A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 45: The Promises of Salvation

A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 45: The Promises of Salvation

In the closing verses of Isaiah chapter 44 and the beginning verses of this chapter, Yahweh God had addressed a certain Cyrus by name, and it is quite evident, from our perspective, that the accompanying description of Cyrus was indeed a prophecy of the king later known as Cyrus II, or Cyrus the Great, as he is commonly called, who was not even born for at least another hundred years after these chapters were first written, and who would not fulfill this prophecy in Isaiah for at least another hundred and sixty years. Then speaking to this Cyrus, and prophesying things which would later be fulfilled in the history of the life of Cyrus II, Yahweh is portrayed as having informed him, albeit indirectly, that the things which he would accomplish had come from Him, and that he would accomplish those things for the benefit of the children of Israel. Yahweh was indeed addressing Cyrus where we read: “4 For Jacob my servant's sake, and Israel mine elect, I have even called thee by thy name: I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me.”

Then, after the Word of Yahweh had made the assertion that there is no other God beside Him, whether Cyrus himself had later understood that or not, we read, in verses 7 and 8: “7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. 8 Drop down, ye heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness: let the earth open, and let them bring forth salvation, and let righteousness spring up together; I the LORD have created it.” From this point, the focus shifts away from Cyrus, and he is no longer addressed, but instead in verse 9 Yahweh warns those who strive with their Creator, and in verse 13 Cyrus is spoken of in the third person, which is explicit in the Hebrew language throughout that verse. So while from verse 9 it is apparent that the Word of Yahweh here in Isaiah begins to once again address the children of Israel, as the chapter progresses it is made absolutely clear that it is Israel who is being addressed. However, before we commence from where we had last paused our commentary, we should discuss verses 7 and 8 of Isaiah chapter 45 from a different perspective.

7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. 

“I form the light and create darkness”: Of course, Yahweh God has made all things, however this is not necessarily describing literal light and literal darkness. Rather, in a prophecy of the future ministry of Christ in Isaiah chapter 42, we read of His purpose, in part: “6 I the LORD have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the [Nations]; 7 To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.” So the light may indeed represent the light of truth, and the darkness represents an alienation from God in an absence of truth. The Israelites were not in a literal prison house, but their captivity was described as a prison, as the had been put out of their land and alienated from Yahweh their God.

In that manner, where He said “I make peace, and create evil”, true peace can only be found if there is peace with God, and peace with God requires obedience to God. Thus we read in the 37th Psalm:

37 Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright: for the end of that man is peace. 38 But the transgressors shall be destroyed together: the end of the wicked shall be cut off. 39 But the salvation of the righteous is of the LORD: he is their strength in the time of trouble. 40 And the LORD shall help them, and deliver them: he shall deliver them from the wicked, and save them, because they trust in him.

Even in that short example, it is evident that there are varying kinds of evil, or perhaps, various perspectives of what is truly evil. There is evil in the eyes of God, and there is evil in the eyes of man, which are not necessarily always the same evil. It cannot be justly imagined that Yahweh God creates rebellion against Himself, which is transgression or disobedience to His law, even if the possibility of such disobedience is inherent in His having created man with an ability to choose. So when man chooses to be disobedient, man suffers the consequences of the disobedience, by suffering punishment for his sins, and for that, he cannot justly blame God.

So the punishment of a man for sin may be evil in his own eyes, especially when he does not realize why he is suffering, but it is inevitable and necessary, and even just and good, in the eyes of God. The punishments are just, because at Sinai, shortly after they had been delivered from bondage in Egypt, the people had agreed to keep the law in exchange for the protection of God and His blessings, and once they agreed, they were given warnings of that would happen if they transgressed the law. With this it should also be understood, that the very existence of each and every descendant of those same people is owed to the protection of God, for which they are all indebted, from the time that He had delivered them from Egypt. So as these warnings are described in Leviticus chapter 26, we read in part: “27 And if ye will not for all this hearken unto me, but walk contrary unto me; 28 Then I will walk contrary unto you also in fury; and I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins.”

These seven times would unfold in the captivity of Israel, and that captivity and its consequences are what is described here in the words of Isaiah. But it was also described in the words of one of his contemporaries, the prophet Hosea, and in Hosea chapter 7 we read, in part:

10 And the pride of Israel testifieth to his face: and they do not return to the LORD their God, nor seek him for all this. 11 Ephraim also is like a silly dove without heart: they call to Egypt, they go to Assyria. 12 When they shall go, I will spread my net upon them; I will bring them down as the fowls of the heaven; I will chastise them, as their congregation hath heard.

Hosea was writing at a time earlier than this, before the destruction of Samaria, and evidently Israel had relied on receiving help from Egypt against the encroaching Assyrians, as Judah had also done in the time of Hezekiah.

Ostensibly, the chastisement of God is for the correction of His children. In Deuteronomy chapter 8 we read: “1 All the commandments which I command thee this day shall ye observe to do, that ye may live, and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the LORD sware unto your fathers.” Then, after speaking of the chastening which the children of Israel had received during the forty years which they had spent in the wilderness, the Word of God says: “5 Thou shalt also consider in thine heart, that, as a man chasteneth his son, so the LORD thy God chasteneth thee. 6 Therefore thou shalt keep the commandments of the LORD thy God, to walk in his ways, and to fear him.”

