I [am] Jehovah, and there is none else; there is no God beside me I girded thee, and thou hast not known me;
God speaks here to Cyrus, a Persian king who would not be born for another two hundred years. Two claims stand side by side: there is no other God, and this God arms a man who does not yet know Him.
"Besides me there is no God" is not a passing remark in Isaiah. The claim comes again and again through these chapters, and one writer counts how often:
Over and over again the Holy Spirit repeats this all-important fact in chapters 43 to 46. No less than ten times He states it with intensity — there is none else! Israel's God is the only God! He "created" Jacob! He "formed" the nation!... Yes, He "called" her by her name; "you are Mine!" So she can witness not only against idols, but to the only God. Now the call is rightly heard, and it will bring a swift response all over the world. "Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other" (Isaiah 45:22).
That exclusiveness is the whole point of the wording. Something similar is drawn out from the simple idea of "one":
One excludes everything else. It speaks of what is alone, with nothing else to compare it with... Without doing violence to the thought, we have here the exclusion of all others from the place that God alone can occupy. "I am the Lord, and there is none else." "My glory I will not give to another."
Where the ESV says God equips Cyrus, older wording says He "girded" him — He strapped the man's gear on him. God did this long before Cyrus was born, and He says why:
It is, however, for the sake of Israel, God's elect, that God calls Cyrus and allows him to subdue the nations. Two hundred years before he comes on the scene, God can say, "I have called you by your name, I have given you a title of honour." He also says, "I have girded you, though you have not known me."
Why say "there is no other" again, right here? One writer — who uses "Jehovah" where the ESV has "the LORD" — finds a purpose in the timing:
The challenge of Jehovah that begins with verse 5 does not appear to be a mere repetition of what begins in Isaiah 44:6. It meets, in a very interesting way, the particular evil that those men fell into — the men who under Cyrus overthrew Babylon and its worthless idols. The Persians were famous for their scheme of two rival powers: good and evil, light and darkness, Ormusd and Ahriman. What could be more pointed, given the utter confusion of this scheme, than the words that follow?
"Though you do not know me" describes a man God moved without his knowing it. One writer places Cyrus beside two others who served the same promise:
So God used three men to fulfil this promise: Jeremiah in prophecy, Daniel in prayer, and Cyrus — a man who did not know the Lord — in providence. God had said of Cyrus long before, through Isaiah, "I have given you a title of honour, though you have not known Me... I have raised you up in righteousness."... This word, and the way it actually came true, are so exact and so encouraging. They fill the soul that trusts the blessed God with comfort and cheer. That soul knows that even now He makes all things work together for the good of His own, whom He has called by His grace according to His purpose.
Did Cyrus stay in that ignorance? Commentators raise the question without settling it. One sets Daniel's picture of a conqueror who recognises no God above him against the honour Isaiah gives him:
One is a little astonished at reading this. Cyrus has such honourable mention in Isaiah 45 — though even there He says, "I have given you a title of honour, though you have not known Me." Daniel sees him at one stage of his career. Later than that, God may have brought him into the light of the knowledge of the Lord.
Why did God name one Persian king and hand him an empire? The answer reaches wider than Israel, and further than Cyrus's own day:
For Israel's sake He named Cyrus, though he did not know Jehovah, so that men might know from east and from west that there is none besides Him... Yet this unmatched return of the Jew from Babylon is clearly only the shadow of an everlasting salvation that is not yet Israel's. That salvation comes when idols and their worshippers will be in the dust, and when in Jehovah all Israel will be justified and will glory. Yes, and every knee will bow to Him and every tongue swear (Isaiah 45:23).
- One God. The claim excludes every rival: Israel's God is the only God, and there is none else.
- One gift. God equips Cyrus for conquest two hundred years before his birth, and does it for Israel's sake.
- One correction. The words strike at the Persian belief in two rival powers behind light and darkness.
- One reach. The purpose is public: from east to west, men are to know there is none besides Him.
- One result. The return from Babylon is only the shadow. The substance is an everlasting salvation where every knee bows.
-- that they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the going down, that there is none beside me. I [am] Jehovah, and there is none else;
God takes hold of a Persian king who has never met Him. The purpose reaches far past that one man: from sunrise to sunset, people are to know that the LORD alone is God.
The man God uses here is a foreign conqueror with no faith in Israel's God. That does not weaken the verse's claim. God is free to use a man who does not know Him.
God is able to make the world confess His power and authority. Whatever the case here, God calls Cyrus by name. He calls him His shepherd, His anointed, though Cyrus had not known God (Isa. 44:28; Isa. 45:4), and only in view of what God had called him to do. The point is not what Cyrus was personally, but his work.
