A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 39: The Test of God
A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 39: The Test of God
As we have already sought to describe concerning these last twenty-six chapters of Isaiah, at this point in the life of the prophet the Assyrian captivities are nearing completion. This we hope to have further elucidated in our last presentation, The Beginning of Encouragement, in which we documented one later occasion, from the days of Ashurbanipal around 660 BC, when there were further captives taken from cities of Israel on the coast, namely Acre and Ushu, which was the Assyrian name for the mainland portion of ancient Tyre. However for the most part, from this point forward, Isaiah is primarily addressing the children of Israel as they had already gone into captivity. Moreover, as we progress throughout the balance of this book, it becomes apparent that Isaiah is not only addressing the Israelites of his own time, those of them who would be fortunate enough to hear or read these words, but also Israelites in the far distant future.
However Isaiah remained in Jerusalem itself, which was the only significant city of Israel and Judah that was virtually unscathed by the Assyrian conquests, and as he had prophesied, Jerusalem had a separate and distinct destiny from this point forward. While there is a Jerusalem which is mentioned in these final chapters of Isaiah, it is usually in visions of a prophetic Jerusalem within the context of Messianic salvation, and it is a seemingly different Jerusalem which is not even necessarily in Palestine. There is an exception in Isaiah chapter 44, in a prophecy which had a more immediate fulfillment, as later history had fully revealed, although even the fulfillment of that prophecy was for the purpose of the coming Messiah. So even if Jerusalem would have a history distinct from that of Israel from this point in time, ultimately the histories of Judah and Israel remained intertwined.
So where it opens, this forty-first chapter of Isaiah addresses the islands and coastlands, which is ostensibly referencing the new homes of Israel in their places of captivity, or in the places to which they had spread themselves abroad either earlier in history, or in their attempt to escape captivity. That these places are principally in the west is evidenced in the clause in verse 2 of this chapter which had asked “Who raised up the righteous man from the east, called him to his foot, gave the nations before him, and made him rule over kings?” As we had explained, that may refer to Abraham, or to Jacob as his descendants came to dominate the lands to the west, or even to Christ Himself, in a prophetic sense which relates to both aspects of the Messianic prophecies, those of His first coming as well as those of His promised and still future second coming.
From there is a warning which forebodes judgment, and certain aspects of the idolatry of the nations are described, the idolatry in which various groups of the descendants of Israel had also taken a significant part. But in the verses which follow, the descendants of Jacob and Abraham are collectively characterized as Yahweh’s servant, and they are offered much encouragement in the assertion that Yahweh their God has not cast them away. In verse 9, we offered good reason to correct the first clause of the verse to read “Thou whom I have encouraged at the ends of the earth…”, as it is in The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible, or even “Thou whom I have strengthened at the ends of the earth…”, either of which also seem to be a prophecy of the Gospel of Christ, more of which we shall see in the passages that follow. In the words of that encouragement, the children of Israel are assured that all those who had opposed them would be confounded, and all who had fought with them would perish, but that they shall be upheld and strengthened by Yahweh their God, in spite of their sins, and in that same place, we see the first time of many here in Isaiah where Yahweh God described Himself explicitly as their Redeemer and their Holy One. Then in the subsequent verses there are allegories which reveal that they shall overcome their enemies, and be planted as a forest in the wilderness, which represents the places of their captivity. Once again, these declarations were all made in spite of the fact that they themselves were still in a state of apostasy, and as Isaiah explains at least several times in subsequent chapters, they would remain in that apostasy for quite some time.
Now, returning to the fact that Israel had practiced idolatry which was described earlier in this chapter, Yahweh issues a challenge to Israel, and by meeting that challenge the children of Israel should be compelled to recognize Yahweh as their true God, to dispose of their idols, and to subject themselves to Him. For Christians, this challenge should also be considered the proof by which the truth of anyone claiming to speak for a god is measured, and if any prophecy fails that proof, it is evident that the prophet is a false prophet speaking for a false god who must be rejected.
But if a prophet gives prophecy which is consistently fulfilled, and especially that which stands the test of time, then it becomes evident that anything which he said which has not yet come to pass, shall certainly come to pass at a time when it is appropriate for it to come to pass. So here is the challenge, and it will become evident that the “strong reasons” which Israel is beckoned to bring forth would be the reasons which could explain why they had been practicing idolatry. If they have no “strong reasons”, then there are no reasons for their worship of idols. So this is the test of God, and here the substance of the test is defined by God Himself, as we commence with Isaiah chapter 41:
21 Produce your cause, saith the LORD; bring forth your strong reasons, saith the King of Jacob. 22 Let them bring them forth, and shew us what shall happen: let them shew the former things, what they be, that we may consider them, and know the latter end of them; or declare us things for to come. 23 Shew the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that ye are gods: yea, do good, or do evil, that we may be dismayed, and behold it together.
