According to the Biblical record, the events mentioned in the books of Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther occur within the reigns of four Persian kings, Cyrus the Great, and three others: Cambyses, Darius Hystaspes and Xerxes (Daniel 11:2). Whether or not other Persian kings reigned after these men, isn’t important to the Biblical record. We are concerned only with these four, as it pertains to understanding what we read in the Biblical books: Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther. They record the highlights of the first week of Daniel’s Seventy Weeks Prophecy, and Daniel 11 records the sixty-two weeks that brings us to Messiah and the final week of the prophecy. Knowing this to be so, we can say that it was Cyrus who originally released the Jews to rebuild the city of Jerusalem and the Temple of God (Ezra 1:1; Isaiah 44:24-28). The first few chapters of Ezra, as we shall see in our study, show that this was done “even in troublesome times” (cp. Daniel 9:25).
We are told in the text that King Cyrus of Persia, during the first year of his reign, declared a release of the Jews to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the city and the Temple of God therein (Ezra 1:1). Such a thing had never been done before. When a people had been conquered, as the Jews had been, and taken away from their homeland, they were never restored their own lands until Cyrus’ decree. What occurred in ancient times is, whenever one kingdom conquered another that was unusually rebellious, the victorious kingdom brought the defeated kingdom’s citizens back to the victor’s kingdom. The victor replaced the rebellious citizens with folks, whom they had conquered earlier and had brought up their children to be loyal citizens of the conquering nation. In this way, the victor was able to maintain a peaceful empire, rather than endeavoring to rule over rebellious enemies.
Cyrus, however, ruled against the prevailing trend of conquerors and allowed the Jews to return to their own nation, in order to rebuild its own capital and the Temple of God therein. Why did he do that? It was because someone[1] had shown him the passage in the Hebrew scriptures, naming him as the servant of God, who would send the Lord’s people back to their homeland and rebuild his House (Jeremiah 29:10; Isaiah 44:28).
Therefore, inspired by what was written in the Hebrew scriptures, Cyrus issued a proclamation, a decree (cp. Ezra 5:13) saying that the Lord God of heaven had given him all the kingdoms of the earth, meaning in his empire, and charged him to build him a House in Jerusalem in the land of Judah (Ezra 1:2).
So, he wrote a decree, saying any of the Jews among his brethren, who had a mind to return to their homeland and rebuild Jerusalem and the House for their God (Ezra 1:3; 4:12-13, 17-21), could do so. Interestingly, he emphasized that the Lord God of Israel is God (indeed), which could indicate that Cyrus knew what the Lord had done in Babylon for Daniel (Daniel chapters 2 & 6), perhaps even for Shadrack, Meshack and Abednego (Daniel 3). It isn’t difficult to believe that Cyrus knew about Daniel being cast into a den of lions, and being saved out of it, because Cyrus and Darius the Mede, together, ruled the Persian Empire. However, knowledge of previous events (Daniel 2 & 3) would require a very favorable relationship with Nebuchadnezzar during his reign over the Babylonian Empire. Of course, this is conjecture, but something like this would be required to make sense of Cyrus’ emphasizing that the God who predicted Cyrus would rise to power and build him a House in Jerusalem is the God of heaven (indeed).
Moreover, Cyrus told those Jews who decided to remain at Babylon should take part in the release of their brethren by supporting their efforts to journey to Judah to live there and rebuild the Temple and Jerusalem by giving them gold, silver, food supplies and beasts to serve and support them. They should do this besides their freewill contribution to support the rebuilding of the Temple of God at Jerusalem (Ezra 1:4).
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[1] Some scholars believe Daniel showed Cyrus the passages, but, personally, I think he showed them to Darius the Mede, who, if he truly was a relative of Cyrus as some scholars think, would have been a better candidate to show Cyrus what Daniel had showed him.
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