Isaiah 41:2-3

2, 3. Ideally, the parties in controversy are now together, and Jehovah opens.

Who raised up the righteous The verb is in the prophetic past tense not as actually past, but actually certain to take place.

Righteous man Literally, righteousness; but denoting quality, and hence a righteous man, the hero man; undoubtedly referring to Cyrus the Mede; not here and now, but in Isaiah 44:28; Isaiah 45:1, actually so naming him. The argument starts with proof of the divinity of Jehovah in predicting, many years beforehand, that this hero is certain to appear, and on in the argument he twice names his hero Cyrus, who for Israel wrought, though a quasi-heathen, yet wrought under providence in this righteous cause. Observe how the description rushes! Succession of events there is, but so rapid that the time element is scarcely noticeable. Cyrus looms on the horizon for a moment, then disappears. Those who ignore the supernatural in prophecy, may with as little difficulty recognise Isaiah author here, as some other prophet nearer to, but not at, the event. The laws of Hebrew grammar permit, in lively description, scenes yet actually to occur to be transported in thought to a simultaneous past, (or, as some have it, an ideal present,) as here and often in these chapters. It is now rare to find expositors agreeing with Grotius, Lowth, and others, and with former Jewish commentators, in supposing Abraham, and not Cyrus, to be here meant. The great majority adhere to Cyrus as the intended hero, or the coming one. “The coming one first approaches gradually within the horizon of the prophet’s ideal present, and it is only little by little that the prophet becomes more intimately acquainted with a phenomenon which belongs to so distant a future, and has been brought so close to his own eyes. Jehovah has raised the new great hero ‘from the east,’ ( mimmizrach,) and, according to Isaiah 41:25, ‘from the north’ also. Both of these predictions were fulfilled; for Cyrus was a Persian belonging to the clan of Achaemenes, which stood at the head of the tribe of the Pasargardae. He was the son of Cambyses, and, according to all ancient accounts, he was connected with the royal house of Media; at any rate, after Astyages was dethroned, he became head and chief of the Medes as well as of the Persians.” “Now Media was to the north of Babylonia, and Persia to the east.” Delitzsch.