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Isaiah 45 · a question people ask

"I make peace and create calamity" (45:7). Does the LORD create evil?

In the text

The verse sets two pairs side by side: "I form the light and create darkness. I make peace and create calamity. I am the LORD, who does all these things" (45:7) (tap calamity). In Hebrew calamity is ra, and in this verse it is the noun that Brown-Driver-Briggs gives as "evil, distress, misery, injury, calamity". In the verse it stands beside peace, shalom, as darkness stands beside light. The verse says what the LORD does, and says it of himself, after "I am the LORD, and there is no one else" (45:6). It doesn't say on whom the calamity comes, or why. The chapter on 1 Samuel 16 quotes this verse in one of the views it gives on "an evil spirit from the LORD" (1 Samuel 16:14). Scripture also says, "God can’t be tempted by evil, and he himself tempts no one" (James 1:13). These notes set the verses side by side and say no more than they say.

The verses

“that they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is no one besides me. I am the LORD, and there is no one else. I form the light and create darkness. I make peace and create calamity. I am the LORD, who does all these things.”
Isaiah 45:6-7 · World English Bible
“Now the LORD’s Spirit departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD troubled him.”
1 Samuel 16:14 · World English Bible
“Let no man say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God,” for God can’t be tempted by evil, and he himself tempts no one.”
James 1:13 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of Isaiah 45

Isaiah 45: There is no one else

Six times Isaiah 45 has ve'ein od, "there is no one else". It calls Cyrus the LORD's "anointed" (45:1) and says twice, "though you have not known me" (45:4, 45:5). Paul gives the oath "to me every knee will bow" with "it is written" after "the judgment seat of Christ" (Romans 14:10-11), and Philippians has "at the name of Jesus every knee should bow" (Philippians 2:10).

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions