Isaiah 45:1-17 The Commissioning of a Messiah
The LORD's commissioning of Cyrus, King of Persia, is the high point of the chiastic structure of Chapters 41-48 in which the LORD builds a case for His power. On the surface, Isaiah 45 seems to focus on the figure of Cyrus, but Cyrus is only a tool and a small part of the much bigger picture. The overarching theme is that God is the only Savior, and not just of Israel but the whole earth.
Isaiah 45:1-8
In the opening verses, we see God addressing Cyrus personally. Notice that there are no imperative commands to Israel in this section. The deliverance that God grants Israel through Cyrus is by grace and grace alone.
In the opening verse, God calls Cyrus "His anointed one," which is the Hebrew word, mashiach or messiah. The title of "anointed one" is reserved for Israel's high priests and kings, those who are the designated "deliverers" for God’s people. Remember, we talked about the concept of salvation or deliverance in Isaiah 40. There is a physical side to it (the physical fight is ended) and a spiritual side to it (the iniquity is pardoned). The tasking of all “anointed ones” or “messiah” figures is to set people free—to end the fighting on one or both fronts. God's anointed kings set His people free physically when they set up their kingdoms. God's anointed priests set the people spiritually free in regard to pardoning sin.
But Cyrus is a Gentile king, and he is the only Gentile ever given the title, "anointed," in Scripture. This is an unprecedented statement here in Isaiah 45:1. The LORD's use of that word challenges Israel's understanding of what role a messiah figure plays in the grand plan.
Cyrus, as a messiah figure, is commissioned with two tasks: 1) releasing Israel from the hands of oppressive Babylon, and 2) spreading God's fame. He will subdue the nations, break the power of their kings, and liberate the captives. To this end, God gives Cyrus a meteoric success that is beyond explanation, which accomplishes the second objective: that both Cyrus and Israel would know that God is who He says He is (Isaiah 45:3-4). Cyrus' success is definitely not because of Cyrus' own prowess. The LORD makes it very clear that He goes before Cyrus to clear the way for His people. Cyrus is merely His human agent.
Ezra records Cyrus' decree that liberates Israel, and we see in Cyrus' words a repeating of the tasking that the LORD gives him here in Isaiah.
And so, Cyrus makes this grand proclamation extolling the LORD, and yet the LORD remarks repeatedly that Cyrus has not known Him (Isaiah 45:4-5). Why would the LORD say that? We know from historical accounts that Cyrus is pantheistic. He acknowledges and tolerates all the gods of the people he conquers, so he has no problem acknowledging the God of Israel or even decreeing a temple be built for Him, but that doesn't mean that he has a personal relationship with Israel's God. That does not matter in God's eyes, though. If His own people will not give Him glory, He will use someone like Cyrus to spread His fame. Cyrus is just a tool for accomplishing the tasks.
In verses 7-8, God returns to speaking of Himself as the Creator. He creates light and peace. He also creates darkness and calamity. "Calamity" in the Hebrew is the word, ra, which can be translated as evil, distress, misery, or injury.
There are a number of answers to that, but let’s just consider Israel’s case and how she came to be a captive in Babylonia. When God's people became hopelessly corrupt and violent, He raised up even more brutal Babylonia to deal with them (Habakkuk 1). That was God creating calamity. Habakkuk saw that vision of Babylonia overtaking Israel just as Isaiah sees the vision of Persia overtaking Babylon, and Habakkuk was so appalled that he questioned God:
In other words, how can You even look at those lawless Babylonians, let alone use them against righteous Israel? See, there it is. That sense of self-righteousness that says, we may be bad, but they are worse. They are the ones who need the law thrown at them, not us. God has to tear down that notion of self-righteous entitlement, and for Israel, it took a nation bigger and more wicked carrying her off into exile before she submitted to the LORD's sovereignty.
But now that the end of the Babylonian exile is in sight, God uses Cyrus to create some more calamity. When He sets out to free His people and reestablish them in their kingdom, entire nations have to rise and fall in the process. For individual citizens living through their nation's demise, life is appalling and brutal, and the righteous suffer with the wicked.