Perhaps the reading in The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible helps to clarify the meaning: “21 Present your case, says the Lord. Submit your arguments, says the King of Jacob. 22 Let them approach and tell us what will happen. 22 The former things, what were they? Tell us, so that we may consider them and know. Or the latter things or the things to come, let us hear. 23 Report on what is to come in the future, so that we may know that you are gods. Yes, do good or do evil, so that we together may hear and see it. ”
Throughout His prophets, Yahweh has not only revealed many things which had transpired in the future of Israel at the time when those things had been uttered, but He had also revealed to Israel many of the former things. In the Book of Genesis, for example, the entire narrative spans from about 5449 BC and the Creation of Adam, to 1595 BC and the death of Joseph in Egypt. However as the circumstances in the Book of Exodus are described, Moses could not have written any portion of Genesis until at least 1450 BC, which is the approximate year of the Exodus and the giving of the Law at Sinai. This is according to our own Genesis chronology [1], but the point is valid in regard to any reasonable Genesis chronology.
Moses, even though he had been only the fourth generation from Jacob, was not raised with his own people, but in the house of pharaoh, where he would have been deprived of any memories of the lives of his immediate patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Moses was also educated as a prince in Egypt and probably had a good knowledge of the history of the ancient world from that education. However the ideas expressed in ancient Egyptian literature concerning the founding of the world are far different than any of those which are found in Genesis. So Moses must have been inspired directly by God to write the things which he had written in reference to remote antiquity, from the time of Adam down to his own time. But many questions are also left open in Genesis, such as the identity of the serpent, for example, or the reasons for the presence of other races in Canaan, which had not come from of the sons of Noah. Those questions were answered by Christ Himself, where the words of Moses are also upheld, in both His parables and in the Revelation, since as Matthew had recorded it in chapter 13 of his Gospel (13:35), one prophesied purpose of Christ was to “utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world.” However Christ did not change the words of Moses, He upheld and augmented them.
So now that we have discussed how Yahweh had shown to Israel the things of the past, we shall briefly discuss how Yahweh has already, but the time at which Isaiah had written these words, shown to Israel the things which would come hereafter, which is after the time when the words of any prophecy had first been spoken. This is a measurable test of both a prophet and his god.
By this time, the prophet Isaiah had conducted his ministry in Judah for over forty years, and many of the things which he had spoken on behalf of Yahweh had already come to pass. So, for example, in the days of Ahaz, Isaiah had prophesied the imminent downfall of Rezin and Pekah, the kings of Damascus and Samaria who had harassed Judah, and just as he had said, within a short time both of those kings were destroyed by the Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser III. In that same place, in Isaiah chapter 7, it had been prophesied that “within threescore and five years shall Ephraim be broken, that it be not a people.” This seems to have been uttered early in the time of Ahaz, and in our commentary on that chapter, titled A Virgin Shall Conceive, we gave our reasons for believing that it was around the third year of the rule of Ahaz.
Now at this point in Isaiah, after Ahaz had ruled for sixteen years, and his son Hezekiah for at least fifteen more, nearly half of that sixty-five year period is past, Samaria has already long been taken and it’s inhabitants slain or deported, and most of the rest of Israel has also been deported, while we have already illustrated that further deportations occurred in the reign of later Assyrian kings, as late as 660 BC, which is another forty years from this time. While Ushu, or Tyre, and Acre, or Accho, were cities in the land of Asher, the name Ephraim in that context is a reference to the ten northern tribes, as it is also used throughout Hosea. Finally, Isaiah prophesied the failure of the Assyrian siege of Jerusalem, and it did fail, in the precise manner by which he had described it. While there were other prophecies with immediate fulfillments, those three are probably the most significant of the immediate proofs that Isaiah certainly is a prophet of the Living God, and that Yahweh God is True, while the idols of men had all failed them. After those proofs, the most significant of which are readily evident in history is the fall of the Assyrian Empire, and both the rise and fall of the Babylonian empire, things which are prophesied in Isaiah chapters 10 through 14, and mentioned or alluded to elsewhere. For example, in Isaiah chapter 39 where the prophet warned Hezekiah that his sons would be taken captive to Babylon, that is also another prophecy of the rise of Babylon as an empire, which. in turn, also further signals the end of Assyria as an empire. Those circumstances had to come before the Babylonians could have taken Hezekiah’s sons.
