פּירוש אויף ישעיהו 45:1

to His anointed one Every title of greatness is called anointing. Comp. (Num. 18:8) “To you I have given them for greatness (לְמָשְׁחָה).” Our Sages, however, said: To the King Messiah, the Holy One, blessed be He, says, “I complain to you about Cyrus,” as it is stated in Tractate Megillah 12a.

His anointed. According to some, the prophet; others think that Cyrus is meant; either explanation is admissible; comp. The Lord hath anointed me (61:1), and Anoint Hazael to be king (1 K. 19:15).

to flatten nations before him Heb. לְרַד, to spread out and to flatten nations before him. לְרַד is equivalent to לְרַדֵּד, to spread out.

and the loins of kings I will loosen This is an expression of weakness and breaking strength, for girding the loins constitutes arming with strength. Comp. (Job 38:3) “Gird up your loins like a mighty man”; (Jer. 1:17) “And you gird up your loins”; (Job 12:21) “And the belt of the mighty He loosens”; an expression of breaking strength.

to open...before him the portals of the gates of Babylon. Gates are the space of the opening of the gate; portals are those with which they open and lock the gate.

I am complaining to you: And this is what it means: This is what the Lord said to his anointed one, "[I said] to Cyrus, whose right hand I have held, etc. [that] he would build my Temple." They are two sentences that are adjacent to each other. And the cantillation marks of this verse prove this homily. For there is no zarka in Scripture that is not followed by a segol. But here we vocalize, "to his anointed one," with a zarka; yet we vocalize, "to Cyrus," with a maarich - to separate it and remove it from, "to his anointed one."