) have ye been sold, and for your peysha’im (rebellions) was your Em sent away.

2 Why, when I came, was there no ish (man [at all] to respond)? When I called, was there none to answer? Is My Yad too short, that it cannot redeem? Or have I no ko’ach (power) to save? Behold, at My rebuke I dry up the yam (sea), I make the neharot (rivers) a midbar (desert); their dag (fish) stink, because there is no mayim, and die of tzama (thirst).

3 I clothe Shomayim with blackness, and I make sackcloth their covering.

4 Adonoi Hashem hath given Me [Moshiach; see 2Sm.7:5; Zech.3:8 and Isa 52:13] the leshon limmudim (learned tongue of disciples; see 8:16), that I should know how to speak a devar (word, i.e., word of consolation) in season to him that is weary; He wakeneth baboker baboker (morning by morning), He wakeneth Mine ozen (ear) to hear as the limmudim (disciples, those being taught).

5 Adonoi Hashem hath opened Mine ozen (ear), and I was not rebellious, neither did I turn back [cf. Gn 3:8].