Isaiah 41:2-4 - Who has stirred up one from the east?

41:2

“One from the east” is usually taken as Cyrus the king of Persia who would conquer Babylon and lead to the release of the Israelites to return to Jerusalem. However, the emphasis of Isaiah is that it is God who stirs up this one from the east. All geo-political events are ultimately fulfilling the sovereign will of God and are caused by Him. This does not absolve any ruler of responsibility and does not mean that what we do is irrelevant (read the Bible!). Cyrus would be very powerful, defeating many nations, including the once powerful Babylon. But this only happened because God handed nations over to Cyrus.

41:3,4

This king conquered new territory, coming unscathed out of the conflicts. So a historian observing these events in the future, and the people of day experiencing them, would say that all this happened because of Persia’s skill and power. But who actually caused it to happen? It was the Lord, from beginning to end He is the Lord of history. As already mentioned in my comment on the previous verse, this does not mean we are absolved of responsibility, but if we want to understand history properly we need to look to the Lord. More importantly, if we are to understand our own times properly we need to know that it is the Lord who is sovereign. This is a prime message of Isaiah. In the first part he made it clear that Judah’s biggest problem was not Assyria, but her own disobedience. Today in the UK Brexit is the big issue, but in truth it is ultimately irrelevant whether we leave, with or without a deal, or whether we remain in the EU. The real problem for the UK (and for the West as a whole) is our rejection of God as a society.