So even if there were not any men in the captivity at the time of Isaiah who could read this book and realize that Yahweh God is True, many men since then have had the opportunity to do such a thing, and they certainly should have made that recognition. If all of the near-vision prophecies found in Isaiah had come true, which they had, then we may rest assured that the few prophecies which are unfulfilled even to this day shall also be fulfilled, when the time comes that Yahweh God has appointed. As Paul of Tarsus had written, in Romans chapter 15: “4 For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.” Here Yahweh God Himself defines the test of God, and Christians are obliged to learn from that test.
Knowing that Israel could not defend its idolatry in this manner, because their idols could not tell them anything of either the past or the future, Yahweh Himself is now characterized as having responded:
24 Behold, ye are of nothing, and your work of nought: an abomination is he that chooseth you.
Here Yahweh is characterized as having informed the idols that they are of nothing, and their work is of nought, and for that reason, referring to the idolaters among the children of Israel, whoever chooses such idols is himself an abomination. Not considering the works of their own God, and not testing those of the idols which they had worshipped, they themselves fail the test of God. This is not man testing God, but rather, it is God informing man as to how he should test all gods, and if he fails to do so, then he himself may fail the test, becoming an abomination for choosing dumb idols rather than the Living God.
So now there is another warning, and the ability to make a certain interpretation is obfuscated by the many differences among the original texts:
25 I have raised up one from the north, and he shall come: from the rising of the sun shall he call upon my name: and he shall come upon princes as upon morter, and as the potter treadeth clay.
The translation of this verse in the King James Version is generally faithful to the reading of the Masoretic Text, so I cannot criticize it from that perspective. But it does differ from translations based on other texts, which must be discussed here since in many ways, this is a rather significant prophecy. Citing the scroll identified as 1QIsaiaha, The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible has verse 25 to read:
25 You are stirring one up from the north, and they are coming from the rising of the sun. And he is called by his name. Riders will come like mire and like the potter, and he will trample the clay.
While there is not much of a record for this verse in the fragments of the Hexapla of Origen, there it is only noted that the Old Latin version employed by Origen has at the beginning of the verse a word excitavi, which means “I have awakened”, and Symmachus is cited with another Latin word, a synonym, suscitabo, which is “I will awaken”, which apparently may have come from a Latin citation of Symmachus found in some other writer. The Vulgate of Jerome has suscitavi instead, which is the same word in a different tense, “I woke up”. In Isaiah’s prophetic language, the tense is not as important as it would be in a historical narrative, since prophetically the past and present tenses are often employed to indicate the certainty of an event which is prophesied to occur in in the future. But in Biblical Hebrew, the tense is often only determined by the context, as the vowel points of the Masoretic Text are later rabbinical additions, which were not an original part of the language as it was written.
The Septuagint, as Brenton had translated it, agrees with the Masoretic Text in the first part of this verse, where it has: “25 But I have raised up him that comes from the north, and him that comes from the rising of the sun…”
There is no personal pronoun for him in the Greek text, but an explicitly masculine singular definite article appears as the object of the verbs for raised and comes, for which Brenton wrote “him”. Then the Septuagint has a novel reading in the latter part of the verse, where rather than “shall he call upon my name”, it says: “… they shall be called by my name…” That is from Brenton’s translation, but is an accurate reading of the Septuagint Greek. The Septuagint then differs further in the end of the verse where it has: “… let the princes come, and as potter's clay, and as a potter treading clay, so shall ye be trodden down.” This was also an accurate reading of the Septuagint Greek. As for that final addition, “so shall ye be trodden down”, the Masoretic Text is missing that clause entirely, however it is similar to what is found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, where The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible has a clause which reads “and he will trample the clay.”
Now on another note, the construction of the Hebrew phrase יקרא בשׁמי or i qara be shemiy, is translated as “shall he call upon my name” here in this verse. The leading i in that transliteration of the Hebrew phrase means he. Without the pronoun, the same exact construction is found in Isaiah 43:7 and 65:1. In those places as well as in this passage, other translations have either “call upon my name” or “called by my name”. So the difference is the choice of the translator and how it is interpreted in context, because at any given time it may be read either way.