There is a lot of calamity on our horizon as well. The book of Revelation tells us so. We here at FBC believe that the events foretold in this book are literal events, that there will be a time of horrific upheaval on a world-wide scale as a one-world government is established before Christ comes to establish His own kingdom. But the LORD has a purpose in letting the calamity run its course, and in the end, He will bring a kingdom of righteousness and peace out of it.
Our own country will have to fall to that world-kingdom before Christ's kingdom of justice and peace can be born. I think we are entering into the throes of that upheaval now. There will be a disruption of all the supports that give us a sense of security and well-being—economic support, medical support, food and housing needs, justice and policing needs.
Isaiah 45:9-14
In verse 9, the LORD abruptly switches the focus of His address. He is no longer talking to Cyrus, but to a third party who has apparently raised an objection to His commissioning of Cyrus. We assume that the audience is Israel but why would Israel have a problem of God raising up a deliverer for them? Isaiah doesn't record the complaint outright, but we can infer from God's response that they don't like His plan or His choice of messiah.
God's rebuke is rather blistering. He reminds Israel that He is the Creator who creates light and darkness, peace and calamity. This is a position that He has been maintaining for several chapters now. Just as He has created Israel, He will create a deliverer for Israel. He will use what ever human agent that He chooses and will direct his ways. Who is she to strive with Him over this? Verse 11 loses some of the sarcasm in the NKJV. The NIV catches the gist of the words better:
In verse 13, the LORD says that Cyrus will let the exiles go free “without price or reward,” meaning Cyrus would not exact a price from Israel to buy her way out of bondage. The salvation and redemption she is being granted is free and by the grace of the LORD. That is not to say that Cyrus will not get a reward, but his reward comes from the LORD.
The LORD switches back to speaking to Cyrus in verse 14 where says that all the exalted kings would come and bow to him, but more than that, these kings would confess that Cyrus' success was from the LORD Himself. This is part of his purpose: to spread God’s fame. Cyrus himself would know that God was the God of Israel and that Israel would know God was God over her. Now even the Gentile nations bow to that understanding?
Isaiah 45:15-17 NKJV
Note the structure of these passages. The first time the LORD spoke to Cyrus (45:1-8), it drew a complaint from Israel (45:9-13). Now He speaks to Cyrus again (45:14), and there is another response (45:15-17). This time it is from a righteous third party who praises God as Israel’s Savior on one hand and rebukes idolators on the other hand. The thrust of his message emphasizes that the LORD will bring about an everlasting salvation for Israel, and she need not be ashamed or disgraced to call Him LORD. But the praise for God's everlasting salvation raises a question.
We know from history that Cyrus is not. He conquered Babylonia and sent Israel back to her land with everything she needed to begin again, but his own empire didn't last, nor did Israel remain free of physical bondage from later Gentile nations. In 70 A.D., the Romans expelled Israel from her land again, and she has yet to fully regain sovereignty over the land that God promised her. And we know that she will not fully come into her kingdom again until the Messiah (the messianic Davidic king) comes. So, Cyrus is a messiah, and yet not the Messiah. He shares the same title and has some tasking in common with the Messiah to come, and he even drives Israel's expectations of what a messianic figure should look like.
In Chapter 45, the LORD begins to build this picture of a messiah with Cyrus, but His plan isn't just to save Israel but to save the world through Israel's Messiah. Starting here in 45:17, the near picture of national deliverance through a messiah king begins to telescope out to a distant picture of universal deliverance through a greater Messianic King, which I will discuss in the next blog.
Isaiah 45:1-8
In the opening verses, we see God addressing Cyrus personally. Notice that there are no imperative commands to Israel in this section. The deliverance that God grants Israel through Cyrus is by grace and grace alone.
In the opening verse, God calls Cyrus "His anointed one," which is the Hebrew word, mashiach or messiah. The title of "anointed one" is reserved for Israel's high priests and kings, those who are the designated "deliverers" for God’s people. Remember, we talked about the concept of salvation or deliverance in Isaiah 40. There is a physical side to it (the physical fight is ended) and a spiritual side to it (the iniquity is pardoned). The tasking of all “anointed ones” or “messiah” figures is to set people free—to end the fighting on one or both fronts. God's anointed kings set His people free physically when they set up their kingdoms. God's anointed priests set the people spiritually free in regard to pardoning sin.