The stated aim is that people should know. One writer traces the line from God's grip on Cyrus's hand to the knowledge this verse announces. He then looks further: the return from Babylon was only a preview of something lasting. He uses the older rendering "Jehovah" where the ESV reads "the LORD".
It was Jehovah that held Cyrus' right hand to subdue nations before him, to break the bronze doors in pieces, and to cut through the iron bars. For Israel's sake He named Cyrus, though he did not know Jehovah, so that men might know from east and from west that there is none beside Him... Yet this unmatched return of the Jew from Babylon is clearly only the shadow of an everlasting salvation that Israel does not have yet. Then idols and their worshippers will lie in the dust, and in Jehovah all Israel will be justified and will glory.
Cyrus's own empire held a rival creed: good and evil each had its own divine author. The next verses answer it head on.
In raising up Cyrus God would have all nations know that He is God and there is none else beside. The truth about the LORD stands in contrast to the Zoroastrian belief of the Persians. They held that a certain eternal person brought two powerful beings into existence: one the creator of all good, the other the author of all the evils that afflict men. It is God who forms the light and creates the darkness. It is God who makes peace among the nations. And in the way He governs, He creates evil in the sense of punishment.
The short phrase at the end of the verse is not a comparison. It is a total exclusion, and one writer draws that out from the very idea of "one".
One excludes everything else. It speaks of that which is alone, with nothing else to compare it with... There can be no question that this first number conveys the thought of "aloneness", of absolute unity, as nothing else could. Without straining the thought, we have here the exclusion of all others from the place which God alone can occupy. "I am the LORD, and there is no other." "My glory I give to no other."
The refrain does not stop at a statement about God. In these chapters it becomes Israel's testimony and an open call, and it repeats until no one can miss it.
Over and over again the Holy Spirit repeats this all-important fact in chapters 43 to 46. No less than ten times He states it with force: There is none else! Israel's God is the only God!... She can therefore witness not only against idols, but to the only God. Now people hear the call as they should, and it will bring a swift response in all the world. "Turn to Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other" (Isa. 45:22).
- None else — the claim. The last words of the verse are not a ranking but an exclusion. God alone holds a place no one else can share, and He will not give His glory to another.
- None else — the proof. God took hold of a king who did not know Him. What qualified Cyrus was not his personal faith but the work God called him to; the point was never the man.
- None else — the target. The words answer a real rival belief, the Persian scheme of two divine powers behind good and evil. Light and darkness, peace and even punishment all come from one hand.
- None else — the reach. The purpose runs from sunrise to sunset. The release from Babylon was only a small picture of a lasting salvation still ahead for Israel.
- None else — the call. The same words that shut out every rival open a door. Because there is no other God, He calls the ends of the earth to turn to Him and be saved.
forming the light and creating darkness, making peace and creating evil I, Jehovah, do all these things.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
Drop down, [ye] heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness; let the earth open, and let them bring forth salvation, and with it let righteousness spring up. I, Jehovah, have created it.
This call comes in the middle of a challenge God makes to a world that believed in two rival powers. He tells the sky to rain down righteousness and the ground to open and grow salvation, and then claims that harvest as His own creation. (The quotes below use an older translation. It reads "pour down righteousness" and "spring up together.")
The verse belongs to a challenge God begins in verse 5. One writer notes that it strikes at the religion of the Persians — the very people who, under Cyrus, would overthrow Babylon.
The challenge of Jehovah that begins with verse 5 does not seem to be a mere repetition of what begins in Isaiah 44:6. The men who overthrew Babylon and its worthless idols under Cyrus fell into a special evil, and in a very interesting way this challenge meets it. For the Persians were famous for their scheme of two rival powers: good and evil, light and darkness, Ormusd and Ahriman. What can be more pointed, in view of the complete collapse of this scheme, than the words that follow?
Two rival powers cannot share the credit here. One God sends the righteousness down and brings the salvation up, and He says so Himself.
People often set righteousness and salvation against each other, as if one had to give way to the other. This verse puts them in the same soil.
It is the LORD who does these things. The final result is that blessing will come down from heaven, and earth will be open to receive it. It will not be righteousness without grace. It will not be salvation at the cost of righteousness. Salvation and righteousness will "spring up together."
The word "righteousness" turns up again and again in Isaiah. One writer follows its sense here and shows how it clears up the way the New Testament uses it.