We cannot account for the other differences in the pronouns between these witnesses, the Masoretic Text, the Septuagint, and the Dead Sea Scrolls. But it must be noted, that in verse 24, The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible fully agrees with that verse as it is in the Masoretic Text, where it has “24 Indeed, you and your work are nothing, and whoever chooses you is an abomination.” Furthermore, the Septuagint generally agrees, where Brenton has “24 whence ye are, and whence is your works: they have chosen you an abomination out of the earth.” If the idols are being addressed in verse 24, there is no reason to believe that Yahweh is addressing anything else in verse 25.
Furthermore, in the Dead Sea Scrolls, the pronouns are inconsistent within the text in verse 25 where it switches from “You are stirring one up” to “and they are coming” and then to “he is called by his name” in the first half of the verse, and also from “Riders will come” to “he will trample” in the final half of the verse. The Septuagint also has an inconsistency in the pronouns, where the entity being described as the object of the verbs for raised and comes at the beginning of the verse is masculine and singular, but it then says “they shall be called by my name” where it explicitly refers to a plural entity which is previously undefined. While once again there is no personal pronoun for they in the text, it is nevertheless explicit in the passive third person plural form of the verb κληθήσονται, which is they shall be called. So on account of these perceived inconsistencies in the pronouns in the Septuagint and in the Dead Sea Scrolls Bible, we should prefer the reading of the Masoretic Text here, which is also in agreement with the fact that Yahweh is still addressing the idols of verse 24, and indirectly, those who had made the idols.
As it is in the Masoretic Text, this prophecy seems to describe Cyrus, the first king of the Persian empire, who took under his own rule Assyria, Babylon and most of the lands formerly held by the Assyrians. That is a common interpretation of this passage in denominational commentaries, and it seems to be supported by the fact that Cyrus is indeed mentioned by name later on, in Isaiah chapters 44 and 45. Cyrus may also fit the description of having come both from the north and the east, since he was evidently of both Median and Persian descent, and in the Histories of Herodotus he was described as a hereditary prince of either nation. Cyrus was certainly not called by the Name of Yahweh, as the clause may also be translated. But as we have explained, the clause as it is in the Masoretic Text may indeed be interpreted to state that “he shall call upon My Name”, referring to Yahweh, and it is only mentioned elsewhere in Scripture that Cyrus had ever done such a thing.
Cyrus certainly had never been accustomed to calling upon the name of Yahweh, having been an idolater. However Scripture records that there was an instance where Cyrus had invoked the Name of Yahweh, in 2 Chronicles chapter 36 where we read: “23 Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, All the kingdoms of the earth hath the LORD God of heaven given me; and he hath charged me to build him an house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Who is there among you of all his people? The LORD his God be with him, and let him go up.” However this does not mean that Cyrus actually esteemed Yahweh as God, simply because he invoked the Name of Yahweh while dealing with the people of Judah. Rather, as we had elucidated from ancient inscriptions in our Genesis commentary, using treaties between the Hittites and the Egyptians, or the Hittites and the Mittani Kingdom as examples, ancient kings customarily invoked the gods of other nations when dealing with those nations, even if they did not esteem them as gods for themselves. [2] So in the minds of the people of Judah, Cyrus did well, but perhaps not in his own mind.
In his own surviving inscriptions, and namely that which is known as the Cyrus Cylinder, the king had strongly associated himself with the Mesopotamian idol Marduk. Then, rather interestingly, in line 12 of the inscription we read, in a reference to Marduk, “he searched everywhere and then he took a righteous king, his favorite, by the hand, he called out his name: Cyrus, king of Anšan; he pronounced his name to be king all over the world.” Here we are nearly tempted to accept the reading of 1QIsiaha where it has “And he is called by his name”, but only on account of this vague similarity, and otherwise, we cannot accept it, for reasons which we shall explain later.
In this inscription, Cyrus had also invoked the names of other Mesopotamian gods, namely Bel and Nebo, although they were not his native Persian gods, and he returned to their original temples all of the images of the idols of other gods in the districts under his rule which had evidently been removed by the Babylonians. So Cyrus did not destroy the idols, but rather, he helped the idolaters set them back up. Interestingly, there it is also evident that the clemency granted the people of Judah to return to their land and rebuild their temple was part of a general clemency for all of the people who had formerly been removed from their homes and had their temples looted by the previous rulers, even if many of those people obviously did not care to return. [3, 4]
Concerning the Israelites of the captivity, Yahweh had said in Amos chapter 9: “9 For, lo, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth.” So we cannot expect the Israelites of the captivity to have been free of war, and actually, we should expect them to have always been engaged in war, which would be the manifestation of this sifting process described by Amos. As it is also prophesied in Isaiah chapter 10, the children of Israel in the captivity would have a significant role in the coming destruction of Assyria, which happened about 90 years after the failed siege of Jerusalem.
