Isaiah 45:1

This chapter is a continuation of the revelation in the previous chapter. This is a prophecy concerning Cyrus of the Medo-Persian Empire, and how God delivered into his hands many nations, the wealth he procured, and how all his enemies were subdued (Isaiah 45:1-3); to whom Cyrus was indebted for all those wonderful victories (Isaiah 45:4-6); God reveals himself as the one true and only Deity who made light and darkness, refuting the absurd theory of the Persians that there were two gods, one of the good, and the other of the evil (Isaiah 45:7,8); the foolishness of those who question the mysterious providence of God in his relationship with his children (Isaiah 45:9-12); the remainder of the chapter has references to the absurdity of idolatry, a few allusions to the dark, lying oracles of the pagans, and certain passages which refer to the deliverance of God's people by Cyrus, but which are to be more fully fulfilled in that glorious salvation by the Messiah, which, it is declared, shall be of universal extent and everlasting duration (Isaiah 45:13-25).

Isaiah 45:1-3

"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 the doors before him, and the gates shall not be shut: I will go before thee, and make the rough places smooth; I will break in pieces the doors of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron; and I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that it is I, Jehovah, who call thee by thy name, even the God of Israel."

"To his anointed ..." (Isaiah 45:1). The ceremony of anointing was used in the elevation of Jewish kings; but no similar ceremony was known among the pagans; and some have wondered what is meant here. It means that Cyrus was consecrated to carry out the purpose of God in the release of the Jews and termination of their captivity. We agree with Dummelow that the "surname" God gave Cyrus refers probably to "Anointed (Isaiah 45:1) or to Shepherd (Isaiah 44:28)."[1]

"Subdue nations ..." (Isaiah 45:1). "Xenophon gave the following list of nations conquered by Cyrus: The Syrians, Assyrians, Arabians, Cappadocians, Phrygians, Lydians, Carians, Phoenicians, and the Babylonians."[2] The significant thing about this list of nations is that Cyrus himself acknowledged in his decree that Jehovah had indeed given him all of those nations (Ezra 1:2).

Another important implication of this first verse is inherent in the name of Cyrus as God's anointed. Archer pointed out that, "Cyrus stands as a type of Jesus Christ; and many of the promises to Cyrus have their spiritual fulfillment in the life and ministry of Our Redeemer."[3]

"No one but an omniscient Being could have predicted 150 years before they occurred, that such events would take place; and these verses are one of the many prophecies which demonstrate in the most particular manner that Isaiah was inspired of God."[4]

"I will break in pieces the gates of brass ..." (Isaiah 45:2). Some of the most inconsequential, nit-picking, picayune objections to this prophecy are registered in the writings of Cheyne. He made light of the prophecy of Cyrus as follows:

"The prophet does not say `a child shall be born, Cyrus by name,' but assumes his existence, and predicts that he, rather than some scion of the house of David would be the instrument of the Jews' deliverance ... He assumes rather than predicts the existence of Cyrus; and he omits to mention by how many years, if any, his announcement preceded the birth of the Deliverer!"[5]

The reason God's prophecy omitted the prophecy of the birth of Cyrus was that his ancestry was not important, as it was in the instance of God's predicting the birth of Josiah some three hundred years before the event (2 Kings 13:2), because Cyrus was not of the house of David. Like another great Type of the Son of God, Melchizedek, Cyrus stands historically as a solitary individual, and as an object of wonder, exactly as does Melchizedek. God's wisdom is displayed in this far more effectively than any mention of when or of whom Cyrus was born could possibly have done it.

Furthermore, when Cheyne also cited the fact that the brass gates of Babylon were not broken in pieces, as prophesied here, but were made useless by the drying up of the Euphrates, as an instance "of the non-fulfillment of prophecy,"[6] it appears to this writer that cavil reached some kind of a climax! The true meaning of the prophecy was not that Cyrus would literally break into pieces the 100 brass gates of Babylon, but that they would afford him no greater difficulty than if they had been so destroyed. "Herodotus tells us that Babylon had twenty-five massive brass gates, supported by brass frames, on each of the four sides of the city, one hundred brass gates in all."[7] Critics only exhibit their own frustration by such criticisms as these.

"I will give thee the treasures of darkness ..." (Isaiah 45:3). The exact fulfillment of this came in the vast quantities of pure gold and other valuables that Cyrus took from the kings whom he conquered, of whom, especially, was Croesus, the wealthiest monarch of all antiquity. "The Roman historian Pliny stated that Cyrus in the conquest of Asia obtained 34,000 pounds of pure gold, besides many other treasures."[8] Archer has given an estimate of the value of that in dollars, as calculated about 1960; but of course it would be about eight times as much in 1990, due to the inflation of the price of gold. The figure that Archer gave is $630,000,000, taken from the wealth of Croesus alone![9]