LPEEPb
God’s Plan and Agent (Cyrus)
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The Cyrus Oracle (Isa 44:24–45:7) is a centerpiece of Isaiah 40–55. To understand its logic we will need to bring to the foreground some of the operating assumptions of ANE culture.
Yahweh has appointed Cyrus the Great as his "messiah" to restore Jerusalem.
Given the overwhelming power that the Neo-Babylonian Empire embodied, what could possibly give hope to the Judahite exiles? To the east of Babylon, Cyrus the Great, king of Persia, conquered the neighboring kingdom of Media in 550 BCE (both in modern-day Iran). As the Persian conqueror heads westward to Babylon, the Israelites may have feared becoming collateral damage in the collision of empires, but Yahweh here announces the surprise that he, in fact, is the engineer of these developments. But his principal revelation is not about Cyrus or the fate of the exiles, but about himself.
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Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, …
I am the Lord, who made all things, …
who says of Jerusalem, “It shall be inhabited,”
and of the cities of Judah, “They shall be rebuilt, …
who says of Cyrus, “He is my shepherd,
and he shall carry out all my purpose”;
and who says of Jerusalem, “It shall be rebuilt,”
and of the temple, “Your foundation shall be laid” (Isa 44:24–28, NRSV).
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The main clause of these five verses is simply, “I am Yahweh.” The remainder is simply a series of subordinate clauses identifying who this Yahweh is. This oracle is first a statement of theology and secondarily a prediction about Cyrus, the return of the exiles to Jerusalem, and the rebuilding of the temple.
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In a remarkable departure from tradition, Yahweh confers upon Cyrus the titles “my shepherd” (Isa 44: 28) and “anointed/messiah” (Isa 45:1)—epithets that belong to the Davidic line. The hope of returning to Jerusalem and rebuilding the temple was clearly good news to Deutero-Isaiah’s exilic audience, but they evidently regarded Yahweh’s choice of agent as highly problematic and even offensive. In the following oracle Yahweh engages them in a disputation, challenging them, “Does the clay say to its potter, ‘What are you making?’” (Isa 45:9–13). Instead, Yahweh asserts that his actions are “right” and that he is under no obligation to Cyrus, the agent he chooses (Isa 45:13).
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Monotheism
As the sovereign over Cyrus the Great, Yahweh proves to be the sole God.
Cyrus Oracle. Within the Semitic culture, of which Israel was a part, the default theological explanation for the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem was that Yahweh was overcome by the gods of Babylon.
To counter this reasoning Yahweh takes the gods to court in a series of “trial speeches.”
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From the time of Israel’s settlement in Canaan until the mid-eighth century BCE, the Israelites’ world extended only as far as the neighboring kingdoms and their gods (e.g., 1 Kgs 11:33). Thereafter, the empires forced themselves upon the Israelites’ world view: first the Assyrians and then the Neo-Babylonians. Within Semitic culture this would mean that the head of the pantheon of gods was first Asshur and then Marduk. But in this oracle Yahweh now commands Cyrus the Great, the soon-to-be conqueror of Babylon, to do his bidding unwittingly for Israel’s sake.
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Thus Yahweh is said to his anointed, to Cyrus,
whose right hand I have grasped …
For the sake of my servant Jacob,
and Israel my chosen,
I have called you by your name,
I name you, though you do not know me (Isa 45:1, 4).
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This claim implicitly locates Yahweh as the Sovereign, not only over nations and empires but also over their patron gods.
I am Yahweh and there is none besides,
except me there is no God.
I embrace you, though you do not know me,
so they may know from the rising of the sun and from the west,
that there is none apart from me.
I am Yahweh, and there is none besides (Isa 45:5–6).
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Yahweh’s command of Cyrus provides implicit evidence that he alone is God.
Now we can appreciate the significance of claims made at the beginning of the Cyrus Oracle:
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I am Yahweh,
… who … makes diviners look foolish …,
who establishes the word of his servants (Isa 44:25–26).
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Evidently Babylon’s diviners did not foresee Cyrus’ coming. Only Yahweh has a proven track record of fulfilling the oracles of his prophets. A god is only as good as his word. Yahweh, therefore, becomes the de facto God.
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Trial Speeches against the Nations and their gods take this judgment to the next level. A prevailing assumption in ANE culture (but certainly not unique to them) is that the victor on the battlefield indicates which army has the superior god.
Yahweh takes the so-called gods to court, but they prove to be nothing.
Earthly politics mirrored heavenly realities. But the genius of this prominent speech form in Isaiah 40–55 is to shift the arena of decision from the battlefield to the law court.
