Does Isaiah 45:7 imply that God creates evil?

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Does Isaiah 45:7 imply that God creates evil?

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Isaiah 45:7 in the King James Version says, "I make peace, and create evil." One of the fundamental rules about understanding the Bible accurately is to read a difficult-to-understand verse in its immediate context, as well as in the broader context of the rest of the Scripture. Another rule is to consider other possible translations of the verse.

Many Hebrew words have a broad range of meanings. While the Hebrew word translated "evil" in the King James Version usually refers to unethical or immoral activity, it can also mean times of distress (Amos 6:3) and is sometimes contrasted with shalom (peace). The New International Version renders the passage, "I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster." Similarly, the New Living Translation offers, "I am the one who creates the light and makes the darkness. I am the one who sends good times and bad times." Tanakh, The Holy Scriptures: The New JPS Translation According to the Traditional Hebrew Text confirms this understanding with, "I form light and create darkness, I make weal and create woe—I the Lord do all these things."

Barnes' Notes, a Bible commentary, has this helpful additional comment: "The parallelism here shows that this is not to be understood in the sense of all evil, but of that which is the opposite of peace and prosperity. That is, God directs judgments, disappointments, trials, and calamities; he has power to suffer the mad passions of people to rage, and to afflict nations with war; he presides over adverse as well as prosperous events. The passage does not prove that God is the author of moral evil, or sin, and such a sentiment is abhorrent to the general strain of the Bible, and to all just views of the character of a holy God" (notes on Isaiah 45:7).

Although God allows moral evil and sin, He does not create this kind of evil. The rest of the Bible is replete with evidence of His goodness and His marvelous plans for mankind. James 1:17 assures us that "every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows" (NIV).

Satan is responsible for much of the evil of this present world. And unfortunately, people have brought many evil things on themselves by their own actions.

For more information, please read our booklet Who Is God? and Is There Really A Devil?

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Comments

  • nonwinger

    Following your exhortation to 'consider other possible translations of the verse', how would you explain that the Hebrew word for evil 'rah', used here in Is 45:7, is the same word for evil found in Gen 2:17 'But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (rah), you shall not eat of it: for in the day that you eat thereof you shall surely die.'?

  • JustForgiven

    Fascinating enquiry brother Ramsay, I certainly hope to reach a satisfactory explanation to help me understand it too. Great question.

  • jerry stone
    As with the Iraqi invasion upon Jerusalem being no picnic, neither will the Iranian invasion be upon Iraq. I used the terms Iraq and Iran for all to follow my thoughts. The great and powerful King, the notable Cyrus will see victory after victory until he deems the time right to free the Jews and let them go to Jerusalem and build a new Temple. Some battles are more destructive than others and so too, Cyrus was awesome in war. Even the Grecian cities fought with him enough to know better and leave him alone. Before Cyrus many Jews of rich nobility saw the times in their favor. They could bully, they could force the poor from their homelands to enlarge their own. They acknowledged no God crying and imploring for their repentance. Hence God said, " I can create evil." A retribution similar of parental discipline. Only God's paddling or time out in a corner is a lot of people dying and a lot of blood flowing.
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