What is significant about the expression “by my rebuke”?
Isaiah 50:2 (ESV)
2Why, when I came, was there no man; why, when I called, was there no one to answer? Is my hand shortened, that it cannot redeem? Or have I no power to deliver? Behold, by my rebuke I dry up the sea, I make the rivers a desert; their fish stink for lack of water and die of thirst.
The term is something of a favourite expression of Isaiah’s (see also Isaiah 17:13; Isaiah 30:17; Isaiah 51:20; Isaiah 54:9; Isaiah 66:15). He uses it to illustrate the Lord’s great power, shown not least over things in nature.
2 Why, when I came, was there no man; why, when I called, was there no one to answer? Is my hand shortened, that it cannot redeem? Or have I no power to deliver? Behold, by my rebuke I dry up the sea, I make the rivers a desert; their fish stink for lack of water and die of thirst.