3. Destroying judgments, yea, and the very curses sometimes are
as it were dried up for them to pass over the very opening of the gates: Isa. 45:1, 'And the gates shall not be shut;' the Babylonians in a presumptuous security had left them open, thinking it impossible the city could be taken, because of the river Euphrates: 'I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight;' and what was the end of that great revolution and motion in that part of the world? See Isa.
45:4, 'For Jacob my servant's sake, and Israel, mine elect, I have even called thee by thy name.' This prophecy was when Jerusalem and the temple were standing. God casts about long before his people needs, for their welfare in the great revolutions and changes of the world. In Isa. 44:28, 'That saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure; even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built; and to the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid.' Cyrus had no knowledge of this end of God, 'though thou hast not known me,' Isa.
45:4, 5, twice repeated. Cyrus did not know God, neither did he know God's end; he acts his own purposes, and is acted by God to higher purposes than he understood. In all the siftings of nations, and sifting the church among the nations, as corn is sifted in a sieve, God designs not the destruction of his people, but the cleansing them, the separating the flour from the bran.
3. Destroying judgments, yea, and the very curses sometimes are turned into blessings.
Destroying judgments. The desolation of the Jews was not only in order to the fulfilling God's truth in his threatenings, but useful for the great gospel design; the fall of the Jews was the calling of the Gentiles: Rom. 11:11, 12, 'Through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles.' And also their fall and dispersion among the Gentiles was prophesied of as the occasion of their return to God: Ezek.
20:36, 37, 'Like as I pleaded with your fathers in the wilderness, so will I plead with you; and cause you to pass under the rod, and bring you into the bond of the covenant;' when they are in the wilderness of captivity, then God shall plead with them, and make them to pass under the rod of propriety, and bring them into covenant. The like also is prophesied of that captivity of the ten tribes to this day, not