that the latter was the God of the Old Testament, and the former of the New! (N. Emmons, D. D.). But now the good soul prevails, having gotten you for her assistant, and has clearly gained the superiority." This is all that the connection of the passage demands; and this is in accordance with the interpretation of Kimchi, Jerome, Rosenmuller, Gesenius, Calvin, and Grotius. “By one man’s disobedience sin came into the world,” and misery and death by sin. Pocock. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), 316. Accordingly, we look around us to find that which is highest in the universe, sure that in that which is highest we shall find that which most resembles the Most High. The Bible unhesitatingly attributes it to God, but is careful to remind us that “the Lord is good to all, and His tender mercies are over all His works.” There are two points, a right view of which is essential to our getting at the truth of the matter. Of darkness, it is literally true also that the night is formed by him; that he withdraws the light of the sun, and leaves the earth enveloped in gloomy shades. An opinion that contradicts the clearest evidence of our reason, which plainly leads us to the acknowledgment of one only Supreme Being, infinitely good as well as powerful. Humanity and the moral order are represented as an entity apart from the hard background of nature, and we are bidden to do our best to further the advance of everything that makes for human good without seeking sanctions in nature or the supernatural. It is when He says: I create darkness, I create evil, that we feel it strange and shrink back from a full hearty assent. The passage does not prove that God is the author of moral evil, or sin, and such a sentiment is abhorrent to the general strain of the Bible, and to all just views of the character of a holy God. Copyright StatementThese files are a derivative of an electronic edition prepared from text scanned by Woodside Bible Fellowship.This expanded edition of the Jameison-Faussett-Brown Commentary is in the public domain and may be freely used and distributed. (7) I make peace, and create evil . But it is plain that I am animated by two souls, and when the good soul prevails, I do what is virtuous; and when the evil one prevails, I attempt what is vicious. The law of the animal would appear to be “gratify the various desires of the body.” The only limitation is “abstain from excess,” which seems more easily observed in its case perhaps because there is so little opportunity of revolt against laws of a straiter character. If free to think truly, must they not be free to think untruly? for so they mistook this text, which is to be understood as evil of punishment only, {see Amos 3:6 Lamentations 3:38} which he inflicteth on evildoers for the manifestation of his justice and power, ac propterea recte, et non male eo pacto quo per nos mala male flunt. ra"). Job 1-2), as well as good things, but He does not cause people to make morally evil decisions (cf. By and by the light of the rising moon fell in quivering bars through, the rents in the walls and the doorways in the galleries. It has been suggested that this truth of the text was given as a correction of the old Eastern myth of two gods, one opposed to the other, and creating evil in opposition to the work of the good god. 1685. See Hyde, De Relig. Of light, it is literally true that God made it; and emblematically true that he is the source of knowledge, prosperity, happiness, and pure religion. ), Interwoven with the texture of the revelation there is an element of mystery to prove and humble and solemnise. If, then, we now repeat the question: In what sense may we reverently attribute evil to God? Commentary on Isaiah 45:1-4 (Read Isaiah 45:1-4) Cyrus is called God's anointed; he was designed and qualified for his great service by the counsel of God. Here, disturbance in contrast with "peace". [Note: Watts, Isaiah 34-66 , p157.]. He causes (allows) bad things to happen to people for His own reasons (cf. (h) I send peace and war, prosperity and adversity, as in Am 3:6. To sum up this point, therefore, we may say that the presence of moral evil cannot be accounted for either as a delusion, or by a dualistic theory of the universe, or even by a fall in time. Moral evil proceeds from the will of man, physical evil from the will of God, who sends it as the punishment of sin. It is curious to note that the advocates of this principle are usually the strongest in the assertion that the universe is one and indivisible. At first men were so profoundly impressed by the variety of the universe that they split it up into endless provinces, assigned to each its ruling spirit, and worshipped gods of heaven and of earth, gods of mountains and plains, of sea and land, of air and water, of rivers and springs, of fields and woods, trees and flowers, of hearth and home, of the individual, the clan, the nation, the empire. What St. Paul would call the fall of man is simply the statement of a spiritual fact which has its precise analogy in the very doctrine of evolution that is supposed to contradict it.” The same preacher goes on to say that through the entrance of sin into the world, by man’s fault and in opposition to the purpose of God, there has come into the world, not the fact of death, for death was here before, but the horror of it of which humanity is conscious, and that the misery of humanity has only been alleviated by second creation, as it were--the entrance of Christ into the world and the proclamation of the good news of redemption. God must extend His agency to all created objects in the universe, because He has made all things for Himself. There ought to be in connection with these things the distinct recognition of His hand, which should extend to the whole circumstances of the case. ; Fausset, A. R.; Brown, David. https:https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/ebc/isaiah-45.html. , LL. ), I remember on a glorious day of all but cloudless sunshine passing in view of a well-known line of bare and majestic downs, then basking in the full beams of noon. 1865-1868. Even in our own day, and amongst our circle of acquaintance, there are, no doubt, some who are without the sense of sin, and who evince no consciousness of the need of forgiveness. https:https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/mpc/isaiah-45.html. https:https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/jtc/isaiah-45.html. Isaiah refers also to the Oriental belief in two co-existent eternal principles ever struggling with each other, light or good, and darkness or evil, Oromasden and Ahrimanen. But if you admit so much as this, consider, next, what is implied in the very nature of creatures such as these. "Expository Notes of Dr. Thomas Constable". (Prof. J. Skinner, D. D.), Certainly evil as an act is not God’s immediate work, but the possibility of evil is, its self-punishment, and therefore the sense of guilt and the evil of punishment in the broadest sense. The expression “create evil” implies nothing more than that. “Evil,” as opposed to “peace” or prosperity, is suffering, but not sin; normally, in the Divine counsels, at once the consequence and corrective of moral evil (comp. THE CAUSES OF WAR. Death itself is not an evil. The laws, maxims, customs of the little world in which we have moved have done much to blunt and lower our moral tone, to encourage us in self-seeking or self-indulgence, to countenance us in yielding to our baser passions and desires. Right through human history a tendency is observable to ACCOUNT for the of... Evil is not only that the sense of sin real, and create evil — not moral evil, may. And loves moral good, some evil bias from our Fathers the familiar story the! 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