Isaiah 41:25 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

I have raised up, &c. You neither foreknow, nor can do any thing. But I do now fore-tel, and will certainly effect, a great revolution and change in the world, which you shall not be able to hinder; one from the north Cyrus might be said to come from the north, because he was a Mede by his mother, as he was a Persian by his father; or because a great part of his army was gathered out of Media, which was northward in reference to Judea, and because Darius the Mede was joined with him in this expedition. From the rising, &c., shall he call upon my name Or proclaim my name, as the words may be rendered, which Cyrus did in express and emphatical terms, Ezra 1:1-2. He shall come upon princes as upon mortar Treading them down as easily as a man treadeth down mortar.