Ezra 1 Footnotes

1:1 Shortly after Cyrus the Great assumed rule over the former Babylonian Empire in 539 BC, Cyrus gave an account on a clay cylinder of his conquest of Babylon. The Cyrus Cylinder, inscribed in 538 BC in Babylonian cuneiform, claims that he began a campaign of restoration. This included allowing displaced people to return to their homelands and returning statues of deities taken from their homelands in Babylonian victories. Skeptics note that the magnanimity shown by Cyrus toward the Jewish exiles was not due to divine intervention. It was a typical policy toward displaced people under his rule. This is undeniable, but this fact of history does not diminish the significance of the return of the Jews from exile. After all, the return was a fulfillment of prophecy. Isaiah prophesied the rise of Cyrus and his benevolence toward Israel one hundred fifty years earlier (Is 44:28–45:7). Furthermore, the timing was impeccable. Cyrus’s decree coincided with Jeremiah’s prophecy that the captivity in Babylon would last seventy years (Jr 25:11).

1:2-4 Some scholars claim that Cyrus’s edict is not genuine. They believe that Cyrus would never have spoken in these terms. However, the Cyrus Cylinder (see note on v. 1), as well as inscriptions from the cities of Uruk and Ur contain language by Cyrus that reads very much like parts of this edict. Furthermore, the biblical character of the language is very likely the result of Cyrus’s interaction with Jews with whom he conversed as he prepared to authorize the return of the Jews and the rebuilding of the temple. This kind of interaction may have been fairly common. For example, a papyrus from the Jewish community in Elephantine, Egypt, dated around 407 BC, asks Bagoas, governor of Judah, to authorize the rebuilding of their temple in Elephantine.