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.