that saith of Cyrus, [He is] my shepherd, and he shall perform all my pleasure; even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built; and to the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid.
God names a pagan emperor two centuries before his birth and calls him "my shepherd." So the verse raises two questions. How can God speak of a man who does not yet exist? And how can He claim the work of a king who does not know Him?
Everything God says about Cyrus rests on who He has just claimed to be.
If the Lord is the Redeemer of Israel, He is also the Creator of the heavens and the earth. He can and will dispose of all men according to His pleasure. He brings the deceptions of idolaters to nothing, but confirms the word of His messengers. He will build Jerusalem and the cities of Judah again. He will dry up the rivers and remove every obstacle to the return of His people. And He will use a Gentile king to carry out His pleasure.
The good news in this verse has bad news folded inside it.
The promise that Jerusalem and the temple would be rebuilt made it plain that they must first be destroyed. This would confound the signs of the lying diviners, who were always saying smooth and prosperous things, as other scriptures show. Judgment would fall, but mercy would come in its season, and the prophecy names the man who would bring it to them.
God does not hint at the coming king. He gives his name.
In verse 28 Cyrus is mentioned by name. This great Persian king was still in the distant future, not yet born. Jehovah knew him and named him through Isaiah. He calls him "my shepherd" and predicts his work. Josephus says that Cyrus found his own name in the book of Isaiah, written 220 years earlier. A strong desire then took hold of him to fulfil what it said.
Some find it hard to believe that a book could name a king so long in advance. Writers here answer that Scripture does the same thing elsewhere.
Jehovah has just asserted His glory, wisdom and power in a lofty and striking way. Why then do men wonder that He discloses to His people, through His prophet, the conqueror of Babylon and the restorer of the remnant? What could be more fitting than to proclaim the name of Cyrus at this point? So the man of God out of Judah named Josiah at Jeroboam's altar in Bethel (1 Kings 13:2), more than three centuries before the event.
Being God's instrument is not the same as belonging to God.
We are not suggesting that Cyrus had living faith in God, but God in His sovereignty used him as an instrument. Cyrus had the opportunity to read Isaiah's prophecy, and it appears that he was conscious of his mission. So he says, "The LORD, the God of heaven, has given me… and He has charged me to build Him a house at Jerusalem."
The phrase "all my purpose" is not vague. It came out in a decree, a journey home, and a rebuilt nation.
God can influence whomever He wills. To show this, He could say of a pagan king, Cyrus, king of Persia, that he is His shepherd and would carry out all His pleasure. We know how it bore fruit in the days of Zerubbabel and Ezra. Nearly 50,000 Jews returned to Jerusalem from the land of their captivity. That laid the foundation of a nation in which our Lord was born at Bethlehem.
Writers read Cyrus as a picture of Christ, and keep the likeness limited. One draws it by contrast with Josiah, the other king named long before his birth.
Josiah, in his work of destruction, is a picture of Christ (all Scripture points to Him). At His appearing Christ will judge and clear away all evil from Israel, and from the earth as a whole. Cyrus also pictures Christ, but in a different character. Josiah pulled down, but Cyrus built up. He published the famous decree. It encouraged the Jewish people to return to the land of their fathers and to rebuild the temple (Ezra 1).
Kelly adds a caution: the resemblance is real but slight.
It is clear that the measure in which Cyrus prefigures this mighty deliverer is only small.
- Named — God calls a Persian king by name before he is born. The naming shows that He confirms the word of His messengers.
- Owned — "My shepherd" is God's claim on a man who did not know Him. God used him as an instrument without giving him faith.
- Warned — a promise to rebuild Jerusalem and the temple also announces their ruin. It exposed the lying diviners, who only ever predicted good news.
- Fulfilled — the decree of Ezra 1 sent nearly 50,000 people home and re-founded the nation in which Christ was later born.
- Foreshadowed — Cyrus the builder is a small, real picture of the greater Deliverer who restores His people.
Thus saith Jehovah to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him -- and I will loose the loins of kings; to open before him the two-leaved doors, and the gates shall not be shut
God names a foreign emperor here, generations before his birth, and gives him a title that belonged to Israel's own kings. How can a pagan conqueror be the Lord's anointed, and why does God take hold of his right hand?
