Isaiah 44:24

THE PROPHECY REGARDING CYRUS

"Thus saith Jehovah, thy Redeemer, and he that formed thee from the womb: I am Jehovah that maketh all things; that stretcheth forth the heavens alone; that spreadeth abroad the earth (who is with me?); that frustrateth the signs of the liars, and maketh diviners mad; that turneth wise men backward, and maketh their knowledge foolish; that confirmeth the word of his servant, and performeth the counsel of his messengers; that saith of Jerusalem, She shall be inhabited; and of the cities of Judah, they shall be built, and I will raise up the waste places thereof; that saith to the deep, Be dry, and I will dry up thy rivers; that saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure, even saying of Jerusalem, She shall be built; and of the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid."

This paragraph is the place where critics generally refuse to acknowledge any possibility of Isaiah's having written these verses; but they have nothing whatever upon which to base any logical objection. Nothing ever known in the history of Biblical interpretation is as thoroughly discredited and repudiated by all thoughtful persons as is the vain, arrogant, and ridiculous postulations of the critics.

This mention of Cyrus in this place was shown to Cyrus when he came to the throne of Persia, according to the historian Josephus; and it was his seeing this passage in the Hebrew Bible and having it identified to him as a valid prophecy of Isaiah that caused him to take the lead in the restoration of the Jews to Jerusalem and in the laying of the foundation of their temple. Josephus' testimony here is independent of the Bible, and is also verified in the Bible. Now let the critics produce one line, or even a single word, of historical testimony about their imaginative "Deutero-Isaiah." Where is it? See our Introduction to Isaiah for further comment on this.

One of the most brilliant young scholars of our generation is Homer Hailey, and we are happy to join him in his affirmation concerning this genuine predictive prophecy:

"Without hesitation or apology, this writer stands with the older commentators who ascribed the whole prophecy, the entire Book of Isaiah, to but one man, the prophet Isaiah; and we believe that by the inspiration of Jehovah's Spirit, God foretold, through Isaiah, events far in the future."[14]

Rawlinson pointed out that the prophecy of so minute a thing as the name of man so long before he was born is not, by any means, a unique thing. "Three centuries before Josiah was born, God prophesied his birth, the name he would bear, and the fact that Josiah would burn the bones of men upon the altar at Bethel (1 Kings 13:2)."[15] Not only so, did not the angel of God announce the name of Jesus before he was born; and to Almighty God is that anything different from announcing Cyrus a hundred fifty years before he was born? As Barnes said, "That this passage of Isaiah was seen by Cyrus is the testimony of Josephus; and it is morally certain from the nature of the case, since, otherwise it is incredible that Cyrus should have aided the Jews to return and rebuild their city and the temple."[16]

What could possibly have been any more incredible than the prophecy that the Jews would be liberated from captivity by a pagan ruler who would also aid financially in their return and rebuilding of Jerusalem? "Yet it was done by Cyrus 150 years after Isaiah prophesied it."[17]

The critics have something much more difficult to explain than the mere fact of this prophecy's having been written 150 years before Cyrus fulfilled it, and that is the incredible wonder of why Cyrus did it at all, unless the Biblical explanation of it is allowed.

The Holy Scriptures affirm that Cyrus himself uttered the following decree and proclamation during the very first year of his reign:

"Now, in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of Jehovah by the mouth of Jeremiah might be accomplished, Jehovah stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying, Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, All the kingdoms of the earth hath Jehovah, the God of heaven, given me; and he hath charged me to build him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whosoever there is among you of all his people, his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the house of Jehovah the God of Israel (He is God), which is in Jerusalem. And whosoever is left in any place where he sojourneth, let the men of his place help him with silver, and with gold, and with goods, and with beasts, besides the freewill offering for the house of God which is in Jerusalem" (Ezra 1-4).

This remarkable edict by Cyrus is also mentioned in the last two verses of 2Chronicles.

Several of God's prophets had foretold the fall of Babylon, and remarkably, they all indicated that it would be due to a drought upon the waters of the Euphrates; as this passage here puts it, "I will dry up thy rivers." This was quite different from the prophecy of the fall of Nineveh, which, according to Nahum, was prophesied to take place as the result of a flood!

The most exact and circumstantial fulfillment of the prophecy of Babylon's fall occurred on October 12,539 B.C.[18]

Belshazzar, the grandson of Nebuchadnezzar, was drinking himself drunk with his lords, ladies, and concubines in the great banquet hah of the palace, an immense place 50 feet by 160 feet in size,[19] quite unaware that the Euphrates River had been diverted by Cyrus, and that the entire Medo-Persian military force would fill the city before daylight, having their access under the walls and gates as the waters of the Euphrates sank lower and lower. That was the night when Daniel interpreted the handwriting on the wall, the last night before "Darius the Mede took the kingdom." See Daniel 5, and my commentary on Daniel.

Barnes has this:

"Cyrus took the city of Babylon after having besieged it a long time in vain, by turning the waters of the river into a vast lake, forty miles square, which had been constructed to carry off the superfluous waters in times of a flood. By doing this, he laid the channel of the Euphrates almost dry, enabling him to enter the city and take it by surprise."[20]