Isaiah 41:2

מִי הֵעִיר מִמִּזְרָח צֶדֶק יִקְרָאֵהוּ לְרַגְלוֹ יִתֵּן לְפָנָיו גּוֹיִם וּמְלָכִים יַרְדְּ יִתֵּן כֶּעָפָר חַרְבּוֹ כְּקַשׁ נִדָּף קַשְׁתּוֹ׃

2 Who has stirred up [one] from the east, calling him in righteousness for his service? He gives nations to him, and he will subdue kings. He makes them dust with his sword, they are blown away like chaff with his bow.

מִי הֵעִיר מִמִּזְרָח  Who has stirred up [one] from the east,  הֵעִיר is a hifil perfect, expressing actions in the past that's already completed in the eyes or mind of the speaker. Since the speaker here is God himself, we must take this as an ordained fact, but without any antecedent, who is this? An army? A person? Later in the verse we will see "he, him" used to describe him, but the words here catch our attention right away. The Mp note says that הֵעִיר occurs five times: Isaiah 41:2; Jer 51:11; Ezra 1:1 and 1:5, and 2 Chron 36:22. The note protects misreading this word as the far more common term הָעִיר "the city" which occurs hundreds of times.
 
צֶדֶק יִקְרָאֵהוּ לְרַגְלוֹ   calling him in righteousness for his service? צֶדֶק here means either "in righteousness" or "in the cause of righteousness." The clipped poetic style would allow for either. לְרַגְלוֹ is literally "for his footservice." Later in the book, Isaiah will praise the feet  (רַגְלֵי) of the one who brings good news (52:7). The word יִקְרָאֵהוּ is a qal imperfect from קרא, "call." The alternative translation in the NIV ("meets...") is based on changing the root to קרה, "happen upon, meet." Although it is true that final א and final ה are sometimes confused in manuscripts, the switch isn't based on manuscript evidence and the text can be understood as it is.
 
יִתֵּן לְפָנָיו גּוֹיִם וּמְלָכִים יַרְדְּ  He gives nations to him, and he will subdue kings. The "he" who gives is the one who stirs up and who calls. "Nations" here is גּוֹיִם goyim, which usually means Gentiles, but not always. Pieper translated it as "heathen"  in his summary of this verse (p. 143). גּוֹיִם is accented with pashta, which is a lesser disjunctive accent; the phrase is paralleled by "he will subdue kings." "Subdues" is the hifil imperfect יַרְדְּ, "tramples, causes to go down." The verbal root is רדה, but sometimes behaves like ירד. Psalm 72 plays on these two words.
 
יִתֵּן כֶּעָפָר חַרְבּוֹ  He makes them dust with his sword, חַרְבּוֹ "his sword" is taken here as an adverbial accusative; the preposition "with" is understood. The LXX makes "sword" a plural (μαχαίρας) and the subject of the verb, but that damages the grammar of the whole verse.
 
כְּקַשׁ נִדָּף קַשְׁתּוֹ  they are blown away like chaff with his bow. נִדָּף is a nifal (passive) participle from נָדַף "blow away." Note that the nifal perfect would lack the qames: נִדַּף (as in Isaiah 19:7, "every field...will blow away"). These verses form an excellent description of Cyrus the Great.