Topic 14 of 33 - Your Place in the Learning Journey
Cyrus the Great
Cyrus II of Persia - known to history as Cyrus the Great - conquered Babylon in 539 BCE and immediately issued a decree allowing the deported peoples of the Babylonian Empire to return to their homelands and rebuild their temples. This policy was not unique to the Jews - it was part of Cyrus's broader strategy of presenting himself as a liberator rather than a conqueror, winning the loyalty of subject peoples by respecting their religions and customs rather than suppressing them. But for the Jewish exiles, the consequences were extraordinary: the Babylonian captivity was over.
The biblical presentation of Cyrus is remarkable in its warmth. Isaiah 44:28 and 45:1 call Cyrus God's "shepherd" and God's "anointed" - the Hebrew word is mashiach, messiah - the only time a foreign king receives this title in the Hebrew Bible. Isaiah 45 presents Cyrus as an instrument chosen by God for Israel's sake, even though Cyrus "does not know" the God of Israel. This theological claim - that God can use a pagan king who does not even worship Israel's God to accomplish divine purposes - is one of the most theologically significant claims in the entire Old Testament. It directly challenges any notion that God's activity is limited to those who explicitly acknowledge God.
The Cyrus Cylinder, discovered in Babylon in 1879 and now in the British Museum, is the Babylonian record of Cyrus's conquest and his policy of religious tolerance. It confirms in broad outline the biblical picture of Cyrus as a ruler who respected the religious traditions of conquered peoples and supported the restoration of their temples. The cylinder does not mention Judah specifically, but it demonstrates that the policy described in Ezra 1 is historically plausible and consistent with what we know of Cyrus from Persian and Babylonian sources.
Not all the exiles returned. The journey was long, the land they were returning to was in ruins, and Babylon had become home for many families over nearly fifty years. Significant Jewish communities remained in Babylon, Persia, and Egypt - the beginning of the diaspora that would eventually spread Jewish communities across the ancient world. Those who did return found the task of rebuilding far more difficult than the prophetic promises had suggested, which is part of the background of the books of Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi.