Isaiah 41:25

25. I have raised up one Jehovah keeps the field as the moulder of history and foreteller of the future. In purpose he has “raised up one” from the north. In Isaiah 41:2 it is “from the east.” Both are true. The joint powers of Media and Persia lay in both directions from Babylon. See notes to Isaiah 41:2. This makes true God’s prediction of Cyrus, who is to come one hundred and fifty years after.

From the rising of the sun That is, from Persia, or even farther east, and may refer, not only to Cyrus, but concretely to the improved heathenism, but still heathen religion, which was to come to Babylon through Cyrus, namely, Zoroastrianism, a monotheistic religion, though crudely mixed, yet designed perhaps to play a part in palpably moulding the Hebrew religion in some additional items. (See RAWLINSON’S Five Great Monarchies, vol. iv, chap. 6.)