But Cyrus is a Gentile king, and he is the only Gentile ever given the title, "anointed," in Scripture. This is an unprecedented statement here in Isaiah 45:1. The LORD's use of that word challenges Israel's understanding of what role a messiah figure plays in the grand plan.
Cyrus, as a messiah figure, is commissioned with two tasks: 1) releasing Israel from the hands of oppressive Babylon, and 2) spreading God's fame. He will subdue the nations, break the power of their kings, and liberate the captives. To this end, God gives Cyrus a meteoric success that is beyond explanation, which accomplishes the second objective: that both Cyrus and Israel would know that God is who He says He is (Isaiah 45:3-4). Cyrus' success is definitely not because of Cyrus' own prowess. The LORD makes it very clear that He goes before Cyrus to clear the way for His people. Cyrus is merely His human agent.
Ezra records Cyrus' decree that liberates Israel, and we see in Cyrus' words a repeating of the tasking that the LORD gives him here in Isaiah.
Ezra 1:2-4 NKJV - "Thus says Cyrus king of Persia: All the kingdoms of the earth the LORD God of heaven has given me. And He has commanded me to build Him a house at Jerusalem which is in Judah. Who is among you of all His people? May his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem which is in Judah, and build the house of the LORD God of Israel (He is God), which is in Jerusalem. And whoever is left in any place where he dwells, let the men of his place help him with silver and gold, with goods and livestock, besides the freewill offerings for the house of God which is in Jerusalem."
And so, Cyrus makes this grand proclamation extolling the LORD, and yet the LORD remarks repeatedly that Cyrus has not known Him (Isaiah 45:4-5). Why would the LORD say that? We know from historical accounts that Cyrus is pantheistic. He acknowledges and tolerates all the gods of the people he conquers, so he has no problem acknowledging the God of Israel or even decreeing a temple be built for Him, but that doesn't mean that he has a personal relationship with Israel's God. That does not matter in God's eyes, though. If His own people will not give Him glory, He will use someone like Cyrus to spread His fame. Cyrus is just a tool for accomplishing the tasks.
In verses 7-8, God returns to speaking of Himself as the Creator. He creates light and peace. He also creates darkness and calamity. "Calamity" in the Hebrew is the word, ra, which can be translated as evil, distress, misery, or injury.
Q: In what sense is God the Creator of evil or calamity?
Q: Why would He do this to His people?
Q: Why would He do this in our lives? (Why do bad things happen to good people? That is a question a struggling person will ask and you should prepare for it.)
There are a number of answers to that, but let’s just consider Israel’s case and how she came to be a captive in Babylonia. When God's people became hopelessly corrupt and violent, He raised up even more brutal Babylonia to deal with them (Habakkuk 1). That was God creating calamity. Habakkuk saw that vision of Babylonia overtaking Israel just as Isaiah sees the vision of Persia overtaking Babylon, and Habakkuk was so appalled that he questioned God:
"You are of purer eyes than to behold evil, and cannot look on wickedness. Why do You look on those who deal treacherously, and hold Your tongue when the wicked devours a person more righteous than he?" (Habakkuk 1:13 NKJV)
In other words, how can You even look at those lawless Babylonians, let alone use them against righteous Israel? See, there it is. That sense of self-righteousness that says, we may be bad, but they are worse. They are the ones who need the law thrown at them, not us. God has to tear down that notion of self-righteous entitlement, and for Israel, it took a nation bigger and more wicked carrying her off into exile before she submitted to the LORD's sovereignty.
But now that the end of the Babylonian exile is in sight, God uses Cyrus to create some more calamity. When He sets out to free His people and reestablish them in their kingdom, entire nations have to rise and fall in the process. For individual citizens living through their nation's demise, life is appalling and brutal, and the righteous suffer with the wicked.
There is a lot of calamity on our horizon as well. The book of Revelation tells us so. We here at FBC believe that the events foretold in this book are literal events, that there will be a time of horrific upheaval on a world-wide scale as a one-world government is established before Christ comes to establish His own kingdom. But the LORD has a purpose in letting the calamity run its course, and in the end, He will bring a kingdom of righteousness and peace out of it.
