Isaiah 48:14

All ye; ye Jews, to whom he addressed his speech, Isaiah 48:12, and continueth his speech, Isaiah 48:16,17, &c. Assemble; I challenge you all to answer what I have said before, and am now going to say again. Which among them hath declared these things? which of the gods whom any of you have served or do still hanker after? The Lord hath loved him, to wit, Cyrus, who might easily be understood out of the foregoing context, in which he is frequently mentioned. The pronoun is put for the noun, as is usual both in Scripture and in other authors. Now God loved Cyrus, not with a special, and everlasting, and complacential love, for he was a heathen, and had some great vices as well as virtues; but with that general love and kindness which God hath for all his creatures, as is observed, Psalms 145:9; and moreover with that particular kind of love which God hath for such men as excel others in any virtues, as Cyrus did; in which sense Christ loved the young man, Mark 10:21; and with a love of good-will and beneficence. God had such a kindness for him, as to make him a most glorious and victorious general and king, and the great instrument for the deliverance of his own people; which was a singular honour and advantage to him, and might have been far greater, and extended to the eternal salvation of his soul, if he had not wanted a heart to use the price which God hereby put into his hand. And as anger being ascribed to God is not meant of the affection, for such passions are inconsistent with the perfection of God's nature, but of the effect; so the love of God, when it is applied in Scripture to such persons as Cyrus, is not so much to be understood of an inward affection, as of the outward effects of it; and so this love is explained in the following words, by that prosperous success which God gave him against the Chaldeans. He will do his pleasure on Babylon; Cyrus shall execute that I have appointed him to do for the destruction of Babylon, and for the redemption of my people; which was in itself a good work; and therefore this is added as the reason why God loved him. His arm shall be on the Chaldeans; he shall smite and subdue them.