Paul of Tarsus referred to this same chastisement in Hebrews chapter 12 where he wrote, in a reference which compares his readers to the sacrifice of Christ:

4 Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin. 5 And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: 6 For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. 7 If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? 8 But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.

Paul must have had Proverbs chapter 3 for his inspiration to write those words, where we read:

11 My son, despise not the chastening of the LORD; neither be weary of his correction: 12 For whom the LORD loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth. 13 Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding.

So it is also apparent that wisdom is acquired through chastisement. Evidently, however, bastards are not chastised because although they may suffer from evil, apparently they cannot ever be corrected. This same correlation of sons and bastards is found in the analogy of Jeremiah 13:23: “23 Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil.” The Ethiopian was a bastard, having half-black and half-white skin, like the leopard, and therefore could not do good. For this same reason, Christ had reproached His adversaries, as it is recorded in Matthew chapter 12, and said “34 O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.” The Greek word for generation in that passage is γέννημα, which, when it is used of people, more appropriately means offspring, since it is primarily defined as “that which is produced or born, a child” [1]. Therefore, by addressing His adversaries as the “offspring of vipers”, Christ was actually informing them that their ancestors were vipers, so they themselves must have been bastards, along with their ancestors.

Now, as we commence with Isaiah chapter 45, Yahweh God begins to address the children of Israel, with the same terms that a father may use speaking to a disobedient son as he receives chastisement:

9 Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou? or thy work, He hath no hands? 10 Woe unto him that saith unto his father, What begettest thou? or to the woman, What hast thou brought forth? 

As a clay pot cannot quarrel with its maker, a man should not quarrel with God, and here that is also equated to any quarrel which a son may have with a father or mother, which disregards their having begotten him. This may have been part of the inspiration for Paul’s admonition in 1 Timothy chapter 5 where he wrote “8 But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.”

The New American Standard Bible has verse 10 to read: “10 Woe to him who says to a father, ‘What are you fathering?’ Or to a woman, ‘To what are you giving birth?’” There the son is not asking about his own nature, but rather, the son is contending over the significance of the act of fathering or mothering, and disputing the need to honor his parents, which is an act of defiance similar to the clay pot which would strive with its maker. So a man is naturally indebted to those from whom he had come, to both his parents and to his God. This is also expressed in the order in which the ten commandments are listed in the Old Testament.

But a potsherd is a piece of broken pottery vessel, which is good for nothing. So the exclamation in verse 9 is basically an admonition to let rebellious children strive with the bastards of the earth, to let the rebellious human vessels strive with other broken human vessels, but not with their makers, or fathers. In that same manner, Yahweh had used the broken vessels of the Canaanites to chastise the rebellious ancient Israelites. But the clay pots, those which have been made by the Potter, should not strive with their Maker. In Romans chapter 9, discussing the diverse fates of Jacob and Esau, and how Yahweh God had loved Jacob and had hated Esau, describing the children of Jacob as “ vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory” and then the children of Esau as “vessels of wrath fitted to destruction”, Paul of Tarsus used this same analogy and wrote: “20 Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? 21 Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?” There Paul had asked rhetorical questions to answer anyone who may challenge why the children of Esau were created as vessels of wrath for destruction.

Now Yahweh asserts for Himself to be the Maker of Israel, and that He has absolute control of their destiny, much like a potter determines the usefulness of the vessels which he has made:

11 Thus saith the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, and his Maker, Ask me of things to come concerning my sons, and concerning the work of my hands command ye me. 

Yahweh is both the Holy One of Israel, and the Maker of Israel. This was also asserted earlier in Isaiah, in chapter 43: “15 I am the LORD, your Holy One, the creator of Israel, your King.” While Cyrus was a Persian, a descendant of Adam through Noah and Shem, being of the tribe of Elam, and not an Israelite, he was nevertheless described by Word of Yahweh in Isaiah chapter 13 as a man of gold (13:12) and as having been anointed by Yahweh, earlier in chapter 45, to fulfill a particular task. So with that we must conclude that other Adamic men, who are not of the children of Israel, can nevertheless be chosen by God to do well and to serve Him, although they are nevertheless outside of the covenants with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

For this same reason, Paul of Tarsus had addressed the Athenians, who were a division of the Ionian Greeks, and according to Scripture and history they were also descendants of Adam and Noah, through Javan the son of Japheth. Therefore, where the record of Paul’s address is found in Acts chapter 17, there is no mention of Abraham, Jacob, or of the covenants which pertain to Israel, and therefore there is no mention of Christ except for the consequences of His resurrection, where Paul is referring to the Adamic nations of Genesis chapter 10 and we read, from the Christogenea New Testament:

26 And He made from one [Adam, cf. Romans 5:11 ff.] every nation of men [Genesis chapter 10] to dwell upon all the face of the earth, appointing the times ordained and the boundaries of their settlements, 27 to seek God. If surely then they would seek after Him then they would find Him, and indeed He being not far from each one of us. 28 “For in Him we live and we move and we are, even as some of the poets have said concerning you, ‘For we also are of His offspring.’ 29 Therefore being the offspring of God we are not obligated to esteem gold or silver or stone, engraved crafts and of the inventions of man, to be like that of a god. 30 So therefore the times of ignorance God is overlooking. Now altogether He instructs men everywhere to repent. 31 For that He has established a day in which He is going to judge the inhabited earth in righteousness, by a man whom He has appointed, having provided an assurance to all: raising Him from the dead.”

