Bible Strands
Isaiah 50:2
Why was no one there when I arrived? Why did no one answer when I called? Is My hand too short to redeem you? Or do I lack the strength to deliver you? Behold, My rebuke dries up the sea; I turn the rivers into a desert; the fish rot for lack of water and die of thirst.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The LORD addresses Israel directly, following 50:1's accusation that they were sold for their own iniquities. He is responding to their silence, not their absence.
The words — קָצֹר (qa.tsor, "short, limited") is the hinge of the verse: God rhetorically asks whether His reach is insufficient, then answers by describing the sea drying up. The word recurs in Isaiah 59:1 and Numbers 11:23 with the same rhetorical force.
The thread — Isaiah 59:1 and Numbers 11:23 repeat the "arm too short" formula; Isaiah 66:4 returns to the "I called and no one answered" pattern. The pairing of divine power and human silence is a sustained motif across these texts.
Why it lands — The verse removes the excuse of divine incapacity and places the entire burden of non-response on the hearer. It asks the reader to account for their own silence rather than attribute it to God's failure to act.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
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.
Cross-references
- Isaiah 59:1 Surely the arm of the LORD is not too short to save, nor His ear too dull to hear.
- Numbers 11:23 The LORD answered Moses, “Is the LORD’s arm too short? Now you will see whether or not My word will come to pass.”
- Isaiah 66:4 So I will choose their punishment and I will bring terror upon them, because I called and no one answered, I spoke and no one listened. But they did evil in My sight and chose that in which I did not delight.”
- Joshua 3:16 the flowing water stood still. It backed up as far upstream as Adam, a city in the area of Zarethan, while the water flowing toward the Sea of the Arabah (the Salt Sea) was completely cut off. So the people crossed over opposite Jericho.
- Genesis 18:14 Is anything too difficult for the LORD? At the appointed time I will return to you—in about a year—and Sarah will have a son.”
- Proverbs 1:24 Because you refused my call, and no one took my outstretched hand,
- Exodus 14:21 Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the LORD drove back the sea with a strong east wind that turned it into dry land. So the waters were divided,
- Exodus 7:21 The fish in the Nile died, and the river smelled so bad that the Egyptians could not drink its water. And there was blood throughout the land of Egypt.
- Isaiah 42:15 I will lay waste the mountains and hills and dry up all their vegetation. I will turn the rivers into dry land and drain the marshes.
- Isaiah 43:16 Thus says the LORD, who makes a way in the sea and a path through the surging waters,