Isaiah 50:5

5 The Lord God hath opened my ear, and I do not resist: I have not gone back.

Isaiah 50:5 Meaning and Commentary

Isaiah 50:5

The Lord God hath opened mine ear
To hear most freely, and receive most fully, what is said by him, and to observe and do it: the allusion seems to be to the servant that had his ears bored, being willing to serve his master for ever, ( Exodus 21:5 Exodus 21:6 ) which phrase of boring or opening the ear is used of Christ, ( Psalms 40:6 ) . It is expressive of his voluntary obedience, as Mediator, to his divine Father, engaging in, and performing with the greatest readiness and cheerfulness, the great work of man's redemption and salvation. And I was not rebellious;
not to his earthly parents, to whom he was subject; nor to civil magistrates, to whom he paid tribute; nor to God, he always did the things that pleased him: he was obedient to the precepts of the moral law, and to the penalty of it, death itself, and readily submitted to the will of God in suffering for his people; which obedience of his was entirely free and voluntary, full, complete, and perfect, done in the room and stead of his people; is the measure of their righteousness, and by which they become righteous; is well pleasing to God, and infinitely preferable to the obedience of men and angels: neither turned away back;
he did not decline the work proposed to him, but readily engaged in it; he never stopped in it, or desisted from it, until he had finished it; he did not hesitate about it, as Moses and Jeremy; or flee from it, as Jonah.

Isaiah 50:5 In-Context

3 I will clothe the heavens with darkness, and will make sackcloth their covering.
4 The Lord hath given me a learned tongue, that I should know how to uphold by word him that is weary: he wakeneth in the morning, in the morning he wakeneth my ear, that I may hear him as a master.
5 The Lord God hath opened my ear, and I do not resist: I have not gone back.
6 I have given my body to the strikers, and my cheeks to them that plucked them: I have not turned away my face from them that rebuked me, and spit upon me.
7 The Lord God is my helper, therefore am I not confounded: therefore have I set my face as a most hard rock, and I know that I shall not be confounded.
The Douay-Rheims Bible is in the public domain.