Here there is an important distinction, and it reveals the plan of God for all of the race of Adam, as well as the greater lesson for which reason He had chosen Israel. Paul would not have spoken to the Athenians concerning resurrection if the resurrection was not relevant to them. In the Wisdom of Solomon, at the end of chapter 2, we read, where it is speaking of the wicked: “21 These things they reckoned, and they were deceived; for their malice had blinded them, 22 and they did not know the mystery of God, nor did they hope for the reward of piety, nor did they discern a gift of honor for unblemished souls. 23 Because God created man for incorruption, and He made him an image of His Own eternity, 24 but through envy of the False Accuser [Devil] death entered into the Society, and they tempting Him are of that portion.”

Yahweh God created the Adamic man to be immortal, and God shall not fail. So after death had entered into the Society of Adam, in the closing verses of Genesis chapter 3 we read: “ 22 And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever.” In English this sounds like a prohibition, that the man is prevented from the Tree of Life, but as we had explained in part 4 of our Genesis commentary, titled The Mourning After, the words are actually an encouragement drawing a practical conclusion in response to what had preceded. Then cherubs and a flaming sword were placed at the entry of the garden, “to keep the way of the tree of life”. Not to prevent the way, but to make certain that man could recover from his fall, and for that reason, the cherubs are next seen in Scripture atop the Ark of the Covenant, in which the tablets of the law were kept, situated on either side of the mercy seat of God. This reveals the fact that the law itself, accompanied by the mercy of God, is indeed the way to the Tree of Life.

But ostensibly, so that man could learn from the consequences of sin, Yahweh Himself had subjected Adam to the circumstances by which man had fallen. Yahweh God cannot be blamed for that, even if He knew beforetime that Adam would fall, because He gave Adam one law, and if Adam had kept it, he would not have fallen. This seems paradoxical, and for that we read in Ecclesiastes chapter 1:

12 I the Preacher was king over Israel in Jerusalem. 13 And I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven: this sore travail hath God given to the sons of man to be exercised therewith. 14 I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit.

Paul of Tarsus had echoed this sentiment, that Yahweh God Himself had subjected man to be exercised in vanity, in Romans chapter 8 where, reading from the Christogenea New Testament, he wrote:

18 Therefore I consider that the happenstances of the present time are not of value, looking to the future honor to be revealed to us. 19 Indeed in earnest anticipation the creation awaits the revelation of the sons of Yahweh. 20 To transientness [or vanity] the creation was subjected not willingly, but on account of He who subjected it in expectation 21 that also the creation itself shall be liberated from the bondage of decay into the freedom of the honor of the children of Yahweh. 22 For we know that the whole creation laments together and travails together until then.

The creation in that passage refers to the children of Israel, although they are only a portion of the wider Adamic creation. For his inspiration, Paul must have had the Wisdom of Solomon, where we read in chapter 19, verse 6: “For the whole creation within its own race was again perfectly formed from above, serving Your commandments in order that Your sons may be kept unharmed.” Adam had fallen, and as Paul had told the Lycaonians, in Acts chapter 14, God had “16 … in times past suffered all nations to walk in their own ways”, and they all went off into idolatry. So in that passage of the Wisdom of Solomon we see that the creation of Israel was a reconstitution of the creation of the race of Adam, taken from the undiluted seed of Abraham, and it is Israel concerning whom Paul had written those words in Romans chapter 8.

But while the organization of the nation of Israel under the law would also serve to fulfill some of the promises made to Abraham, that would place a greater burden on his descendants, since they would become liable to the penalties of the law if they failed to keep it. As Paul had written in Romans chapter 5, again from the Christogenea New Testament:

12 For this reason, just as by one man failure of purpose entered into the Society, and by that failure of purpose death, and in that manner death has passed to all men, on account that all have done wrong: 13 (for until the law fault was in the Society; but fault was not accounted, there not being law; 14 but death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not committed an error resembling the transgression of Adam, who is an image of the future. 15 But should not, as was the transgression, in that manner also be the favor? Indeed if in the transgression of one many die, much greater is the favor of Yahweh, and the gift in favor, which is of the one man Yahshua Christ, in which many have great advantage. 16 And not then by one having committed error is the gift? Indeed the fact is that judgment of a single one is for condemnation, but the favor is from many transgressions into a judgment of acquittal. 17 For if in the transgression of one, death has taken reign through that one, much more is the advantage of the favor, and the gift of justice they are receiving, in life they will reign through the one, Yahshua Christ.) 18 So then, as that one transgression is for all men for a sentence of condemnation, in this manner then through one decision of judgment for all men is for a judgment of life. 19 Therefore even as through the disobedience of one man the many were set down as wrongdoers, in this manner then through the obedience of One the many will be established as righteous.

