Isaiah 45:5 I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded you, though you have not known me: Idolatry in its grosser forms was unknown in Persia. The religion of Persia recognised one God, beneficent in character and work and purpose, revealed under the symbol of light. This one God, however, was not clothed with infinite attributes. His dominion was limited by the existence and activity of a rival spirit of evil, equally great and unbegotten with Himself. It was in this imperfect faith that the great and noble Cyrus was trained. Till after his contact with the Jews, he did not know God in His essential nature as spirit without symbol, supreme in His sovereignty, and infinite in the attributes that clothed Him. And yet in his temper there was a ready answerableness to the unseen touch of God's hand, an unconscious obedience to sacred purposes he but dimly discerned, and a providential sanctification for the fulfilment of God's counsels, in spite of his imperfect conceptions of God. (T. G. Selby.) Parallel Verses KJV: I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me: |
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