I’d never thought I’d be able to finish the topical posts on the kings of Israel and Judah. I want to devote myself to blogging expositorily. Fortunately, I’ve had several digital commentaries (but I want to have hard copies soon) from the Tecarta Bible application. After reading through 1 Kings, 2 Kings, 1 Chronicles, and 2 Chronicles–we get Ezra. Ezra opens up with the note of the proclamation of Cyrus. In studying the Bible, it’s important to know about history. I really wish I could get Flavius Josephus’ book The Antiquities of the Jews. Dr. John F MacArthur also has his study Bible. The late Vernon McGee has his Thru the Bible Commentary. I would read through both to get to know about Cyrus the Great.
After the fall of Babylon, we have the rise of the Persian Empire. After Ezra, we have Nehemiah and Esther in the sequence of the Old Testament. Take note that they’re not always arranged chronologically. I was reading the commentaries to get to know Cyrus. When it comes to Bible study, there’s really no saturation point. Instead, I find myself not able to put the Bible down. Instead, I read it again back to Genesis and maybe, do it slower. We go from simple Bible studies to actually understanding deeper. It also involves studying history. When the late Dennis James Kennedy wrote Why I Believe–he wrote with the archaeological evidence.
The context of Ezra is during the post-Exilic return to Jerusalem. God said that they’d be back in 70 years and he meant it. It’s interesting to know that Ezra is believed to be the author of the book of Chronicles. Ezra himself was also a priestly descendant of Aaron. In today’s language, Ezra was carrying the pastoral duty. Ezra was a scribe and very few people have been allowed access to the royal archives of the Persian Empire. It should be interesting that Xerxes in the Book of Esther was the son of Darius the Great. What makes Cyrus so important is the very fact that the LORD moved the heart of this king. Cyrus the Great was spoken of in Isaiah 44:28. Justice and mercy always came together. God had preserved the faithful remnant as part of His wonderful plan.
The NIV MacArthur Study Bible gives this introduction to Cyrus:
1:1 first year. Ca. 538 B.C. Cyrus king of Persia. Ca. 550-530. The LORD had prophesied through Isaiah, who said of Cyrus, “He is My shepherd” and declares of Jerusalem, “Let it be rebuilt,” and to the temple, “Let the foundations be laid” (Isa. 44:28). The historian Josephus recourds an accoutn of the day when Daniel read Isaiah’s prophecy to Cyrus, and in response, he was moved to declare the proclamation of 1:2-4 (538 B.C.). spoken by Jeremiah. Jeremiah had prophesied the return of the exiles after a 70-year captivity in Babylon (Jer. 25:11, 29:10-14, cf. Da. 9:2). This was no isolated event, but rather an outworking of the covenant promises made to Abraham in Ge. 12:1-3. the LORD moved the heart. A strong expression of the fact that God sovereignly works in the lives of kings to effect His purposes (Pr. 21:1, Daniel 2:21, 4:17). make a proclamation. This was the most common form of spoken, public communication, usually from the cetranl administration. The king would dispatch a herald, perhaps a written document, into the city. In order to address the people, he would either go to the city gate, where people often congregated for social discourse, or gather the people together in a square, occassionally by the blowing of a horn. The herald would then make the proclamation of the people. A document called the Cyrus Cylinder, recovered in reasonably good condition by archeologists, commissions people from many lands to return to their cities to rebuild the temples to their gods, apparnetly as some sort of general policy of Cyrus. Whether or not this document was an extension of the proclamation made to the exiles in this passage must remain a matter of speculation (cf. 6:2-5). put it in writing. Proclamations were oral statements, usually made by a herald, which were oftne written down for recordkeeping.
1:2-4 It is possible that Daniel played a part in the Jews’ receiving such favorable treatment (Cf. Da. 6:25-28). According to the Jewish historian Josephus, he was Cyrus’ prime minister who shared Isaiah’s prophecies with Cyrus (Isa. 44:28, 46:1-4). The existence of such documents, written over a century before Cyrus was born, led him tot he knowledge that all his power came from the God of Israel and promoted him to fulfill the prophecy.
McGee also gives this insight into Cyrus the Great. Unlike MacArthur’s commentary, I think I’ll quote those parts that are focused on Cyrus. This is merely an introduction and I believe I’m not yet done with Ezra chapter 1 with this post.
Also, Cyrus, king of Persia, is mentioned. He was one of the most enlightened rulers of the ancient world. He was a subject of predictive prophecy. He was named before he was born–almost 200 years before his coming as King of Persia. Isaiah 44:28 says, “That saith Cyrus, He is My shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure: even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built; and to the Temple, Thy foundation shall be laid.” Isaiah 45:1 continues, “Thus saith the LORD to His anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut.”
Cyrus is a type of Christ. Daniel was a prime minister in the court of Cyrus and evidently led him to a knowledge of the living and true God. Cyrus knew what he was doing when he made a decree proclaiming that the nation of Israel could return to their land. We are told that the will of the LORD was fulfilled in that act. Here is a prophecy that was indeed fulfilled.
It was during the reign of Cyrus that Daniel gave some of his greatest prophecies, including the 70 weeks prophecy concerning Israel.
Meanwhile, the KJV Study Bible would give a view that Cyrs was still a pagan king. Here are some details that I would like to share as well:
1:1 The first year of Cyrus king of Persia: Cyrus conquered Babylon on October 12, 539 B.C. with his general Ugbaru. He entered Babylon himself on October 29, 539 B.C. Most likely the proclamation in this verse was given in 538 B.C. Cyrus was the great king of the empire revealed in Daniel 2:32 as the breast and arms of silver that would succeed the Babylonian Empire. (In Daniel 7:5 it is pictured as a bear, being raised up on one side, having three ribs in its mouth.) The proclamation of Cyrus fulfilled the prophecy given in Jeremiah 25:11-14 and 29:10. About two hundred years before, Isaiah had even called Cyrus by name (Is. 44:21-28; 45:1, 5, which motivated the liberal critics, who deny the possibility of supernatural revelation and predictive prophecy, to refer to the second part of Isaiah as “Deutero” Isaiah. The LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus: The Lord’s sovereignty is depicted in the “stirring up.” Isaiah 45:13 says, “I have raised him up [same verb]… he shall build my city, and he shall let go my captives not for price nor reward (cf. v. 5, where God is said to have raised up the spirit of the chief fathers of Judah and Benjamin to return to Jerusalem; and in 1 Chr. 5:26, 2 Chr. 21:16, 36:22, Jer. 51:11, Hag. 1:14). The Lord is not only the God of Israel or Judah, but of the whole world. He inspired the favorable decree of Cyrus (cf. Prov. 21:1).
1:2 The contents of the “proclamation” of verse 1 are now given in verses 2-4. This action of Cyrus needs to be understood in the context that it was his policy to do this for many different peoples in his empire. He would restore images of non-Babylonian deities to their former cities, help bring back the native worshipers, rebuild their sanctuaries, and solicit their patronage. This type of action is reflected in the famous Cyrus Cylinder monument, in which Cyrus refers to Marduk as “my lord” but not to Yahweh. Isaiah 45:4 is clear that Cyrus was not a believer, since he did all of this “though thou hast not known me.” (cf. Ex. 5:2, and Pharaoh’s use of the term; Is. 19:21, that in a future day the Eygptians will know the LORD, and Jer. 31:32, that Israel will also know the LORD in a future day). This decree was discovered by Darius I (521-484 B.C.) 20 years later (6:2). He hath charged me relates to Isaiah 44:28 and 45:13. Some surmise that Daniel may have shown him the prophecy. (Josephus, Antiquities, xi. 1).
Some other important details on Cyrus, according to secular history, can also give us a glimpse of why he was important in fulfilling prophecy:
Cyrus’s conquests
After inheriting the empire of the Medes, Cyrus first had to consolidate his power over Iranian tribes on the Iranian plateau before expanding to the west. Croesus, king of Lydia in Asia Minor (Anatolia), had enlarged his domains at the expense of the Medes when he heard of the fall of Astyages, and Cyrus, as successor of the Median king, marched against Lydia. Sardis, the Lydian capital, was captured in 547 or 546, and Croesus was either killed or burned himself to death, though according to other sources he was taken prisoner by Cyrus and well treated. The Ionian Greek cities on the Aegean Sea coast, as vassals of the Lydian king, now became subject to Cyrus, and most of them submitted after short sieges. Several revolts of the Greek cities were later suppressed with severity. Next Cyrus turned to Babylonia, where the dissatisfaction of the people with the ruler Nabonidus gave him a pretext for invading the lowlands. The conquest was quick, for even the priests of Marduk, the national deity of the great metropolis of Babylon, had become estranged from Nabonidus. In October 539 BCE, the greatest city of the ancient world fell to the Persians.
In the Bible (e.g., Ezra 1:1–4), Cyrus is famous for freeing the Jewish captives in Babylonia and allowing them to return to their homeland. Cyrus was also tolerant toward the Babylonians and others. He conciliated local populations by supporting local customs and even sacrificing to local deities. The capture of Babylon delivered not only Mesopotamia into the hands of Cyrus but also Syria and Palestine, which had been conquered previously by the Babylonians. The ruler of Cilicia in Asia Minor had become an ally of Cyrus when the latter marched against Croesus, and Cilicia retained a special status in Cyrus’s empire. Thus it was by diplomacy as well as force of arms that he established the largest empire known until his time.