It certainly should be evident in that passage, that the many who shall be established as righteous must be the same many who were set down as wrongdoers, and that many encompasses all of the race of the children of Adam. Here we learn that sin is not accounted where there is no law, so the rest of the Adamic race is not held liable for its sins, unless they had broken the one law given to Adam, not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which is found in Genesis chapter 2, or, speaking only of the descendants of Noah, unless they had broken the one additional and specific law given to Noah, not to murder a fellow man, which is found in Genesis chapter 9. However even the descendants of Adam who sinned in the days leading up to the flood of Noah are forgiven in Christ, as the apostle Peter had explained in chapters 3 and 4 of his first epistle. They must have broken that first law, not to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, because of the manner in which they were punished with death for their transgression.

But the children of Israel, having had the more comprehensive laws of Moses given at Sinai, had a greater responsibility because they were all judged by the law, and therefore liable to death for their idolatry alone, aside from any other sins they may have committed. While other laws against idolatry are found which may be more specific to a certain situation, such as the law forbidding sacrifices of children to Moloch in Leviticus chapter 20, a general condemnation for idolatry is found in Deuteronomy chapter 17:

2 If there be found among you, within any of thy gates which the LORD thy God giveth thee, man or woman, that hath wrought wickedness in the sight of the LORD thy God, in transgressing his covenant, 3 And hath gone and served other gods, and worshipped them, either the sun, or moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded; 4 And it be told thee, and thou hast heard of it, and enquired diligently, and, behold, it be true, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought in Israel: 5 Then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman, which have committed that wicked thing, unto thy gates, even that man or that woman, and shalt stone them with stones, till they die.

In Hosea chapter 13 we read: “1 When Ephraim spake trembling, he exalted himself in Israel; but when he offended in Baal, he died.” Ephraim is the name which Hosea had used to describe the ten tribes which departed from Judah. Where it says “spake trembling”, that would reflect the humility which Ephraim displayed by living in fear of Yahweh his God, which suggests a general obedience to the law. But when Ephraim departed from God and turned to Baal worship, which was accompanied by a practice of many grievous sins, the abominations of the ancient Canaanites, he died, because he became liable to the punishment of death for idolatry which the law had required, as it is in Deuteronomy chapter 17.

For this, all of the ancient children of Israel were indeed under penalty of death, and from that they needed to be saved, so that Yahweh could keep the earlier unconditional promises which He made to Abraham. The promises made to Abraham in Genesis chapters 12 and 15, and the one-sided covenant which Yahweh had made with Abraham in Genesis chapter 15, were all without condition. Having made that covenant, only Yahweh had passed through the divided animal carcasses, so only Yahweh bore any responsibility for living up to its terms, and no such burden was placed upon Abraham.

But the Sinai covenant was conditional upon Israel’s keeping the law. So after the children of Israel had heard the law and the promises of the covenant which Yahweh had offered them at Sinai, we read in Exodus chapter 24, speaking of Moses:

7 And he took the book of the covenant, and read in the audience of the people: and they said, All that the LORD hath said will we do, and be obedient. 8 And Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, Behold the blood of the covenant, which the LORD hath made with you concerning all these words.

Therefore the children of Israel took upon themselves and their descendants the responsibility of keeping the law, in order that they would thrive as a kingdom under Yahweh their God. But when they broke the covenant and lost their kingdom as a result, in relation to those same children of Israel, Paul had written in Romans chapter 7:

1 Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth? 2 For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. 3 So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man. 4 Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.

With that Christians should understand that Yahweh God Himself came into His Creation as Yahshua Christ, and suffered the ultimate penalty of death so that He could release the children of Israel from the punishments which they were worthy to suffer under the law, for which reason Paul had written that passage. The collective children of Israel are the adulteress, having departed and committing idolatry, and thereby they were liable to death, except that Yahweh Himself had chosen to die, to release His wife from the law, which also paves the way for their reconciliation in Christ. The law was made for this world, and Yahweh Himself had upheld the law in this world by his Own actions.

From the time of the Sinai covenant, Israel as a nation was considered the bride, or wife, of Yahweh God. So in Isaiah chapter 50 we read: “1 Thus saith the LORD, Where is the bill of your mother's divorcement, whom I have put away? or which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you? Behold, for your iniquities have ye sold yourselves, and for your transgressions is your mother put away.” Then in Isaiah chapter 52: “3 For thus saith the LORD, Ye have sold yourselves for nought; and ye shall be redeemed without money.” But finally, in Hosea chapter 2, addressing the children of Israel and in the midst of greater promises of reconciliation we read: “19 And I will betroth thee unto me for ever; yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness, and in mercies. 20 I will even betroth thee unto me in faithfulness: and thou shalt know the LORD.” Yahshua Christ being God Incarnate, the worldly conditions of the law are maintained, as well as the promises in Hosea, where Paul had written that the Husband had died and therefore “… ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.”

