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Beginning and End
Isaiah 44:6 YHWH is Israel’l Melek and Go’el. He is YHWH Tsebaoth. This is what YHWH says: I am the first and the last, and there is no Elohim except Me”
King, Redeemer and Hosts
The Hebrew word Melek h4428 means King, Go’el h1350 is Redeemer, Tsebaoth/Saba H6635 is Hosts. Click on these links given here, to do some research on their meanings. Or see our previous posts about Kings from Hosea 13, the beautiful meaning of Redeemer from our previous posts: Redeemer like with the story of Ruth and Boaz, or the meaning of Hosts from 1 Samuel 1.
Alpha and Omega
Interestingly, the words ” I am the first, and I am the last” only appears in Isaiah 41:4, 44:6, and 48:12, where these chapters also talks about the prophecies for the Messiah (42:1), “Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles.” The book of Revelation, which most manuscripts found were written in Greek, the most common language during the first century AD, mentions four times where Yeshua says, “I am Alpha and Omega”, in Rev 1:8, 1:11, 21:6, 22:13. Alpha (greek G1) and Omega (greek G5598) has a double meaning. Alpha and Omega is the literal names of the first and last letters of the greek alphabet. So if you would translate that to Hebrew, the first and last letter in Hebrew is Aleph and Tav. The first and the last, in english alphabet the A and the Z. Because we are talking alphabet, which relates to words – one could even say “He has the first and the last say“, “He spoke first, and He will have the last word“, “His words were spoken and true from the beginning until the very end“.
The other meaning Alpha, like we know for example if you say the word “Alpha-male”, means the One who socially dominates, the leader of the pack. And Omega symbol is used many times to symbolize final power, fate and finality, the ultimate limit or conclusion. Now let’s go back to Isaiah and the Hebrew words used there, which is not the alphabet letters (Aleph and Tav). The Hebrew word for first is Rison H7223 – ri’šôn, which means the beginning, before everything, former things, first and primary. The Hebrew word for last is Aharon H314 – ‘aḥărôn, meaning the latter, afterwards, following, behind, subsequent. The word related to Rison, Resit H7225 – rē’šîṯ, is what we know in English as “Genesis“, in other words the very first words used in Scripture “In the beginning“. But YHWH doesn’t have a start and end date, or as our english words says “first and last”. He is “Rison”, before everything, the former and primary; and He is Aharon, the latter, the subsequent, behind everything.
Idols
Isaiah 44:18 “They don’t know or understand anything. Their eyes are plastered shut, so they can’t see. And their minds are closed, so they can’t understand.”
It goes on to say, “No one stops to think.. “. A big part of this chapter explains all the idols that people love to make.. but if you think about it, the way it is explained in this chapter.. it is such a stupid thing to do! Yet.. people do it out of tradition, out of fun, to search for answers in “things”, something to put their hope in.. but ultimately.. it doesn’t make sense at all.
Back in Psalm 115 we posted (click here to read more) about idols, and how they make you deaf, blind and closes the mind (like a fog) that one cannot understand YHWH’s words, or have common sense.
A few verses earlier in Isaiah 42:20 it says, “You have seen much, but you do not observe anything. Your ears are open, but you hear nothing.” Even a few verses earlier in Isaiah 42:17, “Then those who trust idols and those who say to statues, “You are our gods” will be turned away and put to shame.
Cyrus predicted
Isaiah 44:28 “He says about Cyrus, “He is my shepherd… Jerusalem will be rebuilt“
Isaiah lived in the 8th century, around 740-700BC. Isaiah and Daniel both prophesied about the king to come, and Isaiah prophecied him by name! Daniel only came about a 100 years after Isaiah, around 620-540BC. There were two Kings Cyrus’s: Cyrus I from 620BC, and the grandson Cyrus II (Cyrus the Great) from around 560BC. A bit of the story of Cyrus is told in the last chapters of 2 Chronicles 36, where this prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled.. verse 22-23, “YHWH stirred up the spirit of Cyrus H3566 king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying, Thus saith Cyrus H3566 king of Persia, All the kingdoms of the earth hath YHWH Elohim of heaven given me; and he hath charged me to build him an house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah.”
Daniel served under the Babylonian kings Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar, and then under the Medo-Persian kings Darius and Cyrus. In Daniel 1 it says that “In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah came Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon unto Jerusalem, and besieged it… And Daniel continued even unto the first year of king Cyrus”. After Daniel we have the book of Esther and her story (around 470BC) with the king Xerxes (son of Darius and grandson of Cyrus the Great). After Esther we read the story of Ezra (around 460BC), where he mentions how the return to Jerusalem happened because of King Cyrus and what happened since then while he was alive, restoring Jerusalem and it’s walls.
See below picture with a quick timeline summary since the beginning of Genesis. In the middle is the prophecy of the great statue that Daniel had the vision off. The head of gold representing Babylon in which Daniel was exiled with, the breast and arms of silver represeting medo-Persia under Cyrus, the belly and thighs of brass representing the Greeks, the legs of iron representing Rome, and last the feet mixed with iron and clay representing Rome mixed with Judah. Judah became know as the Jewish people, together with the Romans, which is the time Yeshua arrived. The rest of the statue prophecy ends with a stone, not cut by human hands, hits the feet and the statue is broken down to chaff.
The Hebrew name for Cyrus is Kores H3566 – kôreš, meaning “possess thou the furnace“
