AND here it is……….
"I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things." (Isaiah 45:7, KJV)
Ok I addressed this briefly with you before.
We have this issue of “SAY” vs “MEANING”
You desire to cherry pick the KJV for what it “SAYS” in black and white and ignore the more important factor of “MEANING”
Here is why your assumption the God creates evil fails……..
Laid out for you historically, grammatically and theologically……..
1. Historical context Isaiah 45 is part of a much larger piece of scripture Isaiah 40-66. In which Isreal is in captivity to Babylon. God here is promising Israel that He will deliver them from exile in Babylon. God presents a series of messages/prophecies through Isaiah to overcome the doubt and unbelief of His people regarding the future of his covenant with them. Thus he promises them that He will provide the means of his deliverance from Babylon to be returned home. God will use the conquest of Cyrus to both bring calamity to Babylon and peace to Israel by decree of Cyrus to let Israel return home. Notice he brought forth calamity and peace. God is sovereign. Thus don’t mess up again. Also note that it took 70 years (multiple generations) of exile for Israel to learn its lesson. God did not create moral evil. This verse affirms that God is sovereign on several different levels. He can cause wars to end and peace to begin, as he was about to do to Babylon by way of Cyrus and bring peace to Israel.
2. Grammatical context. The largest difficulty of understanding this verse is the word “evil.” The key to understanding the verse from a grammatical perspective is the use of contrasts. Isaiah is using a compare and contrast literary devise to emphasize God’s sovereignty over his entire creation or particularly here, Israel. Notice the contrast of light and darkness. That is crystal clear. Thus when we come to peace and evil (rah). How is one to understand evil? Rah could be translated evil here only in the sense of the opposite of peace. Which is not “moral evil” it is calamity. If you were to determine it to be moral evil the “peace” would have to have been interpreted as righteousness. The grimmer clearly interprets the rah as calamity.
Further note here. Sort of a combo historical/grammatical point. The KJV did not have the much older Alexandrian texts at the time of their translation, hence the loose interpretation evil. Since the discovery of these older texts, modern translations properly translate rah as calamity in this verse. Out of the 640 times rah is translated in the OT is is translated trouble or calamity 275 times. Hence the reason why most translations including the NASB, ESV, and NET Bible even the NKJV translate this verse and many others as trouble, calamity or disaster.
3. The main theological interpretation of Is 45:7 focuses on the character of God. Therefore the main theological issue pertains to God’s character. So what meaning of rah can be attributed to God? The overwhelming teaching of both the Old and New Testaments points to God being the creator of all morally good and perfect things. But it is also abundantly clear in Scriptures that God is the author of judgment in the form of trouble, calamity or disaster, which is are the fruits of sin. Israel’s sin demands God’s justice and punishment…..context the covenant. Thus “peace” meant all the spiritual blessings that God gives those who trust in Him, And “evil” is not moral evil, which comes from the heart of sinful man, but physical evil, which God sends as punishment for sin. Further…….God’s sovereignty. Throughout the OT and particularly in Isaiah, the God of Israel is contrasted with the “gods” and the religion of the rest of the world……between the Israel’s monotheism and the polytheisms of Israel’s neighbors. As I presented earlier Isaiah is contrasting God with the dualism of Persian Zoroastrianism (and likely Cyrus) which taught that there were two competing gods or forces—one good and one bad. Thus Isaiah is trashing dualism strongly by this text. But Isaiah declares that God alone is the ultimate First Cause of every action. So by covenant it was crucial that Israel stay pure purity monotheists and avoid the idol worship of the dualistic Persians.
Completely irrelevant. What you say here does nothing to address or alter the statement that God creates both good and evil, which is supported by many other verses and numerous descriptions of the character and nature of God....some of which I have posted several times.
Judaism accepts the proposition that God is the author of evil, and given Omniscience and Omnipotence, it can be no other way, if created, the universe was created with the content of evil. The bible tells us that God actively creates evil.
The Hebrew Scriptures record that the Almighty Himself placed both good and the evil into the world
''Passages in Tanach like Isaiah 45:7 and Deuteronomy 30:15 pose a monumental theological problem for Christians who maintain that God did not create Satan, the angel of evil. According to Christian doctrine, as you state in your question, Satan was the highest-ranking angel who, through his own act of spiritual defiance and outright disobedience, became the chief adversary and slanderer of God, and the embodiment of evil in this world. As you maintained in your question, God never created evil according Christian teachings; He is only the author of righteousness and perfection. Therefore, God could never create something as sinister as the devil himself. Rather, Satan’s unyielding wickedness is the result of his own spiritual rebellion.''
''For the Jewish faith, Satan’s purpose in seducing man away from God poses no problem because Satan is only an agent of God. As a servant of the Almighty, Satan faithfully carries out the divine will of his Creator as he does in all his tasks.''
Nice try different issue. Adam and Eve were prior to the warning given in Ex 20:5 which was the verse you were complaining about.
So again…….
The issue is God punishing the children for the sins or transgressions of their fathers or forbears. Adam and Eve is a prime example of this principle.
Name the event FOLLOWING Ex. 20:5 where God punished the Israelites for generations.
You are clutching at straws, It doesn't have to be the Israelites, this is about the principle of punishing the innocent for the action of their parents or forebears.... if we are talking about the Creator of the Universe, it can as a principle anyone at any time in history. This represents the principle of punishing generations for the transgressions of their fathers or forbears....the first instance of this principle being the whole world punished for the actions of A & E, another example being the murder by God of the innocent first born of Egypt killed for the actions of the Pharaoh.
While we are at it, here is another contradiction to contemplate;
''The Lord is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works.'' - Psalm 145:9
''While the people of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering sticks on the Sabbath day. 33 And those who found him gathering sticks brought him to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation. 34 They put him in custody, because it had not been made clear what should be done to him. 35 And the LORD said to Moses, The man shall be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him with stones outside the camp 36 And all the congregation brought him outside the camp and stoned him to death with stones, as the LORD commanded Moses.'' Numbers 15:32-36:
So we have;
1. The Lord is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works.
2. The man shall be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him with stones outside the camp.
3. God is good to all.
4. God was neither good or merciful toward a man gathering sticks on a Sabbath.
A contradiction; S and its denial not-S
God is good to
all and his tender mercies are over
all his works/God was not good to a man gathering sticks on a Sabbath, showing no mercy had him brutally killed.