Here, and in several other passages, we find a use of "righteousness" that throws light on its use in the New Testament and clears it up... Here God's power steps in, in keeping with His own character and in grace towards His people, and so it must deliver them... Taking Cyrus as a first fulfilment, God has to vindicate His title against the pride of the nations, their idols and their false gods. It is His righteousness, but through it His people are delivered in grace... In chapter 45:8 God is vindicating Himself in public, as He is, so to speak, bound to do in the end, and so righteousness comes out. So God fully establishes and vindicates all that He is in the cross of Jesus, where the blessed Jesus offered Himself up so that this might be done. We come in who, through grace, are made alive together with Him, to be the righteousness of God in Him.
So the rescue and the self-vindication are one act. The verse's last words claim the whole result as God's own creation.
This scene has not yet happened on earth. One writer places it in a coming day for Israel, then draws out what belongs to believers now.
One day Israel will have the place of power and glory before all the nations. Then the blind people will see and the deaf people will hear, and in the rejected Messiah they will see the Lord Jehovah, the only Saviour... But even now the rejected Christ sits on the Father's throne, and the Spirit is sent out to glorify Him in a spiritual way in a world of darkness and rebellion against God. Even now, then, those who confess Christ are to tell out His excellencies... That light has not yet risen to shine on Zion, though it will surely come. It has already shone in our hearts who believe — the light of the knowledge of God's glory in the face of Jesus Christ.
- Creator. The verse ends by giving God the whole harvest. He alone creates the righteousness that falls and the salvation that grows.
- Correction. It answers the Persian idea of two rival powers behind good and evil — a scheme the verse leaves in ruins.
- Content. "Righteousness" here is God stepping in. He acts true to His own character and in grace towards His people, and so He delivers them.
- Cross. God fully establishes and vindicates all that He is in the cross of Jesus. There believers become the righteousness of God in Him.
- Coming. The scene is still future for Israel in power and glory. The light that has not yet dawned on Zion already shines in the hearts of believers, in the face of Jesus Christ.
Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! Let a potsherd [strive] with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to him that formeth it, What makest thou? Or thy work, He hath no hands?
Here God names Cyrus, the Persian king He will raise up, and insists that He alone is God. Into that declaration comes a woe — aimed not at idols this time, but at any creature who argues with the One who made him.
The woe has a setting in worship. One writer reads verses 9 and 10 as God's warning to idolaters, and names what a man does when he trades his Maker for a made thing.
In view of the judgments coming on idolatry, God warns the idolaters. In turning from God to idols, man is striving with his Maker. Let created men — mere potsherds — strive among themselves, but woe to them if they call God's works and God's ways into question.
Older translations call the man here a potsherd, where the ESV has "a pot among earthen pots." A Bible dictionary defines the word, and points to where it turns up again.
A fragment of pottery, to which man is compared when he strives with his Maker. Isaiah 45:9. David uses the word in the Psalm that foretells the Lord's sacrificial sufferings. There he says, "my strength is dried up like a potsherd." Psalm 22:15.
Shards may grind against shards; what they cannot do is take the potter to court. Yet that Psalm likens the Lord Himself to a potsherd.
One writer starts from the bare idea of a Creator, and shows what that idea gives Him the right to do. He then names the one Man who ever gave God that place.
It is important to get right ideas of God. I do not mean only in His grace, which must be learned in the gospel, but as Creator... I am only seeking to show one thing. If you allow the idea of a Creator at all — and a man must be mad who does not — you must allow He has a right to do just as He pleases. He may make what He pleases, and do what He pleases with what He has made. No one ever gave God this rightful place but Christ. He took the place of man and held it fast, to the glory of God, from the manger to the cross... That it was the will of God was explanation enough for every circumstance in which He found Himself.
So the clay that never once asked "What are you making?" was the Lord Jesus Himself.
One writer treats the potter's image as God's own reply to every objection reason can raise.
The potter has power over the lump of clay he holds in his hand. No one would think of disputing that. How much more, then, has the Creator of all things power over the creatures His hand has formed! Men may reason and argue without end about why God permitted sin to enter. They ask why He did not destroy Satan and his angels at once. They ask why He allowed the serpent to tempt Eve... In short, the hows and whys are endless; but the answer is one: "Who are you, O man, to answer back to God?"
One writer sets two postures side by side: the learner at the Master's feet, and the judge. He hears the clay's question still today.
Anyone who does not want to sit at the Master's feet and say, "I will ask You, and You answer me," takes the place of judge against his God. The vessel says to the potter, "What are you making?" Foolish as the question is, we still find it often among the children of Adam... In our day the spirit of independence forces its way in everywhere. Everyone wants to be free to think and do as they please. So this basic error is almost universal.
The chapter does not stop at the woe. God then invites the very people He has just silenced to bring Him their questions about the future.