Furthermore, having died at the hands of His enemies, it is the descendants of the same serpent who had seduced Eve and precipitated the fall of Adam who had unjustly killed Him, as Christ Himself elucidated in John chapter 8 and elsewhere, and now He has a cause for vengeance against them all, while at the same time He paid the penalty for exposing His Own children to vanity, by subjecting Himself to that same vanity. With this, it is also fully evident that the Creator has taken full responsibility for His Creation. Now as Yahshua Christ, He is the Tree of Life of which all of the children of Adam may take hold, and live, something which He Himself had proclaimed.

So the overall purpose of Yahweh God is greater than the children of Israel alone, however the children of Israel are His servants, that He may achieve His purpose for the entire race of Adam. So where Solomon had described the exercise in vanity, in its final verses he came to an ultimate conclusion, which we read in Ecclesiastes chapter 12:

13 Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. 14 For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.

This current world was founded in the wake of the rebellion of the fallen angels, and the Adamic man, who was created to supplant the angels, shall learn from their mistakes as well as his own. For that, Paul wrote in a rhetorical question in 1 Corinthians chapter 6: “3 Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life?”

But in the context of Scripture, while both the judging of angels and the fate of the wider Adamic race are peripheral, it is the wider Adamic race, and Yahweh’s employment of Cyrus, who are now described by the Word of Yahweh which is spoken through the prophet:

12 I have made the earth, and created man upon it: I, even my hands, have stretched out the heavens, and all their host have I commanded. 13 I have raised him up in righteousness, and I will direct all his ways: he shall build my city, and he shall let go my captives, not for price nor reward, saith the LORD of hosts. 

Therefore Cyrus would allow the captives of Jerusalem to go freely, whereas in the ancient world men taken in war were considered slaves and were fortunate if they could buy themselves out of their slavery. As we have already discussed in relation to the earlier verses of this chapter, it is evident in history, from Persian inscriptions, that Cyrus did indeed grant this clemency for the captives of the Assyrians and Babylonians who had ruled before him. It is also apparent in those records, that Cyrus had also decreed that the temples and cities of the gods of those captives be rebuilt.

Through the building of the city mentioned here in this passage of Isaiah, which is the Jerusalem that will have to be rebuilt after its destruction at the hands of the Babylonians, the circumstances under which the Messiah of Israel could come had been initiated. Of course, at this point in the ministry of Isaiah, that has not yet happened, so that then-future event is also implied in these words. Jerusalem would be destroyed in 585 BC, and Cyrus came to rule Babylon in 539 BC, thereafter having decreed that the city would be rebuilt.

Evidently, almost as soon as Cyrus had taken Babylon, the prophet Daniel had prayed concerning Jerusalem, and as a result he had a vision, which was evidently received in the very first year that Cyrus had taken Babylon, and in Daniel chapter 9 he described the fate of Jerusalem in the vision of the Seventy Weeks Kingdom, a prophecy which also describes what is meant in this very passage. While Cyrus himself did not see the building through to its completion, he made the laws which ensured its rebuilding, and which permitted the people of Judah in captivity to return and ultimately complete that project.

14 Thus saith the LORD, The labour of Egypt, and merchandise of Ethiopia and of the Sabeans, men of stature, shall come over unto thee, and they shall be thine: they shall come after thee; in chains they shall come over, and they shall fall down unto thee, they shall make supplication unto thee, saying, Surely God is in thee; and there is none else, there is no God. 

Since Isaiah chapter 41, the prophet has been primarily addressing Israel in captivity, although he mentions Jerusalem in his prophecies of the Gospel of Christ, and also in relation to its then-future rebuilding. But he is not necessarily addressing Jerusalem here. Furthermore, while the Word of Yahweh had stated that these three nations, Egypt, Ethiopia or Kush, and Sheba, had all been given up on account of Israel, at this point in history many men of those nations are still living, and at least some of them were also in the captivities of the Assyrians and Babylonians.

So while there is no clear near-vision fulfillment of this prophecy in reference to Jerusalem or Judaea, it is evident that the Macedonian Greeks [2] as well as the Romans [3] were mostly descended from ancient dispersions of the children of Israel. So from that perspective, the Macedonian Greeks had come to rule over Egypt and the wider area from the time of Alexander in 330 BC, and the Romans ruled over the same area from the time of the Battle of Actium in 31 BC, where the Ptolemaic ruler Cleopatra and her consort Marc Antony were defeated. However even this would not fulfill the prophecy as it is stated here, since the Macedonians and Romans of that time were all pagans. But the later Christian Roman and Byzantine empires did rule all of these lands for several centuries before the rise of Islam.

The very next verse seems to lend credence to a fulfillment of this prophecy in that history:

15 Verily thou art a God that hidest thyself, O God of Israel, the Saviour. 

Yahweh God had hid Himself, from the time shortly before Jerusalem would be destroyed, and the prophet Ezekiel had witnessed a vision which he recorded in Ezekiel chapter 11:

22 Then did the cherubims lift up their wings, and the wheels beside them; and the glory of the God of Israel was over them above. 23 And the glory of the LORD went up from the midst of the city, and stood upon the mountain which is on the east side of the city.

