And hidden riches of secret places,
aThat you may know that I, the Lord,
Who bcall you by your name,
Am the God of Israel.
And Israel My elect,
I have even called you by your name;
I have named you, though you have not known Me.
There is no God besides Me.
cI will gird you, though you have not known Me,
That there is none besides Me.
I am the Lord, and there is no other;
I make peace and acreate calamity;
I, the Lord, do all these things.’
And let the skies pour down righteousness;
Let the earth open, let them bring forth salvation,
And let righteousness spring up together.
I, the Lord, have created it.
Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth!
bShall the clay say to him who forms it, ‘What are you making?’
Or shall your handiwork say, ‘He has no hands’?
| << Isaiah 45:4 | Isaiah 45:6 >> |
What Does Isaiah 45:5 Mean?
Isaiah 45:3-7
God raised Cyrus up to do His bidding to prove to him and all the world who is the true God! God went before Cyrus (verse 2), paving the way for his victories and policies so that His will and His plan would move forward. We should be able to look back at history and see how God worked to bring all the necessary elements into place for His purpose to be fulfilled.
After God used Nebuchadnezzar to punish His people, He raised Cyrus to deliver them from their captivity in Babylon and return them to their land. For the real Christ to be born in Bethlehem as the prophecy states, Jews had to be living in Judea. He also inspired Cyrus to institute his conciliatory policy toward foreign religions so that a Temple could be built to which His Son could come. And among other points, Jerusalem had to be rebuilt so Jesus could die outside the city for our sins.
No other "god" can do these things! Only the Most High God, the Almighty Sovereign of the universe can work out events over such long periods of time. He can take sinful men who have never even desired a relationship with Him and cause them to do His will and bring about His purpose.
God is in control. Light, darkness, peace, or calamity—none of these things happen without His permission. "I, the LORD, do all these things," He says.
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Cyrus: God's Anointed
Isaiah 45:4-6
Notice that God gives examples of things He does from behind the scenes that people are unaware He is doing. By this, He is revealing a principle. He is doing similar things all the time, and people are just as unaware today as the ancients. He is manipulating events to cause people to react. In these verses, God is speaking to Cyrus, who is totally unaware that God has made it possible for him to be in the position to carry out what God wants him to do. He also informs Cyrus that he will do this job for Jacob's benefit, in this case for the Jews living under the Persian Empire.
In addition, we discover in verse 6 that the Jews do not know this either. The time will come, however, when they will know that God worked these things for their benefit and His purpose, and they will give God glory as the one and only Almighty God. A small-scale fulfillment of this occurred under Ezra and Nehemiah, but the greater fulfillment will not take place until the Great White Throne Judgment. Isaiah 45 gives the impression He is actively working, but that we are aware of only a tiny portion of His activity even in our own lives. Yet, as His children, we should be intently looking for His hand in our affairs.
John W. Ritenbaugh
God's Sovereignty and the Church's Condition (Part One)
Other Forerunner Commentary entries containing Isaiah 45:5:
| << Isaiah 45:4 | Isaiah 45:6 >> |
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