A man of destiny

In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfil the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah, the Lord moved the heart of Cyrus king of Persia to make a proclamation throughout his realm and also to put it in writing:

This is what Cyrus king of Persia says:

“The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and he has appointed me to build a temple for him at Jerusalem in Judah. Any of his people among you may go up to Jerusalem in Judah and build the temple of the Lord, the God of Israel, the God who is in Jerusalem, and may their God be with them…”.  Ezra1:1-3

Fancy a bit of a history lesson? If your answer to that is No then please feel free to log off and save yourself a few minutes’ boredom: history, especially ancient history, isn’t everybody’s thing.

But the Bible is full of history, and we can learn much by digging into it. That’s especially the case when it comes to key figures such as Cyrus, king of Persia. He crops up here in Ezra 1 (which repeats the end of 2 Chronicles 36), and also, quite briefly, in Isaiah 44 and 45 (please take a few moments to read those passages).

If anyone was a “man of destiny” it was Cyrus. Strictly he was Cyrus II, or “Cyrus the Great”. He came to power in 559 BC and died in 530; almost 30 years. During this period Israel was in exile in Babylon (from 587 BC), cruelly removed from Judah, Jerusalem and their ancestral homeland. The prophet Jeremiah predicted that they would be restored from exile after 70 years, but things looked pretty grim - especially given that King Solomon’s magnificent temple had been destroyed and lay in ruins. Things were bad!

All of which makes Ezra 1:1-3 truly remarkable.

Make no mistake, Cyrus was a pagan. In 1879 an Iraqi archaeologist called Hormuzd Rassam dug up a barrel-shaped clay tablet in the ruins of ancient Babylon which became known as the “Cyrus Cylinder” (you can see it today in the British Museum – assuming nobody has stolen it recently along with all those other items!). Its engraved writing has a lot to say about Cyrus’s greatness, and includes a prayer to the Babylonian god he worshipped, Marduk.

Yet… according to Ezra, he declares that “the Lord, the God of heaven… has appointed me to build a temple for him at Jerusalem in Judah…”

This raises the intriguing question: Why would this king, who knew nothing of the one true God, do any such thing?

Read right through Ezra 1, and you find that Cyrus simply seems to ooze generosity and good will. Not only are the Israelites to be allowed to go free (as per Jeremiah’s prophecy), but they are to be unmolested, and supplied with everything they need for the building project which lies before them. Even the precious temple articles (5,400 of them of gold and silver alone!), which had been looted by King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon when he destroyed the temple, are sent back.

From a human perspective Cyrus’s enlightened policy might not be quite all it seems. The Cyrus Cylinder makes it clear that it wasn’t only Israel who received this preferential treatment – other subservient nations and their gods did likewise. Most experts think that Cyrus was operating a policy of “enlightened self-interest” – based on the idea that subject peoples are easier to control if they are treated in a reasonably civilised way. But, even if that is right, Cyrus would no doubt have been happy to take the credit.

Whatever, the writer of the Book of Ezra was in no doubt at all who was really behind all this: “… the Lord moved the heart of Cyrus king of Persia to make a proclamation throughout his realm…” (1:1). Perhaps Cyrus was indeed a generous-hearted ruler by the standards of the time, but, don’t worry, God’s people knew there was a lot more to it than that!

But there’s something still more remarkable. For this we have to go to Isaiah 44 and 45.

In 44:24-28 we read that God “says of Cyrus, ‘He is my shepherd and will accomplish all that I please; he will say of Jerusalem, Let it be rebuilt, and of the temple, Let its foundations be laid”. Cyrus is, in God’s eyes, “my shepherd”: that is, his appointed one, the one he has chosen to use.

Even more, in 45:1 he is described as God’s “anointed”, the word for “messiah” (in Hebrew) or “christ” (in Greek), the very word we associate, of course, as a name and title (with capital letters) with Jesus himself. We read that God has hold of Cyrus’s “right hand” - and in verses 1-7 his awesome powers are spelled out in impressive detail “though you have not acknowledged me” (verse 5). Yes, even though he knows nothing of the God of Israel.

Let’s sum up these remarkable events…

The exile of Israel in Babylon was one of the darkest, most traumatic events in the history of God’s people – on a par with the earlier captivity in Egypt in the days of Moses. But when deliverance came, as Jeremiah said it would, it came not through another Moses; no, but through God’s choice of a pagan emperor, the current super-power in the then-known world: in a word, an enemy.

We might say, “Well, that’s great! But… so what?”

Well, as I said at the beginning, there’s a lot we can learn from this event. But, sorry, our history lesson has left me short of space, so please do join me again next time…

Father God, thank you that however troubling and confusing the affairs of our world often seem to be, you are Lord over all and will bring all things to an end. Please help me to have faith and patience until that day comes, and to serve you with courage and compassion. Amen.