Ezra 1:2

Open the book of Ezra, and we go back to the first year of that great king. The prophet Isaiah had mentioned him by name some two centuries before he came to the throne. If we turn to Isaiah 44:28, we read the prediction of what he would do. Ezra 1:2 records his doing what Isaiah foretold.

How powerfully Isaiah's prophecy must have struck a mind so thoughtful! No sceptics were on hand to whisper their doubts. Daniel was there too, to point him to Jeremiah. It was not policy but Jehovah that stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, as He did that of the chief fathers of the Jews. The conqueror of Babylon proclaimed a kind of jubilee to the captives — but with one stated aim: to build Jehovah's house in Jerusalem. Who but an enemy of God's word can doubt that Isaiah 44:28 was his "charge" from Jehovah?

God is given the distinct title "the God of the heavens" (Dan. 2:18, 37, 44). It comes again in Ezra 1:2, Ezra 5:12, Ezra 6:9-10, Ezra 7:12, 23, Neh. 1:4-5, Neh. 2:4, and also in 2 Chronicles 36:23. His people had fallen away to idols. In that state it did not suit His nature and majesty to act at their head or among them as "the Lord of all the earth." (Joshua 3:11)

Cyrus, like the kings of Persia who followed him, hated idols. Acknowledging the God of Israel as "the God of the heavens", he insists here that "he is God" (v. 3). In the same way Artaxerxes, king of Persia, later openly declares that the Lord God of Israel is "the God of the heavens" (Ezra 7:21, 23).

In Cyrus we do not see the power of faith, but, just as Nebuchadnezzar carried out God's work, so Cyrus is the servant of His mercy to bring the Jew back to the land. In himself he goes further than Nebuchadnezzar. He says (Ezra 1:2, etc.) that the Jehovah-God had given him the kingdoms of the earth, and a charge to build the house at Jerusalem. Whether this confession of God's sovereignty came from a saving faith is another matter. God is able to make the world confess His power and authority... The point is not what Cyrus was in himself, but his work.

But all this was not enough to bring the captives back. These were convictions of the mind, and they might have nothing to do with a work of conscience or a living faith. Even