Isaiah 44-47

God challenges all false gods to step up and declare themselves before Him, but there are none. The Lord describes the foolishness of the man who cuts down a tree and burns one part to stay warm, another part to cook his meal, and then forms another part into an image that he will worship. The hearts of such people are blinded to how ridiculous this is.

About 150 years before Cyrus is king in Persia, the Lord calls him by name, and declares that he will be anointed, and he will serve the Lord’s purpose in releasing the Babylonian exiles, and also funding the rebuilding of Jerusalem. All of this happened following the Persian invasion of Babylon, which is described in Daniel 5. Babylon was considered to be unconquerable, and Belshazzar partied in the face of the Medes and Persian armies outside the gates of the city. The Persian general in charge of the siege managed to divert the Euphrates River, and their army walked into Babylon under the walls of the city, and overthrew them without a fight, just as Daniel predicted.

Tradition has it that Daniel met with Cyrus after this, and showed him the prophecy of Isaiah from 150 years earlier, and he was so amazed that he set about the process of releasing the Israelites in exile, and he provided all of the money necessary for the people to return to Jerusalem, and to start rebuilding. In Isaiah 46 we get a brief contrast between the One True God and false gods, who can actually do nothing.

In chapter 47 the Lord foretells of the judgement He will bring upon Babylon for the way they treated His people in exile. This was written about 100 years before the Babylonian captivity first started, and long before Babylon was a major world power.