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, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying,
Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, х Koresh (H3566) or Kowresh (H3566); Septuagint, Kuros] - the name which, on his ascending the Persian throne, this ruler assumed, instead of his original appellation Agradates (Strabo, 15:3), Coresh being derived from a Persian word signifying the sun (Photius, 'Epitome;' Ctesias, ch. 49:; also Gesenius, sub voce). He was, according to Herodotus and Xenophon, the son of Cambyses, a Persian prince of the royal house of Achaemenidae, and Mandane daughter of Astyages, king of the Medes.
Ctesias' account is, that on the defeat of Astyages, to whom he stood in no previous relationship, he adopted that old sovereign as his grandfather, and afterward married his daughter Amytis. His military courage and extraordinary bravery, in an age when feats of personal prowess were considered qualities of the highest importance, raised him to be the leader of the Persians, and eventually founder of the Persian empire, 536 BC His dominions, which were at first confined to the province of Persia, were successively augmented by the addition of Media, Bactria, Lydia, Elam, with Susiana, Asia Minor, Babylonia and Assyria, Samaria and Judea. He seems to have meditated an invasion of Egypt; and from several successful expeditions in Central Asia, it is probable that he contemplated the extension of his conquests to the Indus. These, without mentioning many smaller dependencies, constituted the widespread Persian empire of which Cyrus was the mighty ruler.
He had been king of Persia for many years before the issuing of his remarkable edict concerning the emancipation and restoration of the Jews; and therefore the words "in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia," must, in accordance with Ezra 5:13, be interpreted as meaning, not the beginning of his reign, but the first year of his acquisition of Babylon.
That the words of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled - (see Jeremiah 25:12; Jeremiah 29:10.) There is no discrepancy, as has been alleged by some writers, between this statement of Ezra, and that of Josephus, in reference to the origin of Cyrus' proclamation. The words of Josephus are these ('Antiquities,' b. 11:, ch. 1:, secs. 1 and 2): 'This was known to Cyrus by his reading the book which Isaiah left behind him of his prophecies; because this prophet said, that God had spoken thus to him in a secret vision. "My will is that Cyrus, whom I have appointed to be king over many and great nations, send back my people to their own nation, and build my temple." This was foretold by Isaiah 140 years before the temple was demolished. No passage containing a divine declaration in these express terms is to be found in the writings of Isaiah. But there is an intimation (Isaiah 44:28), of or to Cyrus, to the same purport: "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"' (cf. Isaiah 13:14; Isaiah 45:1-4). These were the passages of Isaiah to which the attention of Cyrus was most probably directed by Daniel, and of which Josephus gives the general purport in the passage we have quoted.
But Ezra, in referring to 'the fulfillment of the word of the Lord as spoken by the mouth of Jeremiah,' had in view, not the origin of the edict of Cyrus concerning the restoration of the Jews, but the fact of its being issued directly on the termination of the seventy years appointed for the captivity. It was to the duration of the exile that Ezra was pointing; and that there is no difference between the sacred and the Jewish historian in this matter, will appear from a full citation of the opening paragraph in the chapter of Josephus. 'In the first year of the reign of Cyrus, which was the seventieth from the day that our people were removed out of their own land into Babylon, God commiserated the captivity and calamity of these poor people, according as he had foretold to them by Jeremiah the prophet, before the destruction of the city, that after they had served Nebuchadnezzar and his posterity, and after they had undergone that servitude for 70 years, he would restore them again to the land of their fathers, and they should build their temple and enjoy their ancient prosperity. And these things God did afford them; because He stirred up the mind of Cyrus, and made him write this throughout all Asia: "Thus saith Cyrus the king, Since God Almighty hath appointed me to be king of the habitable earth, I believe that he is that God which the nation of the Israelites worship; because, indeed, he foretold my name by the prophets, and that I should build him a house at Jerusalem in the country of Judea."' This reference is a parenthetic statement of the historian, and did not form part of the proclamation.
The Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus. Since Egypt was always a formidable rival to the great world-empires of ancient Asia, Cyrus might be desirous of possessing an advanced post in the south of Judea, either as a protection against the intrusions of the Egyptian sovereign, or from which he himself might make a rapid descent upon the lands of the Nile, and nothing must have appeared to a sagacious politician more conducive to promote such ends, as to restore to their native mountains a people who would occupy, them with ardour and fidelity, as the custodiers of a sacred deposit. But a higher impulse than that of political considerations animated Cyrus.
Ezra 1:2. The Lord God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth. Though this is in the Oriental style of hyperbole (see also Daniel 4:1), it was literally true that the Persian empire was the great ruling power in the world at that time, much greater in extent than the most potent of the empires that had preceded it; for the largest of these was included among its provinces (cf. Rawlinson's 'Herodotus,' 1:, pp. 401-403; and 2:, p. 552; Ritter's 'Erdkunde,' 8:, 1-8; Rosenmuller's 'Biblical Geography,' 1:, p. 203). Joseph Mede remarks that, previous to the captivity, the Divine Being was called in the Scriptures: "the Lord of hosts." But after the stay in Babylon, he is called: "the God of heaven."
He hath charged me to build him an house at Jerusalem. The phraseology of this proclamation, independently of the express testimony of Josephus ('Antiquities,' b. 11:, ch. 1:, sec. 1), affords indisputable evidence that Cyrus had seen, probably through means of Daniel, his venerable Prime Minister and favourite (Daniel 6:8; Daniel 9:25), those prophecies, in which, 200 years before he was born, his name, his victorious career, and the important services he should render to the Jews, were distinctly foretold (Isaiah 44:28; Isaiah 46:1-4). The existence of predictions so remarkable, uttered at a time when the Babylonians, who had carried away the Jews into captivity, were themselves subject to the Assyrians, and fulfilled 70 years after, led him to acknowledge that all his kingdoms were gifts bestowed on him by "the Lord God of heaven," and prompted him to fulfill the duty which had been laid upon him long before his birth. This was the source and origin of the great favour he showed to the Jews; because it must be evident to every understanding that such language as is used in the proclamation of Cyrus betokens the inspiration of other teaching than that of the magi-that either it was drawn up by Daniel, or written under the influence of communications held with him.
The whole tenor of the history, as well as our knowledge of the characters of Cyrus and of Daniel, warrants the conclusion that the prophet introduced his royal master to a full acquaintance with the divine revelations in which the name of Cyrus was mentioned. It must be added, however, that Sir H. Rawlinson has proved, from the cuneiform inscriptions, that the old Persians recognized one Supreme Deity Ormazd, who held the direction of all worldly affairs. In all public records and documents of importance, the Persian king introduces an acknowledgment that 'Ormazd has bestowed on him his empire.' It was an easy transition, therefore, for Cyrus to perceive that the God of the Jews was the same Supreme Being as the Persians worshipped, while the special title, "the Lord God of heaven," indicates the further influence of Daniel's teaching. The proclamation, though issued "in the first year of Cyrus," did not take effect until the following year.