The Cyrus Cylinder

Cyrus of Persia took Babylon in 539 BC. A clay cylinder written in his name, found in Babylon and now in the British Museum, tells that story from his side. Marduk, he says, chose him because the last Babylonian king had neglected the gods. Cyrus entered in peace. He returned gods to their cities and peoples to their homes. He presents himself as a restorer, not only a conqueror.

The cylinder does not mention Jerusalem, the temple, or the God of Israel. Quoting it as if it were Ezra 1 in clay is a mistake. Ezra 1 is a proclamation in the LORD's name, charging a house to be built at Jerusalem and inviting His people to go up. Ezra 1:2 The cylinder is a different text, about other sanctuaries, in another god's name.

What the cylinder does is make the biblical decree historically ordinary in the best sense. This king did this kind of thing. A policy of reversing deportations and repairing temples is not a fairy-tale gesture invented by a later scribe who needed a happy ending. It is how Cyrus wanted to be read, and other peoples besides Judah benefited from versions of it. Isaiah had named Cyrus, calling him a shepherd and an anointed one who would say of Jerusalem that it should be built. Isaiah 44:28 Isaiah 45:1 Whether those chapters were written before Cyrus, as the book presents Isaiah's ministry in Hezekiah's days, or later, is a large argument. The cylinder does not settle it. It shows that the man Isaiah's book names did, in fact, restore exiles and sanctuaries.

The first year of Cyrus as king over Babylon is 538 BC. That is the year the timeline prints for the decree. The cylinder belongs to the fall of the city and the start of that policy, 539 or 538. Aligned, with the limit kept in the sentence: the policy and the year, not a quotation of Scripture on the clay.

The returned community is small. The lists in Ezra 2 are not the population of a great power. The joy and the weeping at the foundation fit a poor beginning. Haggai will have to tell them the latter glory of this house will be greater than the former, which is a strange thing to say to people looking at a smaller building. Haggai 2:9 The greatness he is talking about is not square footage.