Bible Strands
Isaiah 50:3
I clothe the heavens in black and make sackcloth their covering.”
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — God speaks as the suffering servant addressing Israel, immediately following His declaration of drying up the sea in verse 2 and preceding His description of receiving a disciple’s tongue in verse 4.
The words — The Hebrew verbs אַלְבִּישׁ (al.bish, "I clothe") and אָשִׂים (a.sim, "I make") frame the declaration, while קַדְרוּת (kad.rut, "darkness") and שַׂק (saq, "sackcloth") describe the material applied to the heavens.
The thread — This celestial covering parallels the plague in Exodus 10:21, the sixth seal in Revelation 6:12, and the storm clouds surrounding God in Psalms 18:11.
Why it lands — The text states that God directly alters creation’s appearance as an act of judgment, requiring the reader to acknowledge divine authority before adopting the servant’s posture of listening and speaking to the weary.
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
I clothe the heavens with blackness, and I make sackcloth their covering.
Cross-references
- Revelation 6:12 And I watched as the Lamb opened the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black like sackcloth of goat hair, and the whole moon turned blood red,
- Psalms 18:11 He made darkness His hiding place, and storm clouds a canopy around Him.
- Exodus 10:21 Then the LORD said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand toward heaven, so that darkness may spread over the land of Egypt—a palpable darkness.”
- Matthew 27:45 From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land.