“Who hath declared from the beginning, that we may know? and beforetime, that we may say, He is righteous? yea, there is none that sheweth, yea, there is none that declareth, yea, there is none that heareth your words.”
The rhetorical challenge—'Who has declared this from the beginning, so that we might know, and beforehand, so that we might say, "It is right"?'—contrasts God's ability to predict with the idols' total blindness. By asking who prophesied Cyrus's rise, the prophet implicitly claims that Second Isaiah itself provides this prediction, distinguishing Yahweh's word as unique in its predictive power. The appeal to 'beforehand' knowledge grounds God's authority in the ability to declare the future and have it confirm the proclamation. This verse makes prophecy the decisive proof of divinity.
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