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 - Yaatsar (H3335), to give "form" to previously existing matter. Bara, to "create" from nothing the chaotic dark material.
Light ... darkness - in the literal sense (Genesis 1:1-3); emblematical also of prosperity to Cyrus, calamity to Babylon and the nations to be vanquished (Grotius). Isaiah refers also to the Oriental belief in two co-existent eternal principles ever struggling with each other, light or good, and darkness or evil, Oromasden and Ahrimanen. God, here, in opposition, asserts His sovereignty over both (Vitringa).
I make peace and create evil - not moral evil (James 1:13), but in contrast to "peace" in the parallel clause, war, disaster (cf. Psalms 65:7; Amos 3:6).