The title given to Cyrus is the word used for Israel's kings and for the promised King. One writer shows how unusual this case is:
The term "Messiah" means the anointed one. Scripture uses it for those marked out in that way for the kingly or other office. Isaiah calls Cyrus, king of Persia, the anointed of the Lord (Isa. 45:1). But this case is exceptional. Cyrus was anointed for the special purpose of subduing Babylon, and he is named. Ordinarily the anointed ones were those called to rule in Israel. Above all, promise and prophecy apply the term to Him who would be anointed by the Spirit of God to be the Prince of Peace.
The conqueror marches, but another hand guides him. What this verse describes came true in detail:
Verses 1-3 came true in striking detail, as the book of Daniel records, though Darius the Mede is the conqueror named there. He commanded the Medo-Persian army, but the rising power of Cyrus the Persian lay behind him. As we read these verses, we see Belshazzar, and "his limbs gave way, and his knees knocked together" (Dan. 5:6). We see the great gates of Babylon open and broken. Then, because the great city has fallen, "the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places" are in the hands of Cyrus.
The city that had swallowed God's people was itself the target. The blow fell on its religion as much as on its walls:
If the Babylonian captivity of Judah was God's chastening of their idolatry by means of the chief patron of idols on earth, the fall of Babylon was a tremendous blow to its own idolatry, predicted as it was by the Jewish prophet long before either event.
Isaiah wrote this generations before Cyrus lived. Commentators point to an earlier case of the same kind, and to how Cyrus reacted when he read his own name:
Cyrus' name is mentioned long before his time. This is one of hundreds of examples in the Word of God which prove that God declares the end from the beginning (Isa. 46:10)… The man of God out of Judah named King Josiah in front of King Jeroboam, around 300 years before Josiah ever lived (1 Kings 13:2)… The Jewish author Flavius Josephus writes that the Persian king Cyrus read Isaiah's words about him with astonishment. He then gave the command for the return of the Jews (Ezra 1:1-4).
Some critics date the chapter later, saying the writer watched these events unfold. One writer answers them directly:
Proof there is none. The reasoning simply assumes that Isaiah could not be the prophet. It rests on the references to Cyrus' Medo-Persian career, the overthrow of Chaldean idolatry, the fall of Babylon, and the return. These, it argues, show a writer who knew of these momentous events as though they were about to happen, the earlier of them already a fact. That is, to any upright mind the critical hypothesis insinuates fraud.
The reason for the call has nothing to do with Persia's greatness:
Long before Cyrus was born, God gave him his title, though Cyrus did not know the Lord. In His providence God used him as His shepherd and His anointed. He was called to overthrow idolatry, which was such a snare to Israel. He was chosen "for Jacob My servant's sake, and Israel My elect" (Isa. 45:1-4). Through him God taught Israel how powerless idols are.
The title does not make Cyrus a believer. The distinction matters:
In Cyrus we do not see the power of faith. Nebuchadnezzar was the executor of God's work, and in the same way Cyrus is the minister of His mercy to bring the Jew back to the land… God is able to make the world confess His power and authority. Be that as it may, God calls Cyrus by name. He calls him His shepherd, His anointed, though Cyrus had not known God (Isa. 44:28; 45:4), and this only in view of the work God had called him to. The point is not what Cyrus was personally, but his work.
Cyrus also pictures a greater deliverer, though only faintly:
It is evident that the measure in which Cyrus prefigures this mighty deliverer is small. Still, I have no doubt that God had all this in view. In His own wonderful way He was pleased to send out such a call by Cyrus king of Persia… We know how truly this will be the case with Christ. He is really the righteous man whom Cyrus set forth in a very small measure.
- Named — God names a man long before his birth, just as He named Josiah 300 years before that king lived.
- Held — God grasps the conqueror's right hand. Kings lose their strength and Babylon's gates stand open, exactly as the verse said.
- Anointed — a foreign king carries the title Israel's kings held. God gave it for one task, not for the man's faith.
- For Israel — God raised Cyrus up for Jacob's sake, to break the idolatry that had trapped His people.
- A shadow — on a small scale, Cyrus points to Christ, the greater Anointed One and mighty deliverer.