The Lord rebukes with woe upon woe all striving with Himself and fault-finding with His ways. Yet how graciously He calls on His people in the very next verse! He tells them to ask Him about things to come concerning His sons, and to command Him concerning His sons and the work of His hands!
God shuts the door on the arguer and opens it to the asker.
- Clay — Scripture likens man to a potsherd, a broken piece of pottery. Shards may strive with shards, but never with the hand that shaped them.
- Cause — The woe answers idolatry: turning from God to a made thing is itself striving with the Maker.
- Claim — Grant that there is a Creator, and you must grant His rights. He may make what He pleases, and do as He pleases with what He has made.
- Christ — Only One ever gave God that place. From the manger to the cross, God's will was explanation enough for Him.
- Call — The same chapter that pronounces woe on the arguer invites God's people to ask Him about what is coming. Arguing is shut out; asking is welcomed.
Woe unto him that saith unto [his] father, What begettest thou? Or to [his] mother, What hast thou brought forth?
God has just named Cyrus, a foreign king, as the man He will use to set His people free. The verse before answers the objectors with a picture: broken pieces of pottery arguing with the potter. This verse moves the picture indoors. A child turns on his own father and mother for ever giving him life.
Verses 9 and 10 belong together. Both speak to people who had swapped the living God for idols. One writer explains what such a swap really is:
In view of the judgments coming on idolatry, God warns the idolaters. In turning from God to idols, man is striving with his Maker. Let created men — mere potsherds — strive with each other, but woe to them if they call God's works and God's ways into question.
God does not forbid strife between people here. He forbids the creature putting God's works and ways on trial.
If God made you, He has the right to make you as He pleased. One writer builds the whole argument from that one admission, and names the only Man who never disputed it:
It is important to get right ideas of God. I do not mean only in His grace, which must be learned in the gospel, but as a Creator. I have not yet come to consider what God makes, or what He does with what He makes. I am only seeking to show one thing. If you allow the idea of a Creator at all — and a man must be mad who does not — you must allow that He has a right to do just as He pleases. He may make what He pleases, and do what He pleases with the thing He has made. No one ever yet gave God this His rightful place except Christ. He took the place of man, and He kept that place without fail, to the glory of God, from the manger to the cross.
The Hebrew verb on the mother's side of the verse means more than giving birth. The ESV renders it "in labor." One writer traces the word through its fifty uses:
The Revisers of 1881 changed the words "have you brought forth" here to "travail." Probably this was because the verb means the pains of bearing that come before the birth more than the bringing forth itself. Translators render this word in many ways across its fifty uses: fear (of God), grief, anguish, pain, sorrow, wounding, travail, tremble (at God's presence), dance, shake, and so on. The thought is not so much bearing a child, as the different forms of suffering that go with a certain action or event.
So the complaint God rebukes here targets parents who suffered to bring the complainer into the world.
One man in Scripture said almost exactly what this verse forbids. Job asked why he had ever come into the world:
Why do I live at all? Would it not be better if I had never been born? See Job 3:10-20. In Isaiah 45:9-12 we see a serious woe pronounced on those who ask such questions.
The reason the woe is so heavy becomes clear once you follow the question to its end — and so does the way God answered it:
Job's first great question implies a doubt about the purpose of human existence. So it doubts the wisdom of the Creator too. This is an insult against God Himself. At the end of the book God answers it with a series of counter-questions. Then Job submits, and his tormenting questions find a satisfactory answer in the power and goodness of God.
The woe does not mean God refuses to be spoken to. Read on one verse and the tone changes:
The LORD rebukes with woe upon woe all striving with Himself and all fault-finding with His ways. Yet how graciously He calls on His people in the very next verse! He tells them to ask Him about things to come concerning His sons, and to command Him concerning His sons and the work of His hands. He who made heaven and its host, earth and man on it raised up Cyrus to build His city and set His captives free, "not for price or reward, says the LORD of hosts."
- Maker. The woe falls on the creature who puts God's works and ways on trial. Turning from God to idols is that same quarrel with our Maker.
- Right. Admit a Creator at all, and you must admit His right to make what He pleases. Christ alone gave God that place, from the manger to the cross.
- Labor. The verb on the mother's side of the verse speaks of pain and travail. The complaint God rebukes lands on the parents who suffered to give the complainer life.
- Job. "Why was I ever born?" is the living form of this woe. It doubts the wisdom of the Creator. God answered Job with questions of His own, until Job submitted.
- Ask. The very next verse invites the same people to ask God about things to come. He forbids fault-finding; He welcomes questions.