This is also described in a Messianic prophecy in Isaiah chapter 54: “8 In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the LORD thy Redeemer.” From that time, Yahweh God hid Himself from Israel, until the ministry of Christ, who had revealed Himself to his disciples, upon an inquiry made by Philip which is recorded in John chapter 14: “8 Philip saith unto him, Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us. 9 Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father? 10 Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works. 11 Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works' sake.”

Ostensibly, because these other Adamic nations are portrayed as recognizing that the God of Israel is indeed the true and only God, on account of their idolatry, and also on account of the idolatry of Israel, we read:

16 They shall be ashamed, and also confounded, all of them: they shall go to confusion together that are makers of idols. 

We have already cited Hosea chapter 13 in reference to the offense of Ephraim in the worship of Baal, however now we shall read a little further in that same chapter:

1 When Ephraim spake trembling, he exalted himself in Israel; but when he offended in Baal, he died. 2 And now they sin more and more, and have made them molten images of their silver, and idols according to their own understanding, all of it the work of the craftsmen: they say of them, Let the men that sacrifice kiss the calves. 3 Therefore they shall be as the morning cloud, and as the early dew that passeth away, as the chaff that is driven with the whirlwind out of the floor, and as the smoke out of the chimney. 4 Yet I am the LORD thy God from the land of Egypt, and thou shalt know no god but me: for there is no saviour beside me.

So evidently, Ephraim shall be saved in spite of the idolatry, and therefore here we read the same:

17 But Israel shall be saved in the LORD with an everlasting salvation: ye shall not be ashamed nor confounded world without end. 

There is no stated exception to this everlasting salvation of the children of Israel. Likewise the promises of the New Covenant are accompanied with a description of an everlasting covenant, in Isaiah chapters 55 and 61, and in Jeremiah chapter 32 and Ezekiel chapter 16. All of these promises are made exclusively to the children of Israel, both those in Judah and those of Israel who had gone into captivity, and there is no language which may exclude any of them for reason of their sins. Rather, in Jeremiah chapter 33, not long after the promise of an everlasting covenant, we read:

7 And I will cause the captivity of Judah and the captivity of Israel to return, and will build them, as at the first. 8 And I will cleanse them from all their iniquity, whereby they have sinned against me; and I will pardon all their iniquities, whereby they have sinned, and whereby they have transgressed against me.

Having an everlasting covenant with their God, and having been cleansed of all of their sins, without exception, it is apparent that the children of Israel would have no need to be “ashamed nor confounded world without end.” Now there is a further promise, which may not seem like a promise, at least on its surface:

18 For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else. 

In Isaiah chapter 27, in an obscure prophecy where Yahweh promises the destruction of “leviathan the piercing serpent … the dragon that is in the sea”, a few verses later we read a contrary promise that “6 He shall cause them that come of Jacob to take root: Israel shall blossom and bud, and fill the face of the world with fruit.” This is how Paul of Tarsus had also interpreted the promises to Abraham, where we read in Romans chapter 4: “13 For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.” So here, Yahweh is promising a universal salvation to all of Israel, and there are no stated exceptions to that salvation, and that is how Israel shall fill the face of the world with fruit, so that it shall be inhabited.

Now, even if any of the descendants of Jacob had not sought Yahweh, here they are nevertheless encouraged to seek Him, a message which most of them would never see, until the time of the Gospel of Christ:

19 I have not spoken in secret, in a dark place of the earth: I said not unto the seed of Jacob, Seek ye me in vain: I the LORD speak righteousness, I declare things that are right. 20 Assemble yourselves and come; draw near together, ye that are escaped of the nations: they have no knowledge that set up the wood of their graven image, and pray unto a god that cannot save. 

The reference to “ye that are escaped of the nations” is to those of both the houses of Israel and Judah who had survived the captivities, or who would escape, or who had somehow escaped having been brought into captivity. But even in the years leading up to and during the process of their captivities, Yahweh had announced to them through his prophets that they should abandon their idols and seek Him.

Leading up to the captivities of Israel and Judah, to the time of this point in Isaiah’s ministry, Isaiah and the contemporary prophets Hosea, Amos and Micah had all been announcing their prophecies and exhortations of repentance to the people. Yet captivity was certain, and it is still certain at this point for the remnant of Jerusalem. So these words must be meant for the future, for those who would hear the Gospel of Christ, and the apostles of Christ had taught their fulfillment in the people of Europe of their own time, something which is demonstrable in the words of Peter, James and Paul, in spite of the fact that the Roman Church had later rejected the literal meanings of the words of both the the apostles and the prophets.

Now it also seems as if these words were not meant to be understood until they reached their intended ears, the ears of the intended recipients of the Gospel of Christ:

21 Tell ye, and bring them near; yea, let them take counsel together: who hath declared this from ancient time? who hath told it from that time? have not I the LORD? and there is no God else beside me; a just God and a Saviour; there is none beside me. 22 Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else. 

