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IN the first year of the reign of Cyrus 1
which was the seventieth from the day that our people were removed out
of their own land into Babylon, God commiserated the captivity and calamity
of these poor people, according as he had foretold to them by Jeremiah
the prophet, before the destruction of the city, that after they had served
Nebuchadnezzar and his posterity, and after they had undergone that servitude
seventy years, he would restore them again to the land of their fathers,
and they should build their temple, and enjoy their ancient prosperity.
And these things God did afford them; for he stirred up the mind of Cyrus,
and made him write this throughout all Asia: "Thus saith Cyrus the
king: Since God Almighty hath appointed me to be king of the habitable
earth, I believe that he is that God which the nation of the Israelites
worship; for indeed he foretold my name by the prophets, and that I should
build him a house at Jerusalem, in the country of Judea."
1 This Cyrus is called God's shepherd by Xenophon, as well as by Isaiah, Isaiah 44:28; as also it is said of him by the same prophet, that "I will make a man more precious than fine gold, even a man than the golden wedge of Ophir," Isaiah 13:12, which character makes Xenophon's most excellent history of him very credible.
Flavius Josephus. The Works of Flavius Josephus. Translated by. William Whiston, A.M. Auburn and Buffalo. John E. Beardsley. 1895.
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