Day 211. Isaiah 45-47

Our reading for today talks about how God works in history—how he worked in one particular chapter in the history of Israel, and how he works in history in general. When he wished to punish his people for their unfaithfulness, the LORD used the brute power of Assyria and then of Babylon as his instruments to do so. Of course, these expanding empires and their haughty rulers had no idea that the God of Israel was using them as tools and would not have cared if they had been told. They were caught up in their own selfish ambitions, and yet the LORD used them nonetheless. Jerusalem was destroyed, and the remnant of the chosen people was carried into exile in Babylon, and there they waited and suffered too the loneliness and spiritual privation that all exiles suffer. And through their suffering also learned something about themselves and about their God—they were disciplined by history.
And when this period of discipline was over, God again used an instrument, the Persian king Cyrus, who was again unaware of the part he was playing in God's historical plan and indifferent to it. And yet, as Isaiah of Babylon puts it, it was the LORD who called "a bird of prey from the east, a man for [his] purpose from a far country" (46:11). His conquest of Babylon was as sudden as an eagle dropping from the sky to seize its prey. Cyrus thought he was pursuing a wise imperial policy when he repatriated captive peoples, including Israel, but the prophet views history from God's point of view. And for him the LORD is using the king of Persia to fulfill his covenant promise to his people; "He shall build my city and set my captives free" (45:13). The LORD has "anointed" this pagan king for this purpose, as he anointed the judges and the kings of the house of David for a purpose.
But God's instruments—like the expanding empires of Assyria, Babylon, and Persia-- can and do cause enormous human suffering in the process of doing his will. So is God then the cause of that suffering? In our lesson the LORD says—"Besides me there is no god" (45:5)—there is no one else to blame—"I make weal and create woe" (45:7). God creates prosperity and peace, but is he also the cause of suffering, trouble, and misfortune? The voice of the LORD in our reading seems to say so.
But we need to be reminded of what we believe--that God does not create moral evil, what we call sin. Human beings, in their God-given freedom, rebel against him and choose to disobey his laws. The result of that disobedience is war, injustice, suffering, and death. We individually and corporately are responsible for those things. They are a result of our free choice. We are the cause of human suffering. But God does guide human history—the history of fallen and disobedient humanity—to fulfill his purpose. As the LORD says through his prophet--"I have planned, and I will do it" (6:11). He uses human beings, who are sometimes profoundly evil, for his purposes. He even uses suffering for his purposes, as he did with the cross of Jesus Christ.
And those purposes are ultimately above our criticism. "Will you. . . .command me concerning the work of my hands?" the voice of God asks (45:11), recalling the contemptuous questions he asks Job. What God declares is "what is right" (45:19)—he defines righteousness by his own character.
And to us he presents only two options—to embrace him as "a righteous God and a Savior" (45:21) or to reject him and cling to idols of our own making, who cannot save "anyone from trouble" (46:7). A god "that cannot save" is not a god (45:20). Why, these so-called gods cannot even carry themselves. They are helpless; they must be carried "on weary animals" (46:1). Idols have no power to save those who create them, but I will carry you, says the LORD—"Even when you turn gray I will carry you, I have made, and I will bear, I will carry and will save" (46:4).
Saving is what God does, and he has a plan to create a world in which "to [him] every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall swear" (45:23), and he is working out that plan in history using instruments of his choosing. But even those instruments are held accountable for the suffering they cause. So in our lesson he says to Babylon—"I was angry with my people, I profaned my heritage; I gave them into your hand, you showed them no mercy; on the aged you made your yoke exceedingly heavy. You said, 'I shall be mistress forever'" (47:6).
Every nation like every individual is judged by the LORD who uses his own justice as a criterion for judgment, and offers his mercy in proportion to the mercy we show.