As we have explained on more than one occasion earlier in this commentary, the phrase “all the ends of the earth” is a reference to the children of Israel, who were to be scattered to the ends of the earth. First, in the blessings of the twelve tribes by Moses in Deuteronomy chapter 33, in the blessing for Joseph: “17 His glory is like the firstling of his bullock, and his horns are like the horns of unicorns: with them he shall push the people together to the ends of the earth: and they are the ten thousands of Ephraim, and they are the thousands of Manasseh.”

Then the scattering of Israel is evident in the words of the 65th Psalm: “5 By terrible things in righteousness wilt thou answer us, O God of our salvation; who art the confidence of all the ends of the earth, and of them that are afar off upon the sea.” And again, in the 98th Psalm: “ 2 The LORD hath made known his salvation: his righteousness hath he openly shewed in the sight of the [Nations]. 3 He hath remembered his mercy and his truth toward the house of Israel: all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.”

But this also was prophesied earlier in Isaiah, in chapter 26 where we read: “15 Thou hast increased the nation, O LORD, thou hast increased the nation: thou art glorified: thou hadst removed it far unto all the ends of the earth.” Then again, in Isaiah chapter 40 we read: “27 Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, My way is hid from the LORD, and my judgment is passed over from my God? 28 Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding.”

So for this reason, and because the phrase “ends of the earth” is not necessarily a reference to the entire planet which we know as Earth in modern times, Paul of Tarsus had professed that the Gospel had already reached the “ends of the earth” in his own time, in Romans chapter 10 where after Paul had cited prophecies of the gospel found in Isaiah chapters 52 and 53, we read: “18 But I say, Have they not heard? Yes verily, their sound went into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world.”

So now, in conjunction with the prophecy that Israel shall be saved with an everlasting salvation, there is another great promise:

23 I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, That unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear. 

In Romans chapter 14, Paul had admonished Christians not to judge their brethren for certain aspects of trivial things such as feast days, sabbaths, or food, and he wrote, as it is in the Christogenea New Testament: “9 For this reason Christ died and lived, that He may be master of both the dead and the living. 10 Now why do you judge your brother? Or then, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of Yahweh. 11 Indeed it is written, “I live, says the Prince, that to Me every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess to God.” 12 So then each of us shall give to Yahweh an account concerning himself. 13 Now no longer should we judge one another, but rather determine this: do not put an obstacle in the way of a brother, or a trap.”

Paul had also cited this passage of Isaiah in Philippians chapter 2, which we shall again read once again from the Christogenea New Testament: “9 On which account Yahweh also exalted Him highly and granted to Him that name which is above every name, 10 that in the name of Yahshua every knee would bow, of those in heavenly places and of those upon the earth and of those beneath the earth, 11 and every tongue would fully acknowledge that Yahshua Christ is Prince, in honor of Yahweh the Father.”

Here in the later portion of verse 19 we read: “… I the LORD speak righteousness, I declare things that are right.” There is the judgment of man, and there is the judgment of God, and if Yahweh God declares a man to be righteous, in spite of his sins, then who are other men to question the judgment of God? Would they not be found as the clay pot that strives with its maker? If the Word of God promises that every knee shall bow, why would a child of God not rather see a repentant brother than a brother who suffered a permanent condemnation for some sin committed in ignorance, or in a rage of anger? Yet there are no exceptions to this assertion that “every knee shall bow”, and twice where Paul had cited it in his epistles, the context there also suggests that there are no exceptions.

In Ephesians chapter 4 Paul had discussed various characteristics of the Faith which is in Christ, and then he wrote: “7 And to each one of us favor has been given according to the measure of the gift of Christ. 8 On which account it says, ‘Having ascended to the summit He has taken captivity captive, He has given gifts to men.’ 9 Now He that ascended, what is it if not that He also descended into the lower parts of the earth? 10 He who descended is also He who ascended above all of the heavens, in order that He would fulfill all things.”

This reference to descending into the lower parts of the earth may be dismissed as an allusion to the burial of Christ, but the tomb in which He was buried was not in the lower parts of the earth, it was not a pit, and the ground within could be seen from without, which is evident in both John chapter 20 and Luke chapter 24, where we would assert that Paul’s language here has a deeper meaning. That begins to become evident when we examine the 68th Psalm, which Paul had cited in that passage of Ephesians:

18 Thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led captivity captive: thou hast received gifts for men; yea, for the rebellious also, that the LORD God might dwell among them. 19 Blessed be the Lord, who daily loadeth us with benefits, even the God of our salvation. Selah. 20 He that is our God is the God of salvation; and unto GOD the Lord belong the issues from death.

So the gifts of God for men are for the rebellious as well as the obedient. Then Peter, in chapter 3 of his first epistle, had written that:

18 For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: 19 By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison; 20 Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.

This describes Christ as having preached the Gospel in Hades, or what the ancient Hebrews as well as ancient Greeks had described as the underworld abode of the dead. The entire captivity, men held captive by sin, having been alienated from God, as well as the souls of the Adamic men and women who died in the flood of Noah, which Peter had described, were all among the captivity which was led captive by Christ, to Christ.

