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Isaiah 46 · a question people ask

Who is the "ravenous bird from the east"?

In the text

The chapter doesn't name him. It gives only what the speaker says: "I call a ravenous bird from the east, the man of my counsel from a far country. Yes, I have spoken. I will also bring it to pass. I have planned. I will also do it" (46:11). The verse calls him two things side by side: a ravenous bird (tap ravenous bird), and "the man of my counsel" (46:11) (tap counsel). Every verb in the verse is the speaker's: I call, I have spoken, I will also bring it to pass, I have planned, I will also do it. These notes don't name him, and set no other verse beside 46:11 to name him.

The verses

“I call a ravenous bird from the east, the man of my counsel from a far country. Yes, I have spoken. I will also bring it to pass. I have planned. I will also do it.”
Isaiah 46:11 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of Isaiah 46

Isaiah 46: I will carry you

Isaiah 46 turns on who carries whom. The idols are carried by animals, "a burden for the weary" (46:1). But God says, "I have made, and I will bear. Yes, I will carry" (46:4), and in Hebrew those are the two verbs of 46:7, where they carry their god: "They bear it on their shoulder. They carry it" (46:7).

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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