So Cyrus may also have “come upon princes as mortar, and as the potter treads the clay”, however if we accept the reading of the Septuagint in that last clause of the verse, it may be claimed that Cyrus also fulfilled the final portion which says “so shall ye be trodden down”, but there Yahweh was addressing the idols, which Cyrus did not destroy. Cyrus had come to rule over many places in which the children of Israel had also been settled in their captivity. It was reported by Herodotus that he had died when he made war against the Sakae north of the Araxes River in Media, although that is apparently contradicted by other sources. Earlier, in the creation of his empire, Cyrus fought several battles against the Medes, and a portion of the captivity of Israel had been settled in the cities of the Medes. He also fought two battles against the Lydians in western Anatolia and one against Hindus in the far east. He fought one decisive battle against the Babylonians, and even if Babylon itself was besieged, it was apparently taken without a great battle, but its prince was killed. He put down at least one revolt by the Assyrians, and once his power was consolidated, his empire generally seems to have been rather peaceful. So in this regard, we are compelled to accept this as a prophecy of Cyrus, but Cyrus did not fulfill it in every respect. Cyrus did however, pave the way for the coming of Yahshua Christ, who shall indeed fulfill this prophecy in every respect.
As this chapter progresses, it is more evident that this is also a Messianic prophecy of Yahshua Christ. While Cyrus may in some narrow aspects be upheld as a type for Christ, the evidence that he fulfilled the words of this prophecy sufficiently enough to be considered its near-vision subject is not conclusive, especially on account of the disparity among the sources. However in our view, it may be a near-vision prophecy of Cyrus, and although it may rather be a near-vision prophecy of the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II, the only real difference is that it is difficult to describe Nebuchadnezzar II as having been raised up from the north. But once we read verse 27 here, it is clearly more likely to be speaking of Cyrus, and not at all of Nebuchadnezzar. However in a far-vision fulfillment, it is also revealed as we proceed, that this is a prophecy of Yahshua Christ, a Messianic prophecy which also describes Him, and in context, describes him much more fully than it does Cyrus.
Now, as we return to Isaiah chapter 41 at verse 26, Yahweh continues to challenge the idols of the children of Israel on the basis that He is true, ostensibly because the words of His prophet shall be true, while the idols are useless, so this is a recapitulation of the test of God:
26 Who hath declared from the beginning, that we may know? and beforetime, that we may say, He is righteous? yea, there is none that sheweth, yea, there is none that declareth, yea, there is none that heareth your words.
Of course, the idols themselves actually had no words, as idols are deaf and dumb. The prophet Habakkuk addressed this in chapter 2 of his prophecy where the Word of Yahweh said: “18 What profiteth the graven image that the maker thereof hath graven it; the molten image, and a teacher of lies, that the maker of his work trusteth therein, to make dumb idols?” However even many decades after these words of Isaiah, in Jeremiah chapter 2 we see that the priests in Jerusalem had forsaken Yahweh for Baal, where we read: “8 The priests said not, Where is the LORD? and they that handle the law knew me not: the pastors also transgressed against me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal, and walked after things that do not profit. 9 Wherefore I will yet plead with you, saith the LORD, and with your children's children will I plead.” Later, in Jeremiah chapter 23, the prophecy recollects Israel in Samaria and we read: “13 And I have seen folly in the prophets of Samaria; they prophesied in Baal, and caused my people Israel to err.”
