Texas Tea

Black Gold in Israel?

(Isaiah 45:1-6)

This is what Yahweh (Jehovah) says to His messiah (anointed), to Cyrus…I will give you a depository in darkness, a secret storehouse (a buried secret valuable) in a concealed or covert (place), so that you may know that I, Yahweh, who calls you by name, (am) the God of Israel.  For the sake (benefit) of my servant Jacob, and that of Israel my chosen (one), I have called you by name…even though you don’t know Me…so that from the rising of the sun (in the east), and to (its setting in) the west, all others may know that there is none else beside Me…

This prophecy is directed to Cyrus, the pagan Medo-Persian king who was entrusted with the responsibility of returning the Jews to their homeland following their seventy-year’ stint in captivity to the Babylonians.  The irony here is, Cyrus never got the message!  He lived and ruled during the latter years of Daniel, at the time of the end of the Babylonian captivity.  Isaiah, who delivered the prophecy, lived approximately 200 years before the seventy years of deportation.  Thus, God’s instruction to the prophet was, effectively, such that he was to speak to the king, but not directly (or, put another way, maybe even more accurately:  the prophet Isaiah spoke at the king but not to him); not in his presence (this was fairly commonplace in Old Testament prophecies, when a message had long term significance, and so, was simply to be reduced to writing, as its realization would, or could only be read with appreciation in some generation to come).  Nor were the Jews significantly benefited, beyond what might be considered the ordinary or norm, by Cyrus.  So, what was the point? 

In defining the term “anointed” (messiah, maw-shee’-yach) used here, Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance adds that Cyrus’s position here is more a symbolic or figurative gesture, than a literal one, given that he never knew.  That is, insofar as he never heard the prophecy, it is therefore only fitting to conclude that Cyrus as a “messiah” was so only as one who merely prefigured someone else who was to come, someone who in spirit or character would be not just similar to this Cyrus the king, but would be in a unique position so as to, per God’s Divine design, do the Jews a significant good.  There is positively no record, biblical or otherwise, of this or any other king or person of any note performing this type of service on behalf of or in the interest of the people of God (not during the inter-testaments period, not during New Testament times, and at no point during the two-thousand-year interim period between then and now).  No hidden treasures have ever been unearthed by any foreign power, since their release from Babylonian exile, only to be turned over to them.  Yet, the historical record is clear:  there is indeed plenty of precedent for just such a deed to occur.  The Jews have a definite, dire need for just such a blessing. 

The Oilmen Cometh