Creation in Deutero-Isaiah

The creator God in Deutero-Isaiah “is not the distant God of a long-past act of deliverance. He is present as creator in the present moment of Israel and in the salvation that will come to pass. Not only do we hear in 44:24, for example, that Yahweh is the redeemer and creator of Israel; 45:8 (cf. 41:20; 48:7) goes on to state that Yahweh will ‘create’ salvation. Here the category of creation becomes all-encompassing, referring to Yahweh’s work at the beginning of the world, at the historical beginning of Israel, and in the present that lies open to the future, to which a message of salvation, bearing eschatological overtones, is addressed.”

—Walther Zimmerli, Old Testament Theology in Outline (Louisville: John Knox Press, 1978), p. 38.