But in spite of these sins, there is now another promise:
27 The first shall say to Zion, Behold, behold them: and I will give to Jerusalem one that bringeth good tidings.
Here in The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible, which notes that the scroll known as 1QIsaiaha has a different verb in the first clause, we read: “27 First, for Zion, there is slumber To Jerusalem, I will send a messenger.” But that translation does not provide the full meaning of the Hebrew word for messenger, which is בשׂר or basar (# 1319), which Strong’s defines as “properly to be fresh, i.e. full (rosy, figuratively cheerful); to announce (glad news).” Likewise, the Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon defines the word in part as gladden with good tidings or to be a bearer of good tidings or a herald as glad tidings, among other similar things. [5]
The Septuagint, as it was translated by Brenton, has this verse to read: “27 I will give dominion to Sion, and will comfort Jerusalem by the way.” The Greek word which Brenton rendered as dominion is ἀρχή, and in some respects it is very much like the Hebrew word for first, which is ראשון or rashown (# 7223), and which can also mean former or formerly, but in the sense of being first, it can describe a chief or something that precedes or excels another, although examples of such a usage in Scripture are scarce in reference to people. Brown-Driver-Briggs cite Ezra 9:2 for that usage, where it reads “the hand of the princes and rulers hath been chief in this trespass”, however there the word is not used to describe the princes themselves, but only their actions. [6]
So as Liddell & Scott define ἀρχή, the word from which Brenton translated dominion here, primarily it is a beginning, origin, first cause, or secondarily, the first place or power, sovereignty, dominion, command, and in that respect there are other definitions in certain contexts, such as sovereignty or realm, etc. However seeing the more limited manner in which the Hebrew word rashown is used in Scripture, we would not translate ἀρχή as dominion here, but rather, we would prefer to follow the New American Standard Bible which rendered the Hebrew word as formerly.
The Septuagint also lacks any representation of the two consecutive occurrences in Hebrew of a word which means behold, translated as “Behold, behold them” here in the King James Version, which seems to be a statement to Zion to behold its dumb idols, which could not withstand the test of God. But unfortunately, the Hexapla of Origen is silent on this verse, and in that same place the Dead Sea Scrolls have a completely different phrase, translated as “there is slumber”. This is also where the Septuagint has only the verb which means “I shall give”, so once again, all three sources each have very different readings. The Douay-Rheims translation of the Latin Vulgate agrees with the Masoretic Text, where it has this verse to read: “27 The first shall say to Sion: Behold they are here, and to Jerusalem I will give an evangelist.”
Because there is no definite article accompanying the Hebrew word for first here, we prefer the rendering of this verse as it is found in the New American Standard Bible: “27 Formerly I said to Zion, 'Behold, here they are.' And to Jerusalem, 'I will give a messenger of good news.” By saying “Behold, they here are”, it is apparent that Yahweh is speaking in reference to His rhetorical questions in verse 26, where He had asked “26 Who hath declared from the beginning, that we may know? and beforetime, that we may say, He is righteous?” Then, by saying “And to Jerusalem, 'I will give a messenger of good news”, it is apparent that He speaks of the man whom he would raise up from the north, in verse 25.
In the near-vision fulfillment of this prophecy, Cyrus the king of Persia had a message of good news for Jerusalem, as it was he who had first decreed that the various peoples in captivity could return to their homelands and restore the temples of their Gods. While the recorders of these events in Scripture, which is reflected in the record of 2 Chronicles chapter 36 that we have already cited, had interpreted this solely from their own perspective as pertaining to Judah, in this context it is immaterial that from the perspective of Cyrus, it was a universal decree which pertained to all of the peoples under his rule. In any event, it was Cyrus who decreed that Zerubbabel and those who went with him could return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple of Yahweh.
But in the far-vision, that decree also paved the way for the restoration of the religion of Moses in Judea, to fulfill the later Seventy Weeks prophecy of Daniel chapter 9, where the restoration of Jerusalem was described as having been for the express purpose of facilitating the ultimate coming of Christ, whose Gospel for both Israel and Judah is the far-vision and ultimate fulfillment of this prophecy. At His second coming, He “shall come upon princes as upon morter, and as the potter treadeth clay.” At His first coming, from the perspective of Isaiah in Jerusalem, He came from the north, having come to Jerusalem from Galilee, and from the perspective of the children of Israel in captivity, to whom this prophecy is addressed, when they received the Gospel He came from the east, as they were, for the most part, in the isles and coastlands which are in the west.
Now, the dialogue here still belongs to Yahweh, as it is represented by the prophet, and He speaks in answer to the outcome of his challenges outlined in the test of God:
28 For I beheld, and there was no man; even among them, and there was no counsellor, that, when I asked of them, could answer a word. 29 Behold, they are all vanity; their works are nothing: their molten images are wind and confusion.
Rather than “For I beheld”, the Septuagint has “For from among the nations”. Here The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible generally agrees with the King James Version, where it reads “28 When I look, no one is there among them, no one gives counsel or responds when I inquire of them.”
