Isaiah 45:1-7
Thus says the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus,
whose right hand I have grasped,
to subdue nations before him
and to loose the belts of kings,
to open doors before him
that gates may not be closed:
“I will go before you
and level the exalted places,
I will break in pieces the doors of bronze
and cut through the bars of iron,
I will give you the treasures of darkness
and the hoards in secret places,
that you may know that it is I, the Lord,
the God of Israel, who call you by your name.
For the sake of my servant Jacob,
and Israel my chosen,
I call you by your name,
I name you, though you do not know me.
I am the Lord, and there is no other,
besides me there is no God;
I equip you, though you do not know me,
that people may know, from the rising of the sun
and from the west, that there is none besides me;
I am the Lord, and there is no other.
I form light and create darkness;
I make well-being and create calamity;
I am the Lord, who does all these things.
Welcome to Getting ready for Sunday, a podcast of first Lutheran Church. Each week I introduced the readings for the upcoming Sunday with some notes and explanation so you can be ready for worship when you arrive. I look at the Old Testament, Psalm epistle and Gospel reading for the upcoming Sunday and offer a few notes and explanation. The Old Testament reading for Sunday, October 22, comes from Isaiah chapter 45, verses one through seven. Thus says the Lord to His anointed to Cyrus whose right hand I have scratched, to subdue nations before him, and to loosen the belt of kings, to open doors before him that gates may not be closed, I will go before you and level the exalted places, I will break in pieces, the doors of bronze and cut through the bars of iron, I will give you the treasures of darkness and the hordes in secret places, that you may know that it is I, the LORD, the God of Israel, who call you by your name, for the sake of my servant, Jacob and Israel, my chosen, I call you by your name, I name you, though you do not know me. I am the Lord, there is no other. beside me there is no God. I equip you, though you do not know me that people may know from the rising of the sun and from the West, that there is none besides me. I am the Lord. And there is no other, I form light and create darkness, I make well being and create calamity. I am the Lord who does all these things. Here ends the reading. Isaiah is calling out to a guy named Cyrus, it says, Thus says the Lord to His anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have grasped. If you know about Isaiah, Isaiah spends much of his time looking forward from the eighth century BC, round 740 BC, to the days of the Babylonian exile. And then even farther on when Cyrus the Great King of the Persian Empire, sends the Jews back to Jerusalem. And so Isaiah has predicted that someone would come in destroy the city of Jerusalem and take them off into captivity. And that happened in 598, B C ish. It's during that time that they do all sorts of stuff to destroy the city. And Isaiah is looking ahead to that. And but he's even more specific here, where he says even beyond that, he's going to call out the very guy who is going to send Israel back, that is to Cyrus, the great king of Persia. Notice what Isaiah says that the Lord is saying, he calls Cyrus God's anointed, and says, whose right hand I had grasped. The idea of anointed means Messiah chosen one, the same word they would have used for Jesus, the same word chosen for any any king who would have been anointed to lead God's people are the judges of the Old Testament. This time, it's going to a pagan king, who is going to be born hundreds of years later. Interestingly, the whose right hand I have grasped reflects a tradition that the Persian kings would grab the hand of Marduk, the god of Babylon, and that hand would then guide the king during this time. Here God is saying that he is the one who has grasped Cyrus's right hand, and he's going to do it to do all sorts of terrible things to the world, sued new nations lose the belt of Kings destroy stuff, Cyrus is going to have all of this amazing success. Destroy doors of bronze breakthrough bars of iron, he gets the treasures and secret places all of that is going to happen, and why it's for Israel. He chooses Cyrus for the good of his people. says, For the sake of my servant, Jacob, and Israel, my chosen, I call you by your name. And we see what happens is that when Cyrus does come to power in the Babylonian Empire, he allows the Jewish people to go home and helps to fund rebuilding their temple and rebuilding the walls. And so the city of Jerusalem becomes a new and a vibrant city by the time Jesus is born. And it's all because of this guy named Cyrus. What this offers for us Christians today is an interesting view of how God works through history is that God chose Cyrus, a pagan king, someone who didn't know him who didn't understand who who never called upon him. And he used this king, as, as a tool to free Israel and bring them to the promised land. And God still arranges all of history today, to point all of us to the end, to the day when Jesus our king will return and raise us from the dead. All of history is moving towards that point, and God arranges it all for the good of his church. So we can trust in Him knowing that God predicted hundreds of years before a king would come. His name was written in the Bible. And Isaiah was recognized as a prophet because of this. And we too can see this pattern working out that God uses the the people of this world for the good of the church, and bringing us to the resurrection on the last day. God truly is powerful, that he can use all of these people for the good of the church. That's it for today. We'll see you on Sunday. Bye
Transcribed by https://otter.ai