The God Who Carries — Isaiah 45–48
A Persian king is called by name before he is born. Babylon’s gods ride out of the city on tired animals. And the God of Israel says He has carried His people since the womb and will carry them to gray hair.
“To His Anointed, to Cyrus”
“Thus saith the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, … I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me.”
“Anointed” is mashiach — Messiah, the word for Israel’s anointed kings. Here the LORD gives it to a Persian who does not know Him. Why? Because Cyrus is a shadow of the real Anointed. What does he do? “He shall build my city, and he shall let go my captives, not for price nor reward” (45:13). Set that beside the true Messiah: “the LORD hath anointed me … to proclaim liberty to the captives” (61:1). One anointed king frees Judah from Babylon without taking a ransom from anyone, and the Other frees all of us from a far harder prison, and pays the whole price Himself with His own blood.
Did it happen? “The LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus,” and he put in writing a decree to build the house of the LORD at Jerusalem (Ezra 1:1–3). The Cyrus Cylinder, found at Babylon in 1879, records a policy of sending cult images and exiles home, though it never names Jerusalem (Biblical Archaeology Society). Ezra adds a detail most readers pass over, for Cyrus sent home “the vessels of the house of the LORD, which Nebuchadnezzar had … put … in the house of his gods” (Ezra 1:7). Other nations got statues back. Israel got cups and bowls — for Israel’s God has no statue to return.
Naming Cyrus a century and a half before his time is the main reason many scholars assign these chapters to a later writer, a question How to Read Isaiah takes up at length. The short answer stands. Isaiah was a prophet, and his words speak of the future.
Then the verse that troubles readers: “I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil” (45:7). Does God author sin? No. Light pairs with darkness, and peace (shalom) pairs with ra‘ — a word that covers moral evil and disaster alike, and the opposite of shalom is calamity. Chapter 47 shows both senses side by side: Babylon “trusted in thy wickedness” (ra‘ah), “therefore shall evil come upon thee” — the same word, now the disaster that ends her (47:10–11). Lehi taught the principle underneath: “there is an opposition in all things” (2 Nephi 2:11).
“He Formed It to Be Inhabited”
“Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! … Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou?” (45:9). The clay does not get to tell the potter he has no hands. But what is the potter making?
“For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else.”
“In vain” is tohu, the word of Genesis 1:2: “the earth was without form.” Isaiah reaches back to the second verse of the Bible and says the formless state was never the point. Most Christians stop there. The restored scriptures keep reading. “The Lord hath created the earth that it should be inhabited; and he hath created his children that they should possess it” (1 Nephi 17:36). Abraham saw the council where it was planned: “we will make an earth whereon these may dwell; And we will prove them herewith” (Abraham 3:24–25). Who were “these”? We were.
So when Isaiah says the earth was not made tohu, a Latter-day Saint hears a plan, because the earth was built as a home for spirits who already lived with God, a place where they could be proved and could choose. You are not here by accident; the house was ready before you arrived.
“Unto Me Every Knee Shall Bow”
“Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth … I have sworn by myself … That unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear” (45:22–23). Who is the “me”? Jehovah, who has said “there is none else” again and again through this chapter. Paul takes up the oath and puts a name in it: “That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow … And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord” (Philippians 2:10–11). Paul takes an oath Jehovah swore by Himself and gives it to Jesus. He could only do that if Jesus IS the Jehovah who swore it.
The restored scriptures carry the oath to its end. Even the telestial, “as innumerable as the stars,” “shall bow the knee” (D&C 76:109–110). What does that mean? Christ wins. Every soul will confess that Jesus is the Christ and that His judgments are just. Confession is not exaltation — the telestial bow and remain telestial — but hell has an end. And the invitation comes before the oath: “Look unto me, and be ye saved.” Why wait to be made to bow when you can look now?
Gods You Carry, and the God Who Carries You
Chapter 46 opens on a parade. Bel, the title of Marduk, god of Babylon, and Nebo, another of its gods, are being hauled away: “their idols were upon the beasts … they could not deliver the burden, but themselves are gone into captivity” (46:1–2). The gods of the empire are luggage. Then the LORD turns to Israel and uses the SAME Hebrew verbs on Himself:
Isaiah 46:1–7 — who carries whom
Idols: “your carriages [nasa] were heavy loaden [‘amas]”; “they could not deliver [malat]” (46:1–2)
Israel: “borne [‘amas] by me from the belly … carried [nasa] from the womb” (46:3)
“even to hoar hairs will I carry [saval] you: I have made, and I will bear [nasa]; even I will carry [saval], and will deliver [malat] you” (46:4)
Idol: “They bear [nasa] him upon the shoulder, they carry [saval] him … yet can he not answer” (46:7)
Our arrangement; each verb can be checked in an interlinear. Every verb used of the idol is used of God, with the direction reversed.
“Heavy loaden” in verse 1 and “borne” in verse 3 are one word, ‘amas, to load, so that Babylon loads its gods on cattle while the LORD loads Israel on Himself. Isaiah stretches it across a whole life, womb to gray hair, and nothing in the passage says the carrying stops when you fail. President Dieter F. Uchtdorf said it of the Good Shepherd: “He will lift you up and place you on His shoulders. He will carry you home” (April 2016).
And the God who carries knows the road. He is the One “declaring the end from the beginning,” and in the next breath He calls “a ravenous bird from the east” — Cyrus again, still in the future (46:10–11). A God who knows the end can be trusted with the middle.
“I Am, and None Else Beside Me”
Chapter 47 sets Babylon in the dust: “thou shalt no more be called, The lady of kingdoms” (47:1–5). What was her sin? Listen to what she says in her heart.
Isaiah 45–47 — two voices, one claim
The LORD: “I am the LORD, and there is none else” (45:5, 6, 18)
Babylon: “I am, and none else beside me” (47:8, 10)
Our arrangement. In Hebrew Babylon borrows the LORD’s own words, ’ani and ’ephes ‘od.
Babylon carves no idol here. She makes herself one, and she does it in God’s own words, the pride of the king of Babylon in chapter 14 now spoken by the whole city.
John saw the same woman at the end of the world: “She saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow … Therefore shall her plagues come in one day” (Revelation 18:7–8). The widow and the single day both come from Isaiah 47:8–9. The Babylon of Revelation is this chapter read forward (see Babylon Is Fallen).
“Out of the Waters of Baptism”
Nephi read this chapter to his brothers, “for I did liken all scriptures unto us, that it might be for our profit and learning” (1 Nephi 19:23). The chapter he read promises “the LORD thy God which teacheth thee to profit” (48:17). Its first verse, in his book, has a phrase no Bible carries:
“Hearken and hear this, O house of Jacob, who are called by the name of Israel, and are come forth out of the waters of Judah, or out of the waters of baptism, who swear by the name of the Lord … yet they swear not in truth nor in righteousness.”
Where did it come from? Not the 1830 edition. Joseph Smith added it for the 1840 Nauvoo edition as a gloss, a clarifying comment. Ebenezer Robinson, who worked on that edition with him, said it was the only sentence added, and Royal Skousen notes it was not adopted again until the 1920 edition (Jeffrey M. Bradshaw, Interpreter, Book of Moses Essay #18). It is a prophet’s note on the text, not a claim about the brass plates.
What does it clarify? The “waters of Judah” are descent, the waters of birth. The “or” opens a second door into Israel: covenant. The risen Lord told the Gentiles to “be baptized in my name … that ye may be numbered with my people who are of the house of Israel” (3 Nephi 30:2). But the verse keeps going. They swear by the LORD, “but not in truth.” Baptism makes you Israel. It does not make you true.
Then: “I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction” (48:10). “Chosen” is bachar, and several modern translations render it “tested.” Both are true. The furnace is where God chose Israel and where He proved them.
Isaiah 48:18, 22 — synonymous parallelism, then the refrain
“O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments! then had thy peace been as a river,
and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea” (48:18)
“There is no peace, saith the LORD, unto the wicked” (48:22)
A river does not stop, and waves keep coming. The wicked do not get even a trickle.
“O that thou hadst” is grief, a Father’s voice over what might have been, and the shalom God said He makes (45:7) returns as a river. The last line comes back, nearly word for word, to close chapter 57; the repeated words mark the end of a section. Between the river and the refrain stands the command: “Go ye forth of Babylon … say ye, The LORD hath redeemed his servant Jacob” (48:20).
Key References
- Ezra 1:1–4 — the decree of Cyrus.
- Deuteronomy 1:31 — “as a man doth bear his son.”
What Are You Carrying?
Every life carries something. Some of it we chose: a career we serve, a reputation we can’t set down, a grudge, the private Babylon that says “I am, and none else.” We load it on our backs and call it security, and like Bel on the cart it cannot keep even itself out of captivity. Isaiah does not tell you to carry it better. He asks whether you have seen who is carrying you.
He carried you from the womb. He will carry you to gray hair. He made you, and He will bear, and He will deliver. So what are you carrying — and who is carrying you?
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