The Septuagint also has a quite different reading of verse 29: “For these are your makers, as ye think, and they that cause you to err in vain.” However there also, The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible generally agrees with the King James Version, where it has “29 Indeed, none of them exists, and their works are nothing. Their molten images are formless wind.” While the Hexapla is wanting examples from Aquila and Symmachus, it has an alternate version from Theodotian which reads: ἰδοὺ πάντες οὶ ἄδικοι, οὐδὲν τὰ ἔργα αὐτῶν ἄνεμος καὶ κενὸν τὸ χώνευμα αὐτῶν [7] or as we would translate it, “Behold, all the unrighteous! Their works are nothing, wind and vanity their molten images”, and except for the reference to “all the unrighteous”, that reading fully agrees with the translation in the King James Version from the Masoretic Text.
This certainly represents the fact that Israel would have no answer, because their idols could not withstand such a test, and therefore they demonstrate that their idols are vanity. That is the test of God, from God Himself since He has proven Himself to be God, but regardless of their failures, there are still messages of encouragement for Israel as we commence with Isaiah chapter 42:
1 Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the [Nations].
Here the Septuagint as Brenton translates it has some notable differences, where we read: “1 Jacob is my servant, I will help him: Israel is my chosen, my soul has accepted him; I have put my Spirit upon him; he shall bring forth judgment to the [Nations].” The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible supports the read of the King James Version and the Masoretic Text. For other reasons, we do not accept this reading in the Septuagint, and in the Hexapla, the reading of Theodotian also agrees with the King James Version, as well as the reading in the Old Latin manuscripts employed by Origen. [8]
While this could refer to the children of Israel in a not so near-vision fulfillment, once they receive the Gospel of Christ, it pertains much more precisely to Yahshua Christ Himself, as we shall see once we present this through verse 4. Jacob is, however, declared to be Yahweh’s servant, as we have already seen in chapter Isaiah 41 (41:8), and as we shall see again in chapters 44, 48 and 49. Even in apostasy and captivity, Jacob, meaning the children of Israel collectively, is Yahweh’s servant, because whether or not they comply willingly, they are accomplishing His Will in the world. We shall elaborate on that much further in those subsequent chapters of Isaiah, where it is more certain that Jacob is indeed the subject.
2 He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. 3 A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench: he shall bring forth judgment unto truth.
Verses 2 and 3 as Brenton translated them from the Septuagint read very much like the translation in the King James Version.
As for the bruised reed, and the smoking flax, perhaps the bruised reed represents the most humble of men, and the smoking flax, the most froward, or even the most violent. In Isaiah chapter 7, where Rezin king of Syria and Pekah king of Israel had unrighteously magnified themselves against Judah, they were described as “smoking firebrands”. So this implies that although this servant is given a task to “bring forth judgment unto truth”, it is evident that He will not execute that judgment. This Christ Himself had attested, where He said, as it is recorded in John chapter 12: “47 And if any man hear my words, and believe not, I judge him not: for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world.”
This is also evident in Luke chapter 4, where Christ was at a synagogue in Nazareth, and had read from this book of the prophecy of Isaiah in reference to Himself, and said, as it is in the King James Version: “18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, 19 To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.” At that point Christ had closed the book, or the scroll, from which He had read, and declared to the people that “This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.”
However where Christ had stopped reading, is at a point halfway through what we now know as Isaiah chapter 61 verse 2, so we shall read the entirety of that verse now: “ 2 To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn;” Here it is evident, that in His first advent, Christ did not come to proclaim “the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn;” so He stopped short of reading that in the synagogue in Nazareth. That day of vengeance was declared later, in His Revelation, but we continue to await its fulfillment.
Now in spite of the fact that He did not come to execute vengeance, we read:
4 He shall not fail nor be discouraged, till he have set judgment in the earth: and the isles shall wait for his law.
Here also, the Septuagint has a very different reading, which Brenton translates as: “4 He shall shine out, and shall not be discouraged, until he have set judgment on the earth: and in his name shall the [Nations] trust.” The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible once again agrees with the Masoretic Text, and there they had also translated the word for isles as coastlands, which is more precise since all isles are coastlands, but not all coastlands are isles, the word having either meaning.
