Calling from the East an eagle, from a far country the man of His counsel; I have spoken it, and will also bring it to pass; I have formed it, and will also do it." To the ראשנות, the former [Pg 187] events, the fulfilled prophecies from former times (comp. xlii. 9), here the new proof of the sole divinity of the God of Israel is added, in that He sends Koresh: God _now_ declares. The Prophet, by designating the time in which the announcement was issued as ראשית and קדם, as beginning and ancient times, and by founding the proof of the divinity of the Lord just upon the high age of the announcement, again puts an insurmountable obstacle in the way of the opponents of the genuineness. The announcement and declaration prove any thing in connection with the execution only; the bringing to pass, therefore, is connected with the declaring, the doing with the speaking. These words are _now_ spoken, since, from the ideal stand-point, the carrying out is at hand; they form the antecedent to the _calling_, of which ver. 11 treats. קום properly "to rise," opposed to the laying down, means "to bring to stand," "to bring about," "to be fulfilled." "The counsel," _i.e._, the contents of the prediction which was spoken of before; it is the divine counsel and decree to which Koresh served as an instrument.--_Finally_--In chap. xlviii., the same subject is treated of; the divinity of the Lord is proved from His prophecies, in three sections, ver. 1-11, ver. 12-16, ver. 22. Here, at the close of the first book of the second part, the argumentation occurs once more in a very strong accumulation, because the Prophet is now about to leave it, and, in general, the whole territory of the lower salvation. First, in ver. 1-11: Israel should return to the Lord, who formerly had manifested and proved His sole divinity by a series of prophecies and their fulfilments, and _now_ was granting new and remarkable disclosures regarding the Future. Ver. 6: "New things I shew thee from this time, hidden things, and thou didst not know them, ver. 7. Now they have been created and not of old, and before this day thou heardest them not; lest thou shouldest say: Behold, I knew them." The deliverance of Israel by Cyrus--an announcement uttered in the preceding, and to be repeated immediately afterwards--is called _new_ in contrast to the old prophecies of the Lord already fulfilled; _hidden_ in contrast to the facts which are already subjects of history, or may be known beforehand by natural ingenuity. _To be created_ is equivalent to being made manifest, inasmuch as the hidden Divine counsel enters into life, only by being manifested, and [Pg 188] the prophesied events are created for Israel, only by the prophecy. Ver. 8: "Thou didst not hear it, nor didst thou know it, likewise thine ear was not opened beforehand; for I knew that thou art faithless, and wast called a transgressor from the womb." I have, says the Lord,