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In this imagined law court Yahweh, as prosecutor, summons the nations and their gods, as the defendants (Isa 41:21–29). This speech form has powerful rhetorical effect because the listeners/readers are the implicit judge of Yahweh’s case. At issue is “that we may know that you are gods.” They are challenged to bring forth evidence by explaining the past (“the former things”) and its eventual “outcome” and also by declaring the future (“the things to come”). A god should be able to make sense of the past and predict the future. To appreciate the rhetorical effect we must imagine a hiatus of silence between verses 23 and 24, wherein the gods are given the opportunity to speak, but nothing is heard (explicitly stated later, “there is none … who returns a word”). As prosecutor, Yahweh then gives his preliminary conclusion:
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Behold, you are nothing,
and your work less than nothing;
one who chooses you is an abomination (Isa 41:24).
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Yahweh then proceeds to present his own case and evidence. The one that Yahweh has “stirred up,” though not named here, is Cyrus the Great, who is characterized in the same manner as in the Cyrus Oracle (cf. Isa 41:25 and 45:1–3). Yahweh alone declared in advance the rise of Cyrus as conqueror; none of these so-called gods foretold it. As a result, he reiterates his conclusion: “Behold, they are all nothing.” This judgment reflects functional monotheism, which operates well within a Semitic cultural context, which thinks in terms of function, rather than being (ontology) or metaphysics (the preference of Greco-Roman and Western thinking). As the gods say nothing and do nothing, they are nothing.
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For the first time in the unfolding of the history of Israel’s religion and the literature of the Hebrew Bible we hear an explicit claim of monotheism, the belief in one God. Previously Yahweh was regarded as the patron God of Israel, while other peoples had their own patron gods (e.g., 1 Sam 26:19-20; Judg 11:24; Josh 24:15; Num 21:29; Mic 4:5), and as incomparable among other gods/divine beings (e.g., Exod 15:11; Deut 4:7). Now Yahweh is the summation of “deity” (elohim) and the only being fit for worship.
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In the final trial speech against the nations, which follows the decisive Cyrus Oracle (Isa 45:20–25), Yahweh reiterates his monotheistic claim and offers the nations an “altar call,” as it were:
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Turn to me, and be saved,
all the ends of the earth,
for I am God and there is no other (Isa 45:22).
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As Yahweh has just argued that he alone is God, then it follows that the so-called gods that the nations have worshiped do not exist. Therefore, if they are to have a god and “be saved,” then they must turn to Yahweh.
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Hope
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Salvation Oracles. To encourage the exiles Yahweh speaks through “salvation oracles” (Isa 41:8–13, 14–16; 43:1–7; 44:1–5), whose core has a standard literary form.
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Fear not, for I am with you;
don’t be frightened, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you, indeed I will help you,
indeed I will support you with my righteous right hand (Isa 41:10).
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In these oracles he speaks to his people more personally in an individualized form (see esp. Isa 43:1–2).
Yahweh responds to the exiles' laments and offers hope: a new exodus.
Proclamations of Salvation are another speech form conveying hope (Isa 49:14–26; 51:9–52:6).
They echo the exiles’ lament, either explicitly or implicitly, which Yahweh answers with a promise of salvation, thus demonstrating that he is a responsive deity. (As noted above, this dialogic form indicates the prophet was a contemporary of the exiles.)
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But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me,
my Lord has forgotten me.”
Can a woman forget her nursing child,
or show no compassion for the child of her womb?
Even these may forget,
yet I will not forget you (Isa 49:14–15, NRSV).
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Yahweh shows sympathy for the city of Zion and its exiled inhabitants by likening their pain to that of a mother bereft of her children and their joy to the surprise of their reunion (Isa 49:20–23). Elsewhere Zion is likened to a once barren woman who will need to enlarge her tent to accommodate all her children, thus echoing the promise made to Sarah in Genesis (Isa 54:1–3). In this same passage she is likened to a wife who has been widowed or divorced, only to be reconciled to her husband, Yahweh (Isa 54:4–8; cf. Isa 50:1).
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Another proclamation of salvation echoes the exodus tradition (Isa 43:16-21). Ironically it first calls to mind the exodus from Egypt as “a way in the sea” where “chariot and horse” lie extinguished, only to command the exiles to forget the past because “behold, I am about to do a new thing…. I will set a way in the wilderness.” The exiles eventual departure from Babylon is likened to a second exodus. The prophet’s audience may well have considered his promises of hope and deliverance as mere idealism, but he here provides a historical precedent when situation of the people of God was even worse. Then they were slaves, not simply exiles. This passage illustrates how the people of God are to regard their past and their traditions. While traditions may demonstrate how Yahweh acts on his people’s behalf, they are not to become nostalgic for “the good ol’ days.”
