Cyrus the Great #76

Cyrus II, called Cyrus the Great, founded the Persian empire and reigned from about 559 to 530 BC. In 539 BC his forces took Babylon, and the following year he issued a decree that permitted the Jewish exiles to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple. The Bible portrays him as a foreign ruler whom God used to accomplish his purposes, and it treats him with unusual respect.

Biblical Significance

The Book of Ezra opens with the decree. In the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, the Lord stirred up his spirit so that he proclaimed throughout his kingdom that the God of heaven had charged him to build a house in Jerusalem, and that any of God’s people who wished could go up (Ezra 1:1-4; 2 Chronicles 36:22-23). Cyrus also returned the temple vessels that Nebuchadnezzar had taken to Babylon, entrusting them to Sheshbazzar, the prince of Judah (Ezra 1:7-11). A later memorandum found in the archives at Ecbatana records the terms of the decree, including that the cost was to be paid from the royal treasury (Ezra 6:1-5). The first group of returnees, under Zerubbabel and Jeshua, built the altar and began laying the temple foundation (Ezra 3).

Cyrus is also named in the Book of Isaiah, in prophecies that describe him as the Lord’s shepherd who will fulfill God’s purpose that Jerusalem be rebuilt (Isaiah 44:24-28). The next passage goes further, calling him the Lord’s anointed (in Hebrew, mashiach), whom God takes by the right hand to subdue nations, and adding that God calls him by name though Cyrus does not know him (Isaiah 45:1-7). It is a strikingly rare honor for a foreign ruler. Scholars differ over how this naming came about. Some hold that the prophet Isaiah foresaw Cyrus by inspiration, while others argue that these chapters were written by a later prophet during the exile who knew of Cyrus’s rise.

Outside sources also shed light on him. The Cyrus Cylinder, a clay inscription found in Babylon, records Cyrus’s account of his conquest and describes his policy of returning captured images of gods to their sanctuaries and allowing displaced peoples to go home. It does not mention the Jews by name, but the policy it describes fits well with the biblical account of the decree.

Legacy

Cyrus is remembered in the Bible as an example of God’s freedom to work through rulers who do not worship him, a theme that appears from Pharaoh to Nebuchadnezzar. His decree ended the seventy years of exile that Jeremiah had spoken of (Jeremiah 29:10) and opened the period of restoration recounted in Ezra and Nehemiah. Daniel’s last dated vision falls in the third year of Cyrus (Daniel 10:1). Cyrus stands as a reminder that Israel’s story is set within the wider history of empires.