Summary: Persian King Cyrus was miraculously used by God to free the Jewish exiles from Babylon and rebuild Jerusalem.
Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom and also put it in writing: “Thus says Cyrus king of Persia, ‘The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever is among you of all his people, may the Lord his God be with him. Let him go up.’” – 2 Chron. 36:22-23 (ESV)
Persia to Iran
Contrary to its present-day regime, Iran (known as Persia before 1935) has a noble history of showing good will to the Jewish people. Ancient Persia was one of the most benevolent empires of its time, one which supported the Jews and the Jewish state.
In 538 BC, Cyrus the Great conquered Babylon and established the Achaemenid/First Persian Empire, the largest kingdom the world had ever seen. Cyrus instituted a policy of altruism through the Edict of Restoration, allowing conquered peoples to return to their homelands. His policy was revolutionary and, according to the Bible, part of God’s plan to bring the Jewish exiles back to Jerusalem.
The Persian Empire
Cyrus the Great or Cyrus II ruled from 559 to 530 BC. His life and achievements are well documented by Greek, Roman and Persian historians, plus archaeological evidence. He greatly expanded the borders of the Persian Empire, which eventually stretched as far west as Egypt and as far east as India. As one of the largest in ancient history, the Persian Empire covered over three million square miles encompassing present day Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Egypt, Afghanistan, Pakistan and parts of Greece.
For more than 200 years from 550 BC to 330 BC, Persia was the most powerful kingdom in the world and quite unlike others that had come before it. A key factor to this longevity was its altruistic style of governance. King Cyrus created a new type of empire with the Edict of Restoration.
This unprecedented policy allowed people previously conquered by Assyria and Babylon to return to their nations of origin and worship in their own way. The people of Israel had been in captivity and exile for 70 years due to the Babylonian invasion. Not only could they return home, but Cyrus actually funded the rebuilding of a modest Jewish Temple in Jerusalem (Ezra 6:8).
Babylon Before Persia
After conquering the Assyrians in 612 BC, the Babylonian Empire became the new superpower of the ancient Middle East. In 586 BC, Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar II destroyed Solomon’s Temple and the city of Jerusalem. Like Assyria and all other empires that had come before, Babylon assimilated defeated rivals by deporting the core of their surviving population, forcing them to learn a new language and culture, and then repopulating the rival’s land with deportees from other lands. This effectively erased the native identity of rival lands within a few generations in an attempt to eliminate rebellions. Thousands of Israelites were taken prisoner and deported along with thousands of others who had been forcibly taken to Babylon in the previous decades.
2 Chronicles 36 gives a brief account of the Jewish exile in Babylon and the book of Jeremiah gives a more detailed description of the surrounding circumstances.
And they burned the house of God and broke down the wall of Jerusalem and burned all its palaces with fire and destroyed all its precious vessels. He took into exile in Babylon those who had escaped from the sword, and they became servants to him and to his sons until the establishment of the kingdom of Persia, to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah… – 2 Chron. 36 19-21a
King Nebuchadnezzar greatly expanded the capital city of Babylon, building up its fortifications. According to the 5th century Greek historian Herodotus, the city of Babylon covered almost 200 square miles and was extremely well secured. An outer wall over 300 feet high and nearly 90 feet thick, plus 100 bronze gates guarded by watch-towers protected the city.
Lined and walled with brick, the Euphrates River wound through Babylon with the royal palace built above it. A bridge over 1,000 yards long and 10 yards wide connected the two sides of the river. There were 25 gates at the place where the river entered the city and 25 gates at the place that it exited. With all of this reinforcement, Babylon was considered impenetrable.
King Cyrus the Conqueror
As Perian King Cyrus expanded his territory in the north and east, he set his eye on the seemingly impossible, the conquest of Babylon. His strategy was brilliant, yet simple, and was accomplished only by some “just so” circumstances that can only be called miraculous – and as we shall see, all this needed to happen in order to fulfill Biblical prophecy.
As Cyrus continued his conquests through central Asia, he began to prepare for the attack on Babylon. Within a few years, he had huge reservoirs dug along the Euphrates River upstream from the city. At that time, the ruler of Babylon was Belshazzar, famous from Daniel 5 and the “writing on the wall.” When Cyrus and his army advanced towards the city, Belshazzar withdrew into its formidable walls, shut the gates, and felt perfectly secure. Little did he know, Cyrus had troops digging trenches to divert the channels and canals of the river’s water into the previously dug trenches.
At the appointed time, Cyrus sent two groups of soldiers to surround Babylon with one group stationed near the spot in the wall where the Euphrates River entered the city and the other group at the place where it exited. Instructions were given for the soldiers to wait for the water level to drop and then, during the cover of darkness, march up the shallow river and under Babylon’s giant gates.
Once Cyrus’ soldiers had infiltrated the outer gates, they still needed to deal with the internal brass and iron gates along the river. If these couldn’t be penetrated, the riverbed would become a death zone for the Persian warriors who would be trapped as Babylonian spears and arrows rained down on them.
But miraculously, on the night of the attack, Babylonian guards were nowhere to be seen and the inner gates were wide open. King Belshazzar, along with his soldiers, were having a party. Drunk and consumed with the festivities, they had forgotten to close the gates and station guards. Having entered the outer gates by the suppressed Euphrates River, the Persian army simply waltzed into Babylon and took it by surprise.
This astonishing victory was recorded by several ancient historians, such as Herodotus and Xenophon. Modern historians, using Babylonian archaeology and cuneiform documents, have tried to understand more details of Babylon’s shocking demise. No matter the specifics of how it happened, Cyrus of Persia conquered Babylon.
The Edict of Restoration
In 1879, archaeologists discovered a barrel-shaped cylinder made from clay inscribed with ancient cuneiform writing. The incredible artifact recorded a 40-line decree by King Cyrus concerning his defeat of Babylon, along with his revolutionary policies protecting the rights of conquered people.
The Cyrus Cylinder provides more evidence, along with other historical records, that King Cyrus showed unprecedented respect and tolerance for the religion and customs of the people he conquered. The Cyrus Cylinder was called the “world’s first charter of human rights” by the United Nations.
The decree was issued in or after 538 BC, about a year after his victory over Babylon. The most famous act of Cyrus was his release of the captive Jews in Babylon which allowed them to return to Judah and rebuild Jerusalem and the temple. One of the most surprising features of the decree was that Cyrus actually provided the finances for this endeavor. An amazingly strong pattern of evidence for the conquest of the Kingdom of Judah, Jewish exiles in Babylonian, as well as the surprising return under Cyrus is featured in our latest film, The Israel Dilemma.
Biblical References
More amazing than the events of Persia’s capture of Babylon and King Cyrus’ revolutionary new approach to ruling, is that it was all predicted by the Biblical prophets. The book of Ezra records the Edict of Restoration, which was a fulfillment of Jeremiah’s prophecy, and how King Cyrus allowed the Jewish people to take back the temple treasures that Nebuchadnezzar had stolen.
In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom and also put it in writing: “Thus says Cyrus king of Persia: The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever is among you of all his people, may his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and rebuild the house of the Lord, the God of Israel—he is the God who is in Jerusalem. And let each survivor, in whatever place he sojourns, be assisted by the men of his place with silver and gold, with goods and with beasts, besides freewill offerings for the house of God that is in Jerusalem.”Cyrus the king also brought out the vessels of the house of the Lord that Nebuchadnezzar had carried away from Jerusalem and placed in the house of his gods. Cyrus king of Persia brought these out in the charge of Mithredath the treasurer, who counted them out to Sheshbazzar the prince of Judah. And this was the number of them: 30 basins of gold, 1,000 basins of silver, 29 censers, 30 bowls of gold, 410 bowls of silver, and 1,000 other vessels; all the vessels of gold and of silver were 5,400. All these did Sheshbazzar bring up, when the exiles were brought up from Babylonia to Jerusalem. – Ezra 1:1-4,7-11
The book of Isaiah speaks of King Cyrus and how God would use him to rebuild Jerusalem and the temple. Amazingly, it even predicts the means by which the captors of the Jewish people will be defeated – by the drying up of their rivers!
“[I am the Lord] who says to the deep, ‘Be dry; I will dry up your rivers’; who says of Cyrus, ‘He is my shepherd, and he shall fulfill all my purpose’; saying of Jerusalem, ‘She shall be built,’ and of the temple, ‘Your foundation shall be laid.’” – Is. 44:27-28
Isaiah continues in chapter 45 to talk about Cyrus as anointed to function as God’s instrument in conquering nations with “doors of brass” and “bars of iron.” According to Herodotus, the strongest doors in Babylon were made from brass and iron.
Thus says the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have grasped,
to subdue nations before him and to loose the belts of kings,
to open doors before him that gates may not be closed:
“I will go before you and level the exalted places,
I will break in pieces the doors of bronze and cut through the bars of iron, – 45:1-2
An astonishing aspect of Isaiah’s account is that it was written 150 years before Cyrus was even born. Isaiah 1:1 dates this account.
The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.
This verse dates Isaiah by saying he was alive and writing during the reigns of four kings of Judah: Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, who all reigned in the 8th century BC according to Biblical history and archaeology. Bible commentaries agree that Isaiah prophesied for about 50 years, between 760 and 710 BC roughly.
Skeptics claim that the passage about King Cyrus from the book of Isaiah must have been written after Cyrus conquered Babylon, but the main supporting evidence claimed for the theory is the presence of this prophecy. The original theory proposed that the book had multiple authors and the last chapters were written much later than the others, with the complete book of Isaish not being compiled until around 70 BC.
However, the entire book of Isaiah, including the final chapters, was found in the Dead Sea Scrolls discovery. And these scrolls were dated to around 200 BC, giving evidence that the entire book was completed well before 70 BC.
Further evidence comes from Josephus who recorded that King Cyrus actually read Isaiah’s prophecy about himself.
This was known to Cyrus by his reading the book which Isaiah left behind him of his prophecies… This was foretold by Isaiah 140 years before the temple was demolished. Accordingly, when Cyrus read this and admired the divine power, an earnest desire and ambition seized upon him to fulfill what was so written… – Antiquities of the Jews 11.1.2
The Bible says that Daniel had an office in the royal courts of Babylon and after Cyrus took over, Daniel became a high-ranking official in the Persian Empire. Daniel may have been the one who shared Isaiah’s text with Cyrus.
Conclusion
The conquest of Babylon by the Persians was an amazing event. God had a plan to return the Jewish people to Israel and he made it happen. We can trust he is working in the world right now to accomplish his purposes even if it doesn’t look like it to us. Keep Thinking!
TOP PHOTO: Cyrus the Great. (credit: Siamak², CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
