How do you interpret Isaiah 45:7 when it says God creates evil?

Question

Someone asked me about this scripture and I explained my interpretation of what this means. But I'd like to know what others think. The scripture reads: I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

How would you respond to someone who says God created evil just for the sake of watching people suffer from evil? By the way, anyone who believes this scripture for good or bad reasons, you also must believe in God. So Atheists don't use this scripture to say God is not worthy of worship because I know it's coming. lol

This is not a semantic issue. Whether the word to be used is calamity, evil, or whatever word your Bible translation uses, the question still remains. How would you explain this to someone who wants to know why God doesn't just cause good to happen?

Answer 1

My translation "The Jerusalem Bible (1966) says I am Yahweh, unrivalled. I form the light and create the dard. I make good fortune and create calamity, it is I, Yahweh, who do all this. But in verse 45: 3 and 4 (just before your quotation, it says: "I am Yahweh, unrivalled; there is no other God besides me. Though you do not know me, I arm you that men may know from the rising to the setting of the sun that, apart from me, all is nothing" ..The prophet Isaiah is proclaiming the might and power of God and His supremacy over all things and the part of scripture you quoted is part of the oracle of salvation and the verse I mentioned just before that is part of the Oracle in favour of his choice of Cyrus who will be given power in the restoration of Israel to its former glory.

Answer 2

IF anyone would read with UNDERSTANDING, they would know that evil here is TRANSLATED, and SHOULD READ---CALAMITY.

That is the problem today, no one reads with understanding and uses the Word of God to suit THEIR means. Get a Strong's Concordance, and use it to take the words in Scripture BACK to the Original Languages. 99.99.99% of the people here will not understand what I am *saying* I admit I do not know all there is to know, but something this easy should stand out for anyone. If someone tries to make the Truth known, everyone gets scared, and their toes get stepped on, and God Forbid that should happen, that Spiritual Eyes and Ears should be opened. Maybe some would HAVE to change some things in their life they do not want to, and it would break their heart to have to do that. However, ONCE the TRUTH IS made known, THERE IS NO EXCUSE according to God and His Word. Once the Truth is known, and it is rejected, God have mercy on them. This includes me also.

Answer 3

If you understand these to be english you will have a problem.
Refer to the ancient hebrew texts. Create here does not mean to produce evil, it means to bring forth.

God forms the light and thereby darkness. He makes peace and brings forth disasters:

What the verse means here is that God is the creator of all things, yet He is not the source of darkness nor evil.

Perhaps this explanation is better. When God wanted to save the Jews from Egypt, He warned the pharoah many times, yet despite this, God hardened the heart of Pharoah, that the great works of majesty may come to pass. God made pharoah or rather pharoah was a created being of God, as such, pharoah has the inclination to do certain things that are 'predictable' to God. God knows, that pharoah will harden his heart and allows it to be so. In so doing, the miracles could be allowed to be performed.

Same thing with the anti-christ. Why does not God stop the Anti-Christ right now and prevent the great tribulation or armageddon? Why are there evil people around you?

These things are there to mould YOU. What God wants is YOU, and these things are allowed to persist that you may be deeply rooted in your faith, tried and tested to be ready for the crown.

Answer 4

The Hebrew word translated "evil" in KJV is also translated "calamity," for one. A translation from around 1600 will necessarily use words that were understood differently then than now. We need to consult the meaning of the word when Isaiah was written, what it meant in 1600, as well as what it means now to make proper sense of it. Even in less than one generation langauge changes today.

Answer 5

There are many who say that God knows everything that is going to happen before it happens and that this would explain this verse. However, for God to be GOD, he has to be in control of everything. That means he knows where every particle of every atom in the entire universe is at any given nanosecond. Not just that but he and has placed all those particles in space and time so that they would be at that location at that nanosecond.
God is much more than we human beings even begin to think or realize. He is as far above us as we are above rocks. He knows the beginning from the end and sees all of time spread out before him like a scroll. God doesn't just know things--he is in control of everything that exists and ever will exist.
That said, God is not evil nor does he tempt any creature to do evil.
You have to think of it this way. God knows humans better then we know ourselves. He has a greater grasp of human nature than the greatest psychologist who ever lived. He knows how we would behave in any given circumstance. He, because he understands our fallen and sinful nature so well, has created time and space so that we would perform certain deeds at certain times (all time). However, even if God did not exist and we did, we would still do these exact same deeds anyway. That means that God indeed was in control of the actions of Hitler. However, Hitler would have done these things whether God was in control or did not even exist. Therefore Hitler is absolutely responsible for his actions. God forces no one to behave sinfully or contrary to their nature.
He however, creates the universe and underpins the actions that he knows our sinful and rebellious natures would lead us to anyway. We are without excuse when we stand before God for judgement because we willfully and consciously perform all the sinful deeds that we will be judged for.

Answer 6

Reading the verses before and after I think that God is making a point that He created all things. Without evil you cannot know good, without hate you cannot know love. So in order for us to understand one, there has to be the other. It doesn't mean He condones it, just that it is there for us to evaluate and choose our paths.

Answer 7

WHAT WAS BEFORE ADAM AND EVE

Job 38:4-7; Angels see earth prepared. Angels are called morning stars and sons of God. Rev.5:11; Angels are vast in number. Angels do not die. Luke 20:34-36;
John 17:3,5,24; [ John 17:1-26; 20:17 ];
Jesus was with God before the world was, jesus first creation created in image of God. Col.1:15-17; Rev.3:14;
Gen.1:26 God said,"Let us make man in our image, after our likeness."
Job 2:1,2;
Satan was with the sons of God.
Isa.14:12-14; Eze.28:13-15;
Called Lucifer means day star, compares world leaders to him, the cherub angel anointed over Eden, Gen.3:1-5; called serpent decieved Eve, she knew not to touch the tree. Rev.12:9 [ Dragon, serpent, Devil and Satan ];
Gen.3:22; The man is become as one of us, to know good from evil.

GOOD AND EVIL EXISTED BEFORE ADAM AND EVE WERE CREATED

Gen.6:2,4; Angels did sin. Jude 6; 1Pet.3:18-20; 2Pet.2:4; The wait in tartarus hell prison to judgement 1Cor.6:2,3; Judges by saints.

If good and evil exist, why does any one have to do evil? Jesus did not do evil.

Rev.12:1-12;
Michael of Jude 9; and Dan.12:1-13; end times with holy angel cast Satan and unholy angels out of heaven. Good separated from evil.
Matt.25:31-34;
Holy angels separate the sheep from the goat. Good separated from evil.

Just because evil exist, no one has to have any part in it.

Answer 8

it means exactly what it says. G-d is the cause of both good and evil.

"How would you respond to someone who says God created evil just for the sake of watching people suffer from evil?"

i would ask them to find scriptural support, which they wouldn't be able to do. G-d creates evil because without it we wouldn't be able to choose good.

Answer 9

Ok, now the question should be, what evil is there?

Is nature evil?

Are accidents evil?

Are there evil men? Ah, now there is a good question. If god created evil men, then he created men without free will. He made them evil, they had no choice. If they had choice, then the evil man would be the one who made evil and not god.

This one is a real thinker.

Answer 10

ahhhh, the old 'translation' excuse....

We are to believe that the multiple linguists and scholars who translated this book are wrong and yet some other linguist and scholar is right.

Face it xian god-bots, the text is what it is. For every xian that says it means calamity you have another xian saying it means evil.