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Isaiah 41; Isa_44:28; Isa_45:4
Now, in producing these prophecies, for the purpose of developing the information which they afford respecting Cyrus and the Persians, we shall find it necessary to connect together those passages which, in different chapters, or even in different prophets, bear upon the same portions of the general subject before us, which we shall successively endeavor to illustrate. This departure from our usual plan, is rendered necessary by the dispersion of the texts which refer to Cyrus and his doings; and which, although they might be separately considered in a commentary, must be brought into connection to furnish a coherent view of the subject as a whole and in its separate parts.
One of the designations of Cyrus which we have jest adduced, “the man that executeth my counsel,” furnishes the key to the prophetic point of view of his character and position, and which pervades all that is said of him, and promised to him. This forms the most striking and the most sustained of the instances in which the Lord not only asserts his supremacy in the government of the world, but reveals to us the mode in which it operates, and the form in which it is most usually conducted. The marked manner in which Cyrus and his Persians are represented as set apart to execute the purposes of the Lord, while they considered themselves pursuing their own objects, cannot fail to suggest many interesting reflections respecting the manner in which the Lord acts in executing the high purposes of his will—often by agents who little think who it is that they are serving, and who are, it may be, as in this case, ignorant even of his name.
But Isaiah 41 brings Cyrus before us in his own proper person:
“Who raised up the righteous man from the east,
Called him to his foot,
Gave the nations before him,
And made him rule over kings?
He gave them as the dust to his sword,
And as the driven stubble to his bow.”—Isa_41:2.
An old interpretation assigns this prophecy to Abraham, on no other ground, apparently, than that he also came “from the East,” and was eminently a “righteous man.” But this is now generally seen to be untenable; for none of the other circumstances enumerated in this and the ensuing verses are applicable to Abraham; whereas they all agree with Cyrus and his exploits. The greatest difficulty is, however, supposed to be found in the designation of Cyrus, a heathen, as a “righteous man.” But this title, which indicates one who acts with habitual rectitude, who would not consciously inflict wrong—a just man, is not in Scripture confined to Israelites; and, what is more, it correctly describes the character of Cyrus, which, not less than his military exploits, caused his name to be long held in honor by his countrymen. The Cyropædia of Xenophon is, in particular, full of examples in point. They may be true or false; but if some of them be untrue, even they—like the Arabian stories of the generosity of Hatim Tai—illustrate the impressions which were entertained of his character. From these anecdotes it does not indeed appear that he always was right; but it does appear that he intended to be right. There is an amusing story of his boyhood—that his tutor made him the judge in the case of two boys. One of them, a big boy, with a dress much too small for him took away the robe of a little boy, which was much too large for him, and gave him his own instead. It seems that both the boys were fitted under this arrangement, however injuriously effected—and Cyrus decided that each boy should retain the robe that fitted him. For this decision his tutor chastised him, telling him that, as a judge, it was his business to have regard to the rights of property, and not to decide according to his own views of the fitness of things. Throughout his career we see him actuated by an anxious solicitude to do what he believed to be right and just, and to avoid wrong-doing. In fact, as Dr. Henderson remarks on this text—“It is not a little remarkable, that of all the virtuous princes of antiquity, he alone was thought worthy of being exhibited as a model of just government. Not only was he exemplary in private life, but his victories and conquests had for their object the vindication of law and justice. He is even said to have been an object of the Divine love. Isa_48:14. His destruction of the Babylonian empire, and liberation of the Jews, were special acts of righteousness; and the abolition of idolatry, which in a great measure followed the success of the Persian arms, comes also under the same head.”
Let us now proceed to the important passage which forms the conclusion of the forty-fourth, and the commencing portion of the forty-fifth chapters:
“That saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd,
And shall perform all my pleasure;
Even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built;
And to the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid.
Thus saith the Lord 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 before him the two-leaved gates;
And the gates shall not be shut:
I will go before thee,
And make the crooked places straight;
I will break in pieces the gates of brass,
And cut in sunder the bars of iron:
I will give thee the treasures of darkness,
And the hidden riches of secret places,
That thou mayest know that I, the Lord,
Which call thee by name, am the God of Israel.
For Jacob my servant’s sake,
And Israel mine elect,
I have even called thee by name:
I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me.”