So now there is a description of the repentant:

24 Surely, shall one say, in the LORD have I righteousness and strength: even to him shall men come; and all that are incensed against him shall be ashamed. 

Examining the Hebrew as well as the translation in the Dead Sea Scrolls Bible and the notes there for the difference in the number of the pronoun in the first clause of the verse, we should prefer the rendering of this verse as it is in the New American Standard Bible:

24 "They will say of Me, 'Only in the LORD are righteousness and strength.' Men will come to Him, And all who were angry at Him shall be put to shame.

All that are angry at Him, or as it is in the King James Version, “incensed against him”, are those who are incensed against God Himself. They shall be put to shame. Returning to the 68th Psalm, and reading from the point where we had left off, where He had led captivity captive, where we see that “unto GOD the Lord belong the issues from death”:

21 But God shall wound the head of his enemies, and the hairy scalp of such an one as goeth on still in his trespasses. 22 The Lord said, I will bring again from Bashan, I will bring my people again from the depths of the sea: 23 That thy foot may be dipped in the blood of thine enemies, and the tongue of thy dogs in the same.

Perhaps this is at least one inspiration for the words of Paul, where he wrote in Hebrews chapter 6:

4 For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, 5 And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, 6 If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.

It seems that this would represent “such an one as goeth on still in his trespasses” after hearing of the redemption which is in Christ, and this Psalm seems to group such people among the enemies of God.

Unto Yahweh God belongs the issue, or as the New American Standard Bible has it, the escapes, from death. Once again it is evident, that the enemies of God have no room for repentance, as the bastards of Hebrews chapter 12 could not benefit from chastisement.

Now there is an unequivocal promise of complete salvation for all of the children of Israel:

25 In the LORD shall all the seed of Israel be justified, and shall glory. 

Yahweh God declares what is right, as we have seen in verse 19 of this chapter where He said “I the LORD speak righteousness, I declare things that are right.” So here Yahweh God promises that Israel, all of Israel without exception, shall be justified.

These words are not spoken merely of Israelites who have not sinned. As Paul wrote in Romans chapter 3: “23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; 24 Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” Likewise, David had written in the 143rd Psalm praying to Yahweh and asking Him to “2 … enter not into judgment with thy servant: for in thy sight shall no man living be justified.” However, in the 32nd Psalm David wrote: “1 Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. 2 Blessed is the man unto whom the LORD imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile.” So as we continue in Romans chapter 3, where he was still speaking of Christ Paul wrote of Him: “25 Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; 26 To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.” Although as we have seen, even in death men are given the opportunity to “believe in Jesus”.

The word past in Romans 3:25 is a poor translation of the word προγίνομαι, which primarily means to come forward or to come into view, for which, from the perspective of God, we would translate it as forthcoming here, Christ being the “Lamb slain from the foundation of the world”, God saw the sins coming into view when He first created the world. 

In 1 Corinthians chapter 15, Paul attested that: “21 … since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. 22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” This is a summary form of what he had later written to the Romans, in chapter 5 of that epistle, which we have already cited here.

In Micah chapter 7 we read, in reference to the captivity of Israel:

18 Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? he retaineth not his anger for ever, because he delighteth in mercy. 19 He will turn again, he will have compassion upon us; he will subdue our iniquities; and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea. 20 Thou wilt perform the truth to Jacob, and the mercy to Abraham, which thou hast sworn unto our fathers from the days of old.

So in this light, Paul cited this last passage of Isaiah chapter 45 in chapter 11 of his epistle to the Romans, where he had been praying his “kinsmen according to the flesh”, for his Israelite brethren among the Judaeans, since the beginning of chapter 9, and he wrote concerning them, in part: 

26 And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: 27 For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins.

Then, in relation to the disbelieving men of Israel in Judea for whom he had prayed:

28 As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers' sakes. 29 For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.

So without any stated exceptions, all of Israel is saved, regardless of their sins, in spite of their sins, even in spite of their disbelief, and ultimately, as Yahweh had also promised here, every knee shall bow to Him.

Rejecting these promises and claiming that some brother or another is going to hell, or to the lake of fire, is a direct contradiction of the Word of God. Sadly, the understanding of this is a challenge even for Identity Christians.

Adam was created to be immortal, and in the end, if one Adamic soul is lost, then the devil has prevailed over God. I would not want to be found rooting for the devil.

Yahweh willing, we shall return to this point in our commentary on Isaiah in the near future.

Footnotes

1 Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon Founded Upon the Seventh Edition of Liddell & Scott’s Greek-English Lexicon, Oxford University Press, Clarendon, 1889, 1999, p. 163. [See the PDF edition.]

2 Classical Records of the Dorian & Danaan Israelite-Greeks, William Finck, https://christogenea.org/essays/classical-records-dorian-danaan-israelite-greeks, accessed September 26th, 2025

3 Classical Records of Trojan-Roman-Judah, William Finck, https://christogenea.org/essays/classical-records-trojan-roman-judah, accessed September 26th, 2025