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Q

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Amanda on Facebook asked this question Explain (Isaiah 45:7). I form the light and create darkness I make peace and create  evil.

Heres my reply.

Good Q Amanda and thought provoking. I like what David Lawlor said.. I looked this up in Barnes commentary he suggests that light refers to knowledge and darkness refers to calamity or ignorance. 

Further, he states that calamity, ignorance and the want for success is ordered (formed) by him…In context however Jehovah is proving that he alone is God!…(v5) this is the compelling reason for the text and not necessarily that he makes good and evil.

Looking at the parallelism here would suggest a link between darkens and evil as one begin symbolic of the other.  Evil therefore understood not to be the opposite of good but rather the absence of peace and joy. God in talking about God is informing mankind that all false God’s that the Persian’s ascribed powers to are under his authority. He alone has all power over all things in both heaven and earth.

God is a God of salvation. He is the solution for evil not the  creator of it, but since it exists it too comes under his power.

Paul.

Ps what do you think?