Who 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 build the house of the LORD God of Israel (He is God), which is in Jerusalem. And He has commanded me to build Him a house at Jerusalem which is in Judah. (2-4) The decree Cyrus made.Īll the kingdoms of the earth the LORD God of heaven has given me. especially the famous ‘Cyrus Cylinder’).” (Payne) 2. “Cyrus’s policy of cooperating with local religions and of encouraging the return of exiles has received explicit archaeological confirmation from the inscriptions of the king himself (cf. And also put it in writing: This writing was also recorded in 2 Chronicles 36:22-23 but existed in contemporary documents that have been discovered by archaeologists. Would that politicians and all men recognised the fact as clearly as this historian did!” (Maclaren)ī. What was true of Cyrus and his policy is as true of England. “The difference between ‘sacred’ and ‘profane’ history is not that one is under His direct control, and the other is not. “We know that Persian kings paid close heed to prophecies: Cambyses to Egyptian oracles, Darius and Xerxes to Greek oracles ( Herodotus 8.133 9.42, 151).” (Yamauchi) “Josephus accounts for his partiality to the Jews from this circumstance that he was shown the places in Isaiah the prophet where he is mentioned by name, and his exploits and conquests foretold.” (Clarke) And if he showed Cyrus such prophecies, he almost certainly would have included Isaiah 44:28-45:5, which mentions Cyrus by name some 150 years before he was born. He may have showed the king the prophecies of Jeremiah 25:8-13 and Jeremiah 29:10-14, which refer to the punishment of Babylon and the end of Israel’s exile. It is quite possible that the prophet Daniel was instrumental in this stirring up of Cyrus. We shall not meet Ezra till chapter 7.” (Kidner) “The greater part of this book, though it bears the name of Ezra, tells of the pioneers who came back from exile to Jerusalem a whole lifetime before him. Cyrus made a decree giving the Jewish exiles in his empire the right to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple in 538 B.C. Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia: God gave the Persian king a sense of urgency about this, and the relief from exile was granted in the very first year of his reign as the LORD stirred up his spirit. 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, saying,Ī. Ezra 1 – Cyrus Allows the Exiles to Return A.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |