4. “H. D. R.,” Stamford Hill. The words “create evil” in Isa. 45:7, as you say, “surely cannot mean that the Lord is the author of evil.” If you read the context, you will see that moral evil is not the question here. It is a prophecy concerning Cyrus. God would raise him up for good for blessing to Jerusalem, but also bring evil, or judgment, on the oppressing city; as actually came to pass. Jehovah says, “ I make peace, and make [or create] evil: I the Lord do all “these things.” It is simply the good of peace, and the evil of war, or destructive judgments.
It would be well for men to remember this. They forget the hand of God in governmental judgment in wars, earthquakes, pestilence, bad trade, drought, famines, &c. Everything is sought to be explained by natural causes, and. God is shut out. Is there not the hand of God in the present distress of nations? “I make peace, and create evil, I the Lord do all these things.” But in the midst of deserved evil or wrath, what mercy! O that God, who so loved this world, was known! Thus there is not a shadow of difficulty in the passage when you notice the subject in the context.