Cyrus seems to have had several capitals. One was the city of Ecbatana, modern Hamadan, former capital of the Medes, and another was a new capital of the empire, Pasargadae, in Persis, said to be on the site where Cyrus had won the battle against Astyages. The ruins today, though few, arouse admiration in the visitor. Cyrus also kept Babylon as a winter capital.
No Persian chauvinist, Cyrus was quick to learn from the conquered peoples. He not only conciliated the Medes but united them with the Persians in a kind of dual monarchy of the Medes and Persians. Cyrus had to borrow the traditions of kingship from the Medes, who had ruled an empire when the Persians were merely their vassals. A Mede was probably made an adviser to the Achaemenian king, as a sort of chief minister; on later reliefs at Persepolis, a capital of the Achaemenian kings from the time of Darius, a Mede is frequently depicted together with the great king. The Elamites, indigenous inhabitants of Persis, were also the teachers of the Persians in many ways, as can be seen, for example, in the Elamite dress worn by Persians and by Elamite objects carried by them on the stone reliefs at Persepolis. There also seems to have been little innovation in government and rule, but rather a willingness to borrow, combined with an ability to adapt what was borrowed to the new empire. Cyrus was undoubtedly the guiding genius in the creation not only of a great empire but in the formation of Achaemenian culture and civilization.
Little is known of the family life of Cyrus. He had two sons, one of whom, Cambyses, succeeded him; the other, Bardiya (Smerdis of the Greeks), was probably secretly put to death by Cambyses after he became ruler. Cyrus had at least one daughter, Atossa (who married her brother Cambyses), and possibly two others, but they played no role in history.
When Cyrus defeated Astyages he also inherited Median possessions in eastern Iran, but he had to engage in much warfare to consolidate his rule in this region. After his conquest of Babylonia, he again turned to the east, and Herodotus tells of his campaign against nomads living east of the Caspian Sea. According to the Greek historian, Cyrus was at first successful in defeating the ruler of the nomads—called the Massagetai—who was a woman, and captured her son. On the son’s committing suicide in captivity, his mother swore revenge and defeated and killed Cyrus. Herodotus’s story may be apocryphal, but Cyrus’s conquests in Central Asia were probably genuine, since a city in farthest Sogdiana was called Cyreschata, or Cyropolis, by the Greeks, which seems to prove the extent of his Eastern conquests.
The legacy of Cyrus
It is a testimony to the capability of the founder of the Achaemenian empire that it continued to expand after his death and lasted for more than two centuries. But Cyrus was not only a great conqueror and administrator; he held a place in the minds of the Persian people similar to that of Romulus and Remus in Rome or Moses for the Israelites. His saga follows in many details the stories of hero and conquerors from elsewhere in the ancient world. The manner in which the baby Cyrus was given to a shepherd to raise is reminiscent of Moses in the bulrushes in Egypt, and the overthrow of his tyrannical grandfather has echoes in other myths and legends. There is no doubt that the Cyrus saga arose early among the Persians and was known to the Greeks. The sentiments of esteem or even awe in which Persians held him were transmitted to the Greeks, and it was no accident that Xenophon chose Cyrus to be the model of a ruler for the lessons he wished to impart to his fellow Greeks.
In short, the figure of Cyrus has survived throughout history as more than a great man who founded an empire. He became the epitome of the great qualities expected of a ruler in antiquity, and he assumed heroic features as a conqueror who was tolerant and magnanimous as well as brave and daring. His personality as seen by the Greeks influenced them and Alexander the Great, and, as the tradition was transmitted by the Romans, may be considered to influence our thinking even now. In the year 1971, Iran celebrated the 2,500th anniversary of the founding of the monarchy by Cyrus.
Like a lot of kings at that time, life expectancy was rather short. One could say Cyrus only lived up to 529 B.C. He was born around 590-580 B.C. This is the last we hear of Cyrus from secular history:
Little is known about the last years of Cyrus’s life, and various contradicting stories of his death exist. It’s clear that he died while campaigning on his empire’s eastern frontier, somewhere near the Oxus (Amu Darya) and Jaxartes (Syr Darya) rivers. Herodotus offers an account of Cyrus’s downfall wherein the queen of a nomadic group that Cyrus is trying to conquer, and whose son Cyrus has killed, placed Cyrus’s disembodied head in a bag of human blood to “give [him his] fill”. By Herodotus’s own admission, however, this is only one of several versions of the events that he had come across.
As said, Luke 19:40 says the stones will cry out. Kennedy’s book Why I Believe dug into archaeology without apology. The historical evidence proves the Bible to be true.
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