Monday 09 December 2013

Background

In today's passage, the prophecy reaches a pivotal andsurprising moment. The identity of the one whom God will use tointervene to free those in exile, restore the holy city ofJerusalem and rebuild the temple as the centre of worship anddevotion for Israel is revealed, and it's perhaps an unexpectedchoice. From general affirmations of what God is like, the prophecynow moves to a particular declaration of what God will do. TheEternal One forms and creates, stretches and spreads, frustratesand turns back (verses 24-25) and now Cyrus is named as the one whothe Lord will use to fulfil the divine purpose for Israel.

The prophet hinted at the coming of "one from the North" earlieron (Isaiah 41:25), but the choice of Cyrus was notnecessarily guaranteed to be received with unalloyed joy by Israel.The term "shepherd" denoted a king who cared for his subjectspersonally and would have had particular associations with thedignity of Saul (1 Samuel 9:16-17) and the divinely grantedstatus of David (1 Samuel 16:1-13). Now God appears to bedelegating the role of Israel's restoration to a foreigner sinceCyrus is destined to be King of Persia!

To Ponder

• "Christ is the end, for Christ was the beginning, Christ thebeginning, for the end is Christ" (Hymns & Psalms 236, verse4). What helps you to hold on to the truth that God's good purposesin Christ are being carried out during times in your life when allthe evidence seems to point to the contrary?

• Today's passage is a reminder that God uses unexpected peopleto take us beyond our comfort zones in achieving the divinepurpose. How might you be more open to insights from other, lesscomfortable Christian traditions than the one with which you aremost familiar?