Isaiah 44:28

God announced that Cyrus would be the person who would allow Jerusalem to be rebuilt and the temple foundations relaid. The mention of his name climaxes this prophecy (Isaiah 44:24-28). Cyrus would be the Lord’s shepherd, the one who would lead the Israelites back into their land by permitting its restoration. He would carry out all God’s desire (cf. Isaiah 41:2-3; Isaiah 41:25).

The title "My Shepherd" was one that God used of the Davidic kings (cf. 2 Samuel 5:2; 1 Kings 22:17; Ezekiel 34:23). The fact that He used it here of a pagan monarch shows that God would use pagans to fulfill His wishes-since the Davidic kings had proved unreliable (cf. Isaiah 7:13; Isaiah 39:7). This was indeed a new thing that God had not done before (cf. Isaiah 43:19).

"In a wonderfully ingenious way, just as the foreigner, Ruth, became an ancestress of David (Ruth 4:13-22), the foreigner Cyrus typifies the Davidic Messiah (Isaiah 53:10; Zechariah 11:4; Zechariah 13:7; John 8:29; John 10:11)." [Note: Oswalt, The Book . . . 40-66, p. 197.]

Cyrus (559-530 B.C.) issued his decree to allow the Jewish exiles to return and rebuild Jerusalem in 538 B.C. This happened about 190 years after Isaiah announced this prophecy. Josephus recorded that Cyrus read Isaiah’s prophecy predicting that he himself-Cyrus-would send the Israelites back to Palestine to rebuild the temple, and that he desired to fulfill this very prediction. [Note: Josephus, 11:1:2. ] Josephus also dated Isaiah’s prophecy 140 years before the destruction of the temple, namely, about 726 B.C. The Persian monarch had not even been born at this time. When Isaiah made this prophecy his hearers probably said to one another: "Who did he say would do this? Who is Cyrus?"

This prophecy is the primary reason that critics on the unity of Isaiah have insisted that Isaiah of Jerusalem could not possibly have written this prediction. It must have been written, they say, sometime after Cyrus issued his decree. [Note: See Allis, pp. 51-61, for refutation of this common viewpoint.] However, the point that Yahweh was making throughout this book was that He alone could predict and create the future. For a similar prophecy involving Josiah, who had not yet been born, see 1 Kings 13:2.

Motyer noted parallels between Isaiah 44:24 to Isaiah 48:22 and Isaiah 49:1 to Isaiah 53:12. [Note: Motyer, p. 352.] These sections provide the solutions to Israel’s double need: national bondage (cf. Isaiah 42:18 to Isaiah 43:21) and spiritual sinfulness (cf. Isaiah 43:22 to Isaiah 44:22).