Our own country will have to fall to that world-kingdom before Christ's kingdom of justice and peace can be born. I think we are entering into the throes of that upheaval now. There will be a disruption of all the supports that give us a sense of security and well-being—economic support, medical support, food and housing needs, justice and policing needs.
Q: How do we prepare ourselves, mentally and spiritually, for the demise of our nation as we have known it? How do we overcome the fear of an uncertain future?
Q: National concerns aside, have you ever questioned God's reasoning or purpose in bringing some calamity into your own personal life? Did you ever challenge Him over why it had to work out the way it did?
Isaiah 45:9-14
In verse 9, the LORD abruptly switches the focus of His address. He is no longer talking to Cyrus, but to a third party who has apparently raised an objection to His commissioning of Cyrus. We assume that the audience is Israel but why would Israel have a problem of God raising up a deliverer for them? Isaiah doesn't record the complaint outright, but we can infer from God's response that they don't like His plan or His choice of messiah.
God's rebuke is rather blistering. He reminds Israel that He is the Creator who creates light and darkness, peace and calamity. This is a position that He has been maintaining for several chapters now. Just as He has created Israel, He will create a deliverer for Israel. He will use what ever human agent that He chooses and will direct his ways. Who is she to strive with Him over this? Verse 11 loses some of the sarcasm in the NKJV. The NIV catches the gist of the words better:
“This is what the LORD says—the Holy One of Israel, and its Maker: ‘Concerning things to come, do you question me about my children, or give me orders about the work of my hands?’” (Isaiah 45:11 NIV)
In verse 13, the LORD says that Cyrus will let the exiles go free “without price or reward,” meaning Cyrus would not exact a price from Israel to buy her way out of bondage. The salvation and redemption she is being granted is free and by the grace of the LORD. That is not to say that Cyrus will not get a reward, but his reward comes from the LORD.
The LORD switches back to speaking to Cyrus in verse 14 where says that all the exalted kings would come and bow to him, but more than that, these kings would confess that Cyrus' success was from the LORD Himself. This is part of his purpose: to spread God’s fame. Cyrus himself would know that God was the God of Israel and that Israel would know God was God over her. Now even the Gentile nations bow to that understanding?
Isaiah 45:15-17 NKJV
Note the structure of these passages. The first time the LORD spoke to Cyrus (45:1-8), it drew a complaint from Israel (45:9-13). Now He speaks to Cyrus again (45:14), and there is another response (45:15-17). This time it is from a righteous third party who praises God as Israel’s Savior on one hand and rebukes idolators on the other hand. The thrust of his message emphasizes that the LORD will bring about an everlasting salvation for Israel, and she need not be ashamed or disgraced to call Him LORD. But the praise for God's everlasting salvation raises a question.
Q: Is Cyrus the messiah through whom God accomplishes that everlasting salvation?
We know from history that Cyrus is not. He conquered Babylonia and sent Israel back to her land with everything she needed to begin again, but his own empire didn't last, nor did Israel remain free of physical bondage from later Gentile nations. In 70 A.D., the Romans expelled Israel from her land again, and she has yet to fully regain sovereignty over the land that God promised her. And we know that she will not fully come into her kingdom again until the Messiah (the messianic Davidic king) comes. So, Cyrus is a messiah, and yet not the Messiah. He shares the same title and has some tasking in common with the Messiah to come, and he even drives Israel's expectations of what a messianic figure should look like.
Q: If Cyrus is a messiah-figure, what defines a messiah?
Q: How does the future Messiah's bring everlasting salvation where Cyrus did not?
Q: When the greater Messiah appears in the future, Israel has a similar objection to Him as she does to Cyrus. Why does she object to Him?
In Chapter 45, the LORD begins to build this picture of a messiah with Cyrus, but His plan isn't just to save Israel but to save the world through Israel's Messiah. Starting here in 45:17, the near picture of national deliverance through a messiah king begins to telescope out to a distant picture of universal deliverance through a greater Messianic King, which I will discuss in the next blog.
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