With the reference to the certificate of divorce comes the question as to whether a real divorce is in view. Those who deny the possibility say that the questions in Isaiah 50:1 are purely rhetorical and ironical, that Israel only felt that they had been divorced and sold, but there was no divorce because there was no certificate (Deuteronomy 24:1).1,2 Those who affirm that a divorce is assumed point to the latter part of the verse that says the mother was sent away, and to Jeremiah 3:8.3 This seems the more tenable. God implicitly tells them to review the divorce certificate, for it will reveal their transgressions instead of the Lord’s abandonment. (The divorce,
however, was not a termination of the relationship; instead, it was a call for Israel to repent; see Jeremiah 3:14; Isaiah 54:5–8; Isaiah 62:4–5.)
1 Thus says the LORD: “Where is your mother’s certificate of divorce, with which I sent her away? Or which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you? Behold, for your iniquities you were sold, and for your transgressions your mother was sent away.