God Speaks to Cyrus

Isaiah 45:1, 5–7

Biblical Period

1Thus said the Lord to Cyrus, His anointed one— 
Whose right hand He has grasped, 
Treading down nations before him, [ . . . ]. 
5I am the Lord and there is none else;
Beside Me, there is no god.
I engird you, though you have not known Me,
6So that they may know, from east to west,
That there is none but Me.
I am the Lord and there is none else,
7I form light and create darkness,
I make weal and create woe—
I the Lord do all these things.
Drawing of helmeted figures carrying statues.
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Cult statues in Assyrian relief from the Palace of Tiglath-pileser III (reigned 745–727 BCE) in Kalhu/Calah (today’s Nimrud, Iraq). Although no Mesopotamian cult statues have been found, reliefs such as this one show what they looked like. Here, Assyrian soldiers carry statues of deities away from a defeated city. The drawing was made at the site by Austin Henry Layard, the archaeologist who found the relief. The association between military defeat and carrying off the victims’ cult statues is seen in Isaiah 46:1–2 and in the description of their restoration in the Cyrus Cylinder.
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Credits

Reprinted from Tanakh: The Holy Scriptures by permission of the University of Nebraska Press. Copyright 1985 by the Jewish Publication Society, Philadelphia.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 1.

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