a 'calamity' or 'judgment'.  Merely to quote Isaiah 45:7 is, therefore,

inconclusive.  The only way to settle whether the word 'evil' is used here in

a moral or in a penal sense is by considering the context.  We have met quite

a number of people who misquote the passage as though it read: 'I make good,

and create evil', instead of 'I make peace, and create evil'.  Evil that is

in contrast with peace is not necessarily moral evil or sin at all.  It may

be righteously inflicted because of transgression, as in Amos 3:6:

'Shall a trumpet be blown in the city,

And the people not be afraid?

Shall there be evil in a city,

And the Lord hath not done it?'

The context deals with the principle of cause and effect.  A bird

cannot fall into a snare if there is no gin set; the trumpet cannot be blown

in a city without the people running together.  And so, if there be 'evil' in

a city, then there must have been some just cause, for the Lord punishes sin

and rewards righteousness.

We must remember, in Genesis 2, that it is not 'good and evil' but the

'knowledge of good and evil' that was prohibited.  Such knowledge is in

itself desirable in the right persons, for we find in Hebrews 5:14 that the

ability to discern both good and evil is a mark of the 'perfect'

or 'full grown'.  Adam, however, was a babe so far as experience was

concerned, and to acquire an adult's knowledge with a baby's experience meant

tragic failure.  When the Tempter said, 'Your eyes shall be opened, and ye

shall be as God, knowing good and evil', his statement was true, even though

his intention was to deceive, for in Genesis 3:22 we read:

'And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of Us, to know

good and evil'.

Man was made 'for a little, lower than the angels', though destined to

be 'above' them.  To attempt to penetrate into the realm of spirit before the

right time is witchcraft and spiritism, and to attempt to grasp universal

knowledge while still a babe is equally disastrous.  Man will one day 'know,

even as he is known', but he must be willing to wait God's time.

The same thing is true with regard to the kingdoms of the world.  It is

the revealed purpose of God that, when the seventh angel sounds, 'the

kingdoms of this world' shall become 'the kingdom of our Lord, and of His

Christ' (Rev. 11:15).  On the other hand, for the Lord to have yielded to the

temptation of the evil one, to grasp this sovereignty before the appointed

time, would have been the same in principle as the act which brought about

the downfall of Adam.  Where man failed in a garden of plenty, the Lord

triumphed in a wilderness of want (Matt. 4:8,9).

A knowledge of good and evil really comprises the whole realm of

knowledge.  He who knows all good and all evil, knows all things.  This was

evidently understood in Old Testament times, as the language of the woman of

Tekoah indicates:

'As an angel of God, so is my lord the king to discern good and bad' (2

Sam. 14:17).

'My lord is wise, according to the wisdom of an angel of God, to know

all things that are in the earth' (2 Sam. 14:20).