NOTES for Isa 45:11-17
Our spiritual weakness is such that even when we are at the center of God's saving action, we grumble because the salvation being given is not what we expected. This is characteristic of people of every age; our contemporaries no less than the Jews of the earthly life of the Lord Jesus Christ. Nor were the Jews of the second half of the sixth century before Christ, to whom the Lord speaks through the prophet Isaiah, an exception in this respect. Rebuking those who refuse to see the Creator's intervention in the events taking place, the Lord speaks of His omnipotence and His authority over everything in this world. Distrustful people, focused on immediate earthly problems, are called to believe in this authority and power of the Creator and to rely on it. Only in this way can Israel enter the salvation that God is bringing about.
God says that it was He who desired to accomplish the deliverance of the captive Jews through King Cyrus, who, without suspecting it himself, became a prototype of the Anointed One of God who carries out the work of salvation on earth. Therefore no one can give God instructions in the work of His hands, in how Israel's salvation must be accomplished. To those who trustingly follow the Creator's will, the Lord promises eternal salvation - that is, something that far surpasses our narrow earthly notions.
In addition, today's reading is important because in it, almost for the first time in history, a new and exceptionally important name of God is revealed to us: the hidden God, the Savior.