Isa_44:28; Isa_45:1-4
This is a very surprising passage. Here is a man singled out by name, above a century before his birth, and his character and career distinctly marked out for him. The prophet himself was apprized of the importance of this circumstance, as appears by the last of the verses we have cited, in which two objects of this extraordinary revelation are avowed—one, that a certain conviction might, by the evidence of this old prophecy, be wrought upon the mind of Cyrus himself—and the other, that a benefit might therefrom result to the chosen people.That so much stress is laid upon the fact of this remarkable man’s name being given so long before he existed, directs attention to that name. The Hebrew name is Koresh, which is clearly a Hebrew form of the same name which the Greeks, and we after them, represent by “Cyrus.” They tell us that this name was from a Persian word signifying the sun. Khur accordingly signifies the sun in Pehlevi, which was the ancient language of Persia, as it does also in modern Persian; and the prediction becomes the more remarkable, when we consider that the prophecy of Isaiah was uttered while the Persians were a remote and obscure people, when they could scarcely have been known more than by name in Palestine, and when no one acquainted with their language probably could be found in all the country. Yet here the prophet gives to a future man a name which exhibits the characteristics of a language unknown to the Jews, and which has in that language a marked and pointed significance, by reason of the homage paid by the Persians to the sun. It is the same—to illustrate the fact by a familiar comparison—as if a Persian of the reign of Nadir Shah had foretold that a hundred years thence a queen, named Victoria, should reign in England; the name being to him and his people entirely foreign and strange, and having significance only among a people whose existence was scarcely known, and whose language not a person in the country understood. So that, as we wish to show, the signal inspiration of this prophecy is enhanced by the fact, that the prophet himself could not, under any reasonable probabilities, have ever known that such a name as that which he gave to the coming man existed, that it was a significant name in any language, or that it was a name likely to be borne by any person. We are indeed informed by the Greek writers, that Cyrus was the name which this prince assumed when he became king, his original name being Agradates—which might suggest to unbelievers that Cyrus took his new name to meet the prophecy. But not to dwell on the utter improbability, that at so early a period he should have known a prophecy extant only among a people who were at that time nothing to him, and to whose prophecies, if he ever did know of them, he was not then likely to attach any importance, we may remark, that the change was probably much less than it seems—so slight, indeed, that the prophecy would have been just as applicable to the first name as to the second. There is reason to suppose that the name Agradates, which the Greeks give as the original name of Cyrus, was with them but a translation of the Pehlevi word or name Khur-dad, “gift of the sun,” which we know to have been used as a proper name among them, as it belonged to one of the angels of the Persian system of worship, and must have seemed a very proper name for a prince of the country. The well-known name Mithradates, or Mithradad, has the same meaning. Such names have always been common in the East; only a Mohammedan of Persia, instead of Khurdad, would be named Allahdad, or Khudadad, “gift of God,” answering to the Jewish name Nathaniel, and others of the same sort. But the Lord had not only called Cyrus by his name, but he had “surnamed” him, as our translation somewhat vaguely renders. What is meant is not that He had given him any surname—for the name already mentioned was his own proper name—but that He had made honorable mention of him, and bestowed upon him titles of high honor, such as no heathen prince had ever received. What were these titles and honorable distinctions? One of them, “The righteous man,” has already engaged our attention. Two more occur in the passage last extracted—“My shepherd,” and “Mine anointed.”
As to the first, of “shepherd,” we know that good kings and rulers, are called shepherds in Scripture, as they are in the ancient classics. It is a fact, however, that David, Cyrus, and Christ in his Messianic character, are the only sovereigns to whom the title is personally given. In other instances it is applied to the office of sovereign rather than to the person of any particular king. What is more remarkable is, that this very title was one to which Cyrus was partial, and the purport of which he fully appreciated. Xenophon describes him as saying—“The business of a good king and of a good shepherd are much alike. The shepherd ought, before all things, to provide for the welfare and safety of his flock, and to make use of these creatures consistently with their happiness; and a king ought, in the same manner, to make men and cities happy, and in the same manner to make use of them.”
Cyrus, again, is called the Lord’s “anointed,” in reference to the ancient custom of anointing kings with oil at their inauguration. To be merely the “anointed,” was, therefore, no particular distinction to Cyrus, as among other kings; but to be “the Lord’s anointed” was a very high distinction; and it is given to him obviously because the Lord had in his providence appointed him to be the prince under whose rule the Jews were to be restored, and the other purposes of His will accomplished.