THE CALL OF CYRUS A FRUIT OF THE CAPTIVITY
Isaiah 41:1-2. Keep silence before Me, &c.
Behold how of old the Lord called the people and the distant nations into judgment, and condescended to plead and question with them concerning the dispensations of His providence, that they might see and know that He doeth according to His will in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. “Keep silence before Me, O islands, and let the people renew their strength: let them come near; then let them speak: let us come near together to judgment.” This is as it is written in the Book of Job: “Gird up now thy loins as a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou. Me.”
The question which the prophet then proposes is one concerning the future, though in our English rendering it is put all in the past tense: “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?” The Hebrew language has not the same certainty in the distinctions of time with ours; and it may be mentioned that the ancient Greek translators have put the question partly in the future, to which indeed it wholly refers. [The tenses of the Septuagint in Isaiah 41:2-3, are the following:—Τίς έξήγειρεν … έκάλεσεν … πορεύσεται … δώσει … έκστήσει … διώξεται … διελεύσεται.] But the prophet in spirit here takes his stand in the future, and calls into judgment and investigation the things, the persons, and events of the future, as if they were before him, ere even they had budded and sprung forth (Isaiah 42:9). “Who hath raised up the righteous man from the east, called him to His foot, shall give the nations before him, and make him rule over kings? shall give them as the dust to his sword, and as the driven stubble to his bow? He shall pursue them and pass safely; even by the way that he had not gone with his feet. Who hath wrought and doneit, calling the generations from the beginning? I the LORD, the first, and with the last; I am He.” Even in the first member of the sentence the meaning is really predictive of that which then existed only in God’s purpose and in the preparation of His providence, who calleth the generations from the beginning. You will perceive more clearly that it has this prophetic force if you refer to Isaiah 41:21-25: “Produce your cause,” &c.
It is generally agreed that there is here a prediction of Cyrus; but what I chiefly call your attention to is, that the whole work is claimed by God as His own. It was not merely He that had predicted it, but it was He that purposed it and brought it to pass. As He saith, “Who hath wrought and done it, calling the generations from the beginning? I, the Lord, the first, and with the last; I am He.” An erroneous idea of prediction has grown up, as if God had left the things predicted utterly loose from the control of His providence, and as if the marvel were only in the foresight, and not in the power, wisdom, and faithfulness displayed in the bringing to pass. Not thus speaks the Word of God, but the prediction is the declaration of God’s purpose, and the event is His bringing it to pass. It is thus they stand related to one another (Numbers 23:19).
In our text, the question is not put as to the marvel involved in the prediction, but rather as to the overruling power and wisdom manifested in the doing of it. The question is not, Whose was the foresight? but, Whose was the accomplishment? To whom appertained the raising of this righteous man? Whose was his training? Whose were his victories? The fact of Cyrus’s existence, viewed together with his character, actions, and achievements, was altogether more wonderful even than the prediction of him by name. And so will it be in regard to the predicted coming and glory of Christ. Men will cease to debate of the marvel of its being predicted when they see the greater marvel of its being brought to pass. Not that the correspondence of the prediction with its fulfilment will cease to be a subject of admiration; but the actual bringing such a thing to pass from the present state of the world is harder to be conceived than the prediction of anything future.
Now Cyrus was to the Gentiles a type of the Messiah, even as David or Solomon to the Jews; and accordingly we find him spoken of as THE LORD’S ANOINTED (Isaiah 45:1). Comparing the things which are related of him with the history of Eastern kings and conquerors of his age or that preceding, and especially with the monstrous oppressions, butcheries, massacres, and cruelties recorded on the slabs of Nineveh, he seems like a man of another world. It is a gleam of sunshine breaking through thunder-clouds. The soberest and most truthful of the Greek philosophers (himself a statesman, general, and historian) has selected him as the pattern of a perfect prince, and made his education the theme of a most interesting and instructive book. Whence had he that education? Who raised up that righteous man from the east? called him to His foot? At whose feet was he brought up? and from whose precepts did he receive instruction in righteousness?
I think that we have here one of those examples in which the tribulation of the Lord’s people has been made to work blessing to the human race. The centribes of Israel had been carried into captivity, and were placed in Halah and Habor, by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes. Their princes were made eunuchs and officers in the palaces of their conquerors, and the daughters of Israel, admired for their beauty, sought after for the music of those exquisite songs of Zion, pitied for their exile and their sorrows, and honoured for their virtue, were not unfrequently made the favourite wives of the conquerors and princes among whom they were placed in captivity. The principles and character of the captives influenced the conquerors. The kingdom of heaven wrought after its own manner, like leaven hid in three measures of meal. Now the mother of Cyrus was a Mede, the daughter of the Median king; and Cyrus, though a Persian, was educated among the Medes, where the principles of the law of the Lord were silently working. Thus the Lord called him to His foot and instructed him; and the good seed in good ground brought forth an hundred-fold. From the rising of the sun he made mention of Jehovah’s name. And so the captivity of Israel in the cities of the Medes served under the good providence of God to leaven the nation of the Medes, and to prepare an avenger of the cause of Judah upon Babylon, and a restorer of His ancient people to Jerusalem.—W. B. Galloway, M.A.: Isaiah’s Testimony for Jesus, pp. 277–282.