In reply to “J. MM., Airdrie,” with reference to Isaiah 45:7 — “How does God create evil?”
From Isaiah 40-48, it will be clearly seen that there is a great question between Jehovah, the Lord’s and the idols of Babylon. The Lord declares that He had raised up Cyrus, King of Persia, the “righteous man from the east,” to deliver His people, Israel, in the face of and in the midst of this idolatry (consult 2 Chron. 36:22,23; and Ezra 1:1-4; and many other passages), and the idols of Babylon.
But there was then a danger also to be met, lest this Persian king or his people might attribute to their own God’s of Persia this deliverance or victory over Babylon and her God’s and idols (see an example of this in 2 Chron. 25:14-16;18:23).
We are told that the Persians were famous for a two-fold system of idolatry — Light and Darkness, Good and Evil. And so the Lord Jehovah declares His pre-eminence over all these principles, which the Persian mind had deified, and with which it was familiar. It does not convey the thought that the Lord Jehovah directly creates evil; but it establishes His divine pro-eminence as God, above principles which are mere creatures or abstract qualities, and which the Persians held as God’s; and to which he might attribute his victories.
Apart, too, from all this, God is Creator; and if He permits, in His wise purposes, a creature to work its own will, still He is Creator, and He made the creature, and permits it. No one in any sense is above Him, nothing can be carried on against Him. He allows evil to exhaust itself, and then His goodness — nay, himself, is manifested in overruling and counteracting it.
Words of Truth 1:199-202.