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Isaiah 46:10
Good News Translation
From the beginning I predicted the outcome;
long ago I foretold what would happen.
I said that my plans would never fail,
that I would do everything I intended to do.
In Isaiah chapters 44 and 45, God named Cyrus as the man who
would restore and rebuild the Jewish temple. In the very next verse, He spoke
of a hawk (“ravenous bird” in KJV) who would accomplish what He had planned.
Indeed, in his first year, Cyrus issued a decree that all
the Jews were free to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple. He actually
returned the various vessels that had been taken from the former temple by
Nebuchadnezzar and provided extra funds to rebuild the temple. It is a great
tragedy that most of God’s people chose to not return to their ancestral homes.
Christ later told a parable in which a king instructed his ten servants to
“occupy until I come.” (Luke 19:13) The exiles were doing exactly that, as
Jeremiah had instructed, “Build houses and settle down. Plant gardens and
eat what you grow in them.” (Jeremiah 29:5) They had become prosperous
as God promised in verse 7. Many of God’s people were doing so well in exile
that they didn’t want to leave. Others had jobs they felt they couldn’t afford
to leave. Ezra lists 42,360 people who returned with him as he led the group
back to Jerusalem. Compare that to the time of the Exodus when the number of
men considered able to fight was 603,550 who left Egypt; that is probably well
over 2 million people counting women and children. Those who remained behind in
exile eventually assimilated into the heathen they lived amongst.
Descendants of those 42,360 people became the nucleus of the population in
Judea and Galilee who were alive when Christ came some 500 years later. God had
provided them the privilege to be able to welcome His Son. But again, the
people, instead of welcoming Him, crucified Him.
When Christ comes again, how many of us will actually
look up and say “God bless Him who comes in the name of the Lord” (Luke
13:35 GNT)?
[1]
https://www.montananaturalist.org/blog-post/montanas-the-final-destination-for-rough-legged-hawks-flying-south/
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