Bible Strands
Isaiah 45:7
I form the light and create the darkness; I bring prosperity and create calamity. I, the LORD, do all these things.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The LORD speaks as part of a declaration to Cyrus and, by extension, all nations, asserting that no other power exists beside Him (Isaiah 45:6).
The words — The verse pairs יוֹצֵר (yotser, "forms," shaping what exists) with בּוֹרֵא (boré, "creates," bringing into being), applying the stronger verb to darkness and calamity rather than to light and well-being.
The thread — Amos 3:6 asks whether calamity comes to a city without the LORD causing it; Ecclesiastes 7:13 asks who can straighten what God has bent; Psalms 75:7 states that God brings one down and exalts another.
Why it lands — It removes the option of assigning suffering to a rival power and demands that a reader trust the same God who brings prosperity is the one who brings calamity.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.
Cross-references
- Ecclesiastes 7:13 Consider the work of God: Who can straighten what He has bent?
- Amos 3:6 If a ram’s horn sounds in a city, do the people not tremble? If calamity comes to a city, has not the LORD caused it?
- Psalms 75:7 but it is God who judges; He brings down one and exalts another.
- Job 2:10 “You speak as a foolish woman speaks,” he told her. “Should we accept from God only good and not adversity?” In all this, Job did not sin in what he said.
- Isaiah 31:2 Yet He too is wise and brings disaster; He does not call back His words. He will rise up against the house of the wicked and against the allies of evildoers.
- Amos 4:13 For behold, He who forms the mountains, who creates the wind and reveals His thoughts to man, who turns the dawn to darkness and strides on the heights of the earth—the LORD, the God of Hosts, is His name.”
- Jeremiah 13:16 Give glory to the LORD your God before He brings darkness, before your feet stumble on the dusky mountains. You wait for light, but He turns it into deep gloom and thick darkness.
- Jeremiah 31:35 Thus says the LORD, who gives the sun for light by day, who sets in order the moon and stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar—the LORD of Hosts is His name:
- Jeremiah 51:20 “You are My war club, My weapon for battle. With you I shatter nations; with you I bring kingdoms to ruin.
- Nahum 1:8 But with an overwhelming flood He will make an end of Nineveh and pursue His enemies into darkness.