“I… create evil.” What?!

I love this question we received recently:

“Isaiah 45:7 – I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things. I’m not a Calvinist, but this verse bothers me. I’m just wondering what your take is on this verse.”

I’d suggest that this is an easy puzzle to think through!

You simply have to study the word “evil” in Scripture.

First, we usually associate the word “evil” with sinful wickedness, right? However, “evil” can also mean terrible calamities. Webster’s 1828 tells us “evil” can also mean, “Unfortunate; unhappy; producing sorrow, distress, injury or calamity – as evil tidings; evil arrows; evil days.”

The word translated “evil” from the Hebrew is raʿ (רַע), which means the same thing – “moral evil (wickedness, sin)” AND/OR “harm, disaster, calamity, adversity” (see BLB or biblehub). This same Hebrew word translated as “evil” in Isaiah 45:7 is also translated as “calamity” in Psalm 141:5, “adversity” in 1 Sam. 10:19, and “affliction” in Jer. 48:16.

When the Lord says, “I create evil,” He’s not talking about creating sin. How could He? He’s holy! (See James 1:13, Hab. 1:13, 1 John 1:5.) The Lord is talking about how He creates judgment for sin. He designed the unhappy calamities that should befall people for sin.

“Evil” is at times used in this sense in Scripture. Consider Jer. 18:8 – “I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them.” Clearly this is not saying God almost committed sins against a nation. This is about judgment or disaster coming upon that nation for their egregious sins. How about the story of Jonah? We read in Jonah 3:19 that “God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them.” Again — this is clearly calamity/judgment upon Nineveh, not moral wrongdoing against Nineveh.

There are even more slam-dunk verses to consider. Amos 3:6 – “Shall there be evil in a city, and the LORD hath not done it?” That’s not “God committed sin in the city,” but “judgment/disaster fell on the city for sin.” Consider Lam. 3:38 – “Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil and good?” Again: God’s blessing/judgment. Or how about Deut. 32:39 – “I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal…” This is the same thought as Isa. 45:7 in which the Lord declares that He governs both the blessings and cursings.

How do we know when “evil” is talking about sin or calamities by judgment?

Context.

Consider the context of Isaiah 45. That chapter is all about God raising up Cyrus and bringing both blessing and judgment to nations in history. He is confronting idolatry and rival powers by saying, in effect: “I’m not one of many; I’m the Lord of the whole field—creation, kings, peace, judgment, and deliverance.” Verse 7 is itself structured as paired contrasts. Light / Darkness. Peace / Evil. “Peace” (shalom) often means prosperity, well-being, wholeness. The contrast here is not “righteousness vs sin.” The contrast is “prosperity vs calamity by judgment for sin” at the time. God is saying, “I control the blessings and I control the cursings.” Or “I give the prosperity and I give the judgment.”

“I create evil” = “I bring judgment and calamity for sin.”

Isa. 45:7 is a classic Hebrew parallelism (paired lines) and a form of merism (naming extremes to mean “everything in between”). The “Light/darkness” and “peace/evil” is Him basically saying, “I am sovereign over the whole spectrum of prosperity and adversity.”

Plus, I would mention that God inflicting punishment upon people is not something He is doing today according to 2 Cor. 5:19, which says “To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.” He is not imputing anyone’s trespasses today. He’s not charging people for their sins. In other words, He’s not pouring judgment upon people as He did in time past and as He will do in the Tribulation.

Why?

The verse tells us why. Today, God is “reconciling the world unto Himself” through the Gospel. He’s in the business of grace and reconciliation with man, not judgment. That judgment will come later in the Tribulation, which is also something we do not have to worry about because we’ve been delivered from the wrath to come (1 Thess. 1:10).