Isaiah 45:4

"For Jacob my servant's sake, and Israel my chosen, I have called thee by thy name: I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me. I am Jehovah, and there is none else; besides me there is no God. I will gird thee, though thou hast not known me; that they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none besides me: I am Jehovah, and there is none else. I form the light and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil; I am Jehovah that doeth all these things."

The very special favor shown to Cyrus here on God's part was apparently motivated by three considerations: (1) that Cyrus, the most powerful monarch on earth, might acknowledge the true God; (2) that Israel might be benefited and continued as a separate nation by the termination of their captivity; and (3) that the attention of all the world might be attracted, and that the unity of God might be manifested to all the earth.[10]

These objectives were fully realized. Cyrus did indeed acknowledge God. "The hand of Jehovah was so manifest in his conquests that Cyrus himself acknowledged that they were of Jehovah."[11] The last two verses of 2Chronicles and the first paragraph of the Book of Ezra fully confirm this.

The statement in Isaiah 45:7 that God creates evil should not be misunderstood. As Kidner pointed out, "The Hebrew word (for evil) is too general a term to suggest that God is the author of wickedness...Some see here an attack upon Zoroastrian dualism, with its rival gods of good and evil; these verses are also equally opposed to polytheism, the target of most of the invective in these chapters."[12] When God speaks of his creating evil here, he is speaking of the disasters and calamities that he brings upon the enemies of his purpose. "This cannot mean that God creates moral evil, but it refers to the judgments God sends into history. He is speaking of the distress and disaster which men experience from God as a consequence of their sin (See Amos 3:6)."[13]