Isaiah / God the Creator and the Call of Cyrus for Israel's Restoration

God the Creator and the Call of Cyrus for Israel's Restoration

Isaiah 44:24-45:25

Chapter 44

²⁴ This is what the LORD, your Redeemer and your Former from the womb, says: I am the LORD, Maker of all, who stretched out the heavens alone, who spread out the earth by myself. ²⁵ He frustrates the signs of diviners and auguries, he makes a mockery, he makes wise men go back behind and their knowledge he makes foolish. ²⁶ who raises up the word of his servant and fulfills the counsel of his messengers, the one saying to Jerusalem, "You will be inhabited!" and to the cities of Judah, "You will be built!" and to her ruins, "I will raise them up!" ²⁷ Who says to the deep, "My sword," and to your River, "You will dry up"? ²⁸ who says to Cyrus, "My shepherd, and all my desire he will fulfill," and says to Jerusalem, "You will be built," and to the Temple, "You will be founded."

Chapter 45

¹ This is what the LORD says to his Messiah, to Cyrus, whom I have strengthened by his hand to rule before him over nations. I will open the loins of kings to open before him doors, and gates will not be shut. ² I will go before you and make the double doors straight; I will break the bronze doors and cut down the iron bars. ³ And I will give you treasures of darkness and hidden treasures of secret places, so that you may know that I am the LORD, the one calling you by your name, God of Israel. ⁴ For the sake of my servant Jacob and Israel my chosen one, I called you by your name. I appointed you when you had not known me. ⁵ I am the LORD, and there is no other besides me; there is no God. I will gird you, though you have not known me. ⁶ So that they may know, from the rising of the sun and from its setting, that there is none besides me. I am the LORD, and there is no other. ⁷ Forming light and creating darkness, making peace and creating evil—I, the LORD, do all these things. ⁸ Drip down, heavens, from above, and let clouds drip righteousness. Open, land, and let salvation bear fruit and righteousness sprout together—I, the LORD, have created it. ⁹ Alas, contend with its maker, potter with the artificers of earth! Will clay say to its maker, "What are you doing?" and your work has no hands for him? ¹⁰ Woe to anyone who says to the father, "What will you beget?" or to the woman, "What will you bring forth?" ¹¹ The LORD says, the Holy One of Israel and its Former: Ask me about my children and about the work of my hands—will you command me? ¹² I made the earth and Adam upon it; I created it. I—my hands stretched out the heavens and all their host; I commanded them. ¹³ I have aroused him in righteousness, and I will make all his ways straight. He will build my city and send off my exiles, not for a price and not for a bribe, says the LORD of hosts. ¹⁴ This is what the LORD says: The labor of Egypt and the merchandise of Cush and the Sabeans, men of stature, will pass over to you, and they will be yours. They will walk behind you; they will pass over in chains, and they will bow down to you. They will pray to you: "Surely God is in you alone, and there is no other, no other gods." ¹⁵ Indeed, you are a God who hides himself, O God of Israel, the Savior. ¹⁶ They are ashamed and also disgraced, all of them together; they go in disgrace, the artificers of images. ¹⁷ Israel is saved by the LORD with an everlasting salvation; you will never be put to shame or humiliated, to the ages, to the ages. ¹⁸ For thus says the LORD, Creator of the heavens—he is the God, Former of the earth, and he made her; he established her not as chaos; he created her to be inhabited, he formed her—I am the LORD and there is none other. ¹⁹ I did not speak in secret, in a dark place of the land. I did not say to the seed of Jacob, "Seek me in vain." I the LORD speak righteousness, declaring upright things. ²⁰ Assemble and come; draw near together, you survivors of the nations who have not known, who carry their wooden idol and pray to a god who cannot save. ²¹ Declare and bring near, even their counselors together—who has made this heard from of old, from then? Has he declared it? Is it not I, the LORD, and there is no other God besides me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is none besides me. ²² Turn to me and be saved, all you at the ends of the earth, for I am God, and there is none else. ²³ By myself I have sworn; a word has gone out from my mouth in righteousness, and it will not return: to me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear. ²⁴ Only in the LORD are righteousness and might, he said. All those who rage against him will come to him and will be ashamed. ²⁵ In the LORD all the seed of Israel will be righteous and will glory.