Now in hindsight, these last four verses are a continuation of the prophecy of chapter 41. There is no break in the context. So this servant must be the same servant as the servant raised up from the north and the east in that chapter. While Cyrus may have fulfilled a portion of this prophecy in a near-vision perspective, Christ has fulfilled it more precisely, and at his second coming he shall fulfill the balance of it. This must therefore be a Messianic prophecy of Christ. Cyrus only brought forth his own judgment, and he had ostensibly broken many bruised reeds and quenched much smoking flax in the warfare which he had conducted to build his empire.
In Matthew chapter 12, the apostle had cited, or perhaps had only paraphrased, a version of this passage which is much closer to what is found in the King James Version in the beginning, but in the end it agrees with the Septuagint to a smaller degree. So in the King James Version, the apostle recorded the following, right after Christ had healed a man with a withered hand on the day of the Sabbath:
14 Then the Pharisees went out, and held a council against him, how they might destroy him. 15 But when Jesus knew it, he withdrew himself from thence: and great multitudes followed him, and he healed them all; 16 And charged them that they should not make him known: 17 That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying,
18 Behold my servant, whom I have chosen; my beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased: I will put my spirit upon him, and he shall shew judgment to the [Nations]. 19 He shall not strive, nor cry; neither shall any man hear his voice in the streets. 20 A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he not quench, till he send forth judgment unto victory. 21 And in his name shall the [Nations] trust.
22 Then was brought unto him one possessed with a devil, blind, and dumb: and he healed him, insomuch that the blind and dumb both spake and saw.
In verse 20, Matthew has victory, where The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible has justice in verse 3 of this chapter of Isaiah, but both the King James Version and the Septuagint have truth. In verse 21 of Matthew chapter 12, where the King James Version here in Isaiah 42:4 has “and the isles shall wait for his law” and where The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible in Isaiah 42:4 has “and the coastlands will inherit his law”, noting an alternate reading in 1QIsaiaha where 4QIsaiahb is admitted to agree with the Masoretic Text. Where Matthew has trust “And in his name shall the [Nations] trust”, that clause is in complete agreement with verse 4 here as it is found in the Septuagint. However the rest of the passage as it was cited by Matthew is very different from the Septuagint. In any event, once again it is evident that there are at least some significant disparities among the early witnesses of Isaiah which cannot be easily resolved or rectified. However most of these are minor, and we found the difficulties in verse 25 of chapter 41 to be much more significant.
In Romans chapter 15, Paul of Tarsus had cited two passages in Isaiah as if they were one, where he wrote: “12 And again, Esaias saith, There shall be a root of Jesse, and he that shall rise to reign over the [Nations]; in him shall the [Nations] trust.” This corroborates Matthew’s reading of verse 4 of this chapter, found in Matthew 12:21. However it is certain that Paul did not make an error in Romans 15:12, but rather, he must have purposely conjoined a portion of the verse found in Isaiah 11:10 where we read “10 And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the [Nations] seek: and his rest shall be glorious” with verse 4 here where we read, as it is in the Septuagint and in Matthew, “and in his name shall the [Nations] trust.”
While Cyrus may have relieved the nations of the Babylonian Empire of some of the oppression of Nebuchadnezzar and the kings who had followed him, and while he focused on mercy and the magnanimity of his rule in the inscription known as the Cyrus Cylinder, this is nevertheless a prophecy which is much more accurately fulfilled in Yahshua Christ, and that will become even more apparent as we proceed with Isaiah chapter 42.
We hope to do that as early as next week, when we return. Admittedly, the 41st chapter of Isaiah is probably the most difficult chapter which I have encountered thus far, mostly because of all of the different perspectives to consider in the disparate textual sources which we now have available.
Footnotes
1 Christogenea Genesis Chronology, William Finck, https://christogenea.org/overview/christogenea-genesis-chronology, accessed August 1st, 2025.
2 On Genesis, Part 24: The Victories of Abraham, William Finck, https://christogenea.org/podcasts/ biblical/genesis-part-24-victories-abraham, accessed August 1st, 2025.
3 Cyrus Cylinder Translation, Livius.org, https://www.livius.org/sources/content/cyrus-cylinder/cyrus-cylinder-translation/, accessed July 31st, 2025.
4 Cyrus II 1 or CB²a Achaemenid Royal Inscriptions online, https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/ario/ Q006653, accessed July 31st, 2025.
5 The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon, F. Brown, S. Driver and C. Briggs, 1906, reprinted in 2021, Hendrickson Publishers, p. 142.
6 ibid., p. 911.
7 Origenis Hexaplorum, Fridericus Field, AA. M., Volume II, Clarendon Press, 1875, p. 515.
8 ibid.
