Who is there among you of all his people? his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the house of the LORD God of Israel, (he is the God,) which is in Jerusalem.
Who is there among you of all his people? The purport of the edict was to grant full permission to those Jewish exiles, in every part of his kingdom, who chose to return to their own country, as well as to recommend those of their countrymen who remained, to aid the poor and feeble on their way, and contribute liberally toward the rebuilding of the temple.
He is the God, х huw' (H1931) haa-'Elohiym (H430)]. The fact of his name and destiny having been predicted so long before his birth, seems to have impressed his mind with a conviction of the supremacy of Yahweh to all other gods. And to this conviction Cyrus would be the more easily led by the character of the Persian religion, which was so decidedly monotheistic, that it was an easy and short transition to the Jewish faith, the purity and simplicity of which had probably attracted the kings admiration, and led him apparently to identify the Persian Ormazd with the Jewish Yahweh (Rawlinson's 'Ancient Monarchies,' 4:, 329, 339). His ready obedience to the command for the restoration of the house of God in Jerusalem was the more remarkable, that the old Persians were opposed to the erection of temples, as an unbecoming attempt to restrict the Deity. [The Septuagint entirely fritters away the meaning of this significant clause by rendering the words: autos ho Theos ho en Ierousaleem, this is the God who is in Jerusalem.]