One of Cyrus" first official acts after capturing Babylon was to allow the Jews to return to their land. This took place in his "first year" ( Ezra 1:1), that Isaiah, as king over all Medo-Persia including Babylonia (i.e, 538 B.C.). The writer of Ezra regarded539 B.C. as the beginning of Cyrus" reign probably because when Cyrus defeated Babylonia he gained authority over Palestine that had until then been under Babylonian sovereignty. //

About150 years earlier, Jeremiah had prophesied that the Babylonian captivity would last70 years ( Jeremiah 25:12; Jeremiah 29:10). Cyrus proclaimed his edict67 years after the first Babylonian deportation from Judah (605 B.C.). Important matters were put in writing in the ancient Near East. [Note: Breneman, p68.]

Ezra 1:2 reads as though Cyrus was a believer in Yahweh. However, Isaiah presented him as an unbeliever ( Isaiah 45:4-5). Evidently he was a polytheist and worshipped several gods. [Note: See Edwin M. Yamauchi, "The Archaeological Background of Ezra," Bibliotheca Sacra137:547 (July-September1980):200.] On the "Cyrus Cylinder," the clay cylinder on which Cyrus recorded his capture of Babylon, the king gave credit to Marduk for his success. He said he hoped the people under his authority would pray for him to Bel and Nebo. [Note: James B. Pritchard, ed, The Ancient Near East, pp206-8. Cf. Amelie Kuhrt, "The Cyrus Cylinder and Achaemenid Imperial Policy," Journal for the Study of the Old Testament25 (1983):83-97.] Probably Cyrus gave lip service to all the gods his people worshipped, but the evidence suggests that he did not believe that Yahweh was the only true God.

Apparently Cyrus knew about Isaiah"s prophecies concerning himself ( Ezra 1:2; cf. Isaiah 41:2; Isaiah 44:28; Isaiah 45:1; Isaiah 45:4-5; Isaiah 45:12-13).

He ". . . read this, and . . . an earnest desire and ambition seized upon him to fulfill what was so written." [Note: Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, 11:1:2.]