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In later prophecies, presumably after Cyrus’s Decree, the prophet explicitly commands the exiles to depart Babylon. In each case he likens their departure for the promised land to the exodus journey of their ancestors from Egypt through the wilderness (Isa 48:20–21; 52:11–12; cf. 49:9–10).
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Hymnic Praise punctuates Isaiah 40–55 in a way that invites the people of God to respond to these prophecies by reviving their worship expressed in psalms, even while yet in Babylonian exile (Isa 42:10–13; 44:23; 49:13).
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Isaiah 55 rounds off Isaiah 40–55 with an invitation to Yahweh’s rich banquet at which he will “cut an everlasting covenant” and transfer “the mercies of David” to the people of Zion (Isa 55:1–5). To the Judahite captives in Babylon the message of Isaiah 40–55 must have seemed too good to be true, so Yahweh assures them that his “thoughts” and “ways” are higher than theirs and that his prophetic “word” will indeed accomplish his plans for salvation (Isa 55:8–11; cf. 40:8).
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God’s Agent (Servant)
Embedded within Isaiah 40–55 is the portrayal of another agent of salvation, the “servant.” Scholars have identified four “Servant Songs,” the first three of which may have later additions (Isa 42:1–4 + 5–9; 49:1–6 + 7–12; 50:4-9 + 10–11; 52:13–53:12).
Four "Servant Songs" portray a model servant who perseveres in spite of being misunderstood and opposed and who is later vindicated by Yahweh.
Some commentators believe they were always included within the literary flow of Isaiah 40–55. Others believe they were originally composed separately and then deliberately inserted at key locations. Because they share distinctive motifs that are developed within the songs, the latter explanation seems more likely.
The servant’s first introduction, “Behold my servant …” (Isa 42:1), begs the question, who is this servant? But before we address the issue of his identity, we must first clarify the role that the servant plays.
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The first three songs hint of prophetic motifs: “I have put my spirit upon him” (Isa 42:1). Like Jeremiah (Jer 1:5, 9), “Yahweh called me from the womb,” “made my mouth like a sharp sword” (Isa 49:1–2), and “has given me the tongue of those who are taught” (Isa 50:4).
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All four songs indicate that his divine appointment is not obvious to his audience, who thus misinterprets and opposes him. But he chooses to persevere. And ultimately Yahweh will vindicate him and reveal his true identity and mission to those who believe. As the four songs progress, the servant and his mission are concealed, his audience opposes and persecutes him, but he perseveres and God vindicates him. Though his mouth is likened to a “sword” and “arrow,” “in the shadow of his hand he concealed me …; in his quiver he hid me” (Isa 49:2). He shuns any PR campaign: “he will not cry aloud, nor lift his voice; he will not make it heard in the street” (Isa 42:2). In fact, he submits himself to public abuse and humiliation (Isa 50:6). As a result, he laments, “but I said, ‘for nothing I have labored; for emptiness and futility I have spent my strength,’” but he also believes “my cause is with Yahweh and by outcome with my God” (Isa 49:4). Yet he perseveres in spite of opposition (Isa 42:4) with God’s “help” and the hope of God’s legal “vindication” (Isa 50:7–9).
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The second song signals a new development: in response to the servant’s perseverance under pressure, Yahweh expands the scope of his mission: from “bringing Israel back” to becoming “a light for the nations” (Isa 49:5–6, which is a phrase that also appears in the addition to the first Servant Song in Isa 42:6). Ironically, instead of offering him relief, Yahweh enlarges the servant’s challenge! The introductory servant song, however, presents this universal mission from the outset: “he will bring forth justice to the nations” (Isa 42:1).
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These motifs of concealment, opposition, perseverance, and vindication climax in the fourth Song (Isa 52:13–53:12). Although a preceding oracle promises that Yahweh will “bare his holy arm before the eyes of all the nations” (Isa 52:10), it becomes apparent that “the arm of Yahweh” must be “revealed” (Isa 53:1). What may sound like a clear, public manifestation of God’s power will not be obvious to all.
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The key feature of this song is how it is peppered with the pronouns “my,” “he,” “we,” and they.” The poem seems intentionally to avoid any specification of their identities. Yahweh is clear in the opening and closing verses that “he” is “my servant,” whom “I” will reward (Isa 52:13; 53:11–12). “We,” however, misjudged him: we were not attracted to him and regarded his “pains” as afflictions from God (Isa 53:2–4). In this respect, their misinterpretation followed typical ANE thinking, where misfortune was a sign of the gods’ displeasure. But in stark reversal to every cultural expectation, this servant suffers vicariously as a substitute on our behalf (Isa 53:4–6). He is tried, but offers no defense—instead “exposing his soul to death”—while “they” try him unfairly and execute him (Isa 53:7–9, 12). Because of his suffering, “the many” will be “made righteous” and Yahweh will in turn vindicate him (Isa 53:10–12). The shocking realization of what this strangely concealed work actually means is articulated ironically at the outset of the poem (Isa 52:13–15). The astonishment at the servant’s exaltation matches the horror at his suffering.
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Now that we have surveyed the four Songs and the role that the servant plays, we are in a better position to hypothesize on his identity. Out of respect for the text, we must observe that the Songs nowhere explicitly identify him; in fact, they seem to avoid his identification intentionally and simply present a model figure.
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A prophetic figure is a likely candidate, especially one modeled after Moses and Jeremiah, both of whom suffered as God’s servants. One might think particularly of the prophet Deutero-Isaiah himself, though the Songs are not presented autobiographically. And the person of Deutero-Isaiah himself is nowhere foregrounded elsewhere in Isaiah 40–55, where the message of the oracles themselves overshadows their messenger.
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Outside the Songs, the title “servant” is explicitly applied to Israel, who is likewise “chosen” and “upheld” (Isa 41:8–10; 42:19; 43:10; 44:1–2, 21; 45:4; 48:20). While servant Israel may act as “witnesses” on Yahweh’s behalf in a trial speech (Isa 43:10–12), they are in each of these passages the object of God’s help, not an agent bringing justice and salvation. In some contexts they are characterized as “deaf” and “blind” (Isa 42:19) and as transgressors in need of redemption (Isa 44:21–22). Within the Songs, the servant appears to be explicitly identified as “Israel,” but his function is explicitly “to bring Jacob/Israel back” to Yahweh (Isa 49:3–6).
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This observation may imply that a segment of Israel is to be identified with this servant. As noted above, the imperative that opens Isaiah 40–55 appears to instruct the exiles in Babylon to “comfort” the city of Jerusalem (Isa 40:1–2). If so, the exiles suffering in Babylon might fill the role of the servant who restores Israel and Jerusalem back to Yahweh.
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Although the title “servant” is not applied explicitly to Cyrus the Great, he does perform some of the servant’s functions, especially concerning Israel’s restoration. But his modus operandi, namely “trampling on rulers like they were clay,” is presented in close juxtaposition to the MO of the servant, who “does not raise his voice in the street” or “break a bruised reed” (cf. Isa 41:25 and 42:2–3). And there is no indication that Cyrus suffers.
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For Christians it is almost impossible to read these Songs without thinking of Jesus in the Gospels. While some may regard them as outright predictions of Jesus’s life, it seems more consistent with patterns found elsewhere in the Bible that the portrait is first intended for a contemporary agent and then later finds a greater fulfillment in the life of Jesus in the New Testament. Hence, the portrayal of the servant may act as a model for the Israelite exiles to embody while living under Babylonian and Persian domination. But then Jesus’s Passion may have suggested an entirely new reading of these ancient Songs.
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Info Box : Echoes of the Servant Songs in the New Testament
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Mark 1:11 → Ps 2:7; Isa 42:1
At Jesus’ baptism God identifies him as both Davidic messiah and Suffering Servant
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Matt 8:17 → Isa 53:4
Jesus is identified as the Servant, but the sicknesses that the Servant bore in his sacrificial death are applied to Jesus’ healing ministry.
Matt 12:18–21 → Isa 42:1-4
The Servant citation supports the “messianic secret” motif of Jesus’ mission.
John 12:37–38 → Isa 53:1
This prooftext explains the crowd’s disbelief in God’s message.
Luke 22:37 → Isa 53:12
At the Last Supper Jesus warns his disciples that he will fulfill the role of the Servant, not that of a Davidic king.
Acts 8:32–33 → Isa 53:7–8
When Philip answers the question of the Ethiopian eunuch, he provides the most explicit identification of Jesus as the Servant.
Acts 13:47 → Isa 49:6
Paul applies the Servant’s mission as “a light to the Gentiles” to his Gentile mission.
Rom 8:33–34 → Isa 50:8–9
Paul identifies the Servant with the church.
1 Pet 2:22–25 → Isa 53:5–7, 9
Jesus as the Servant serves as a model for the church’s response to persecution.
Canonical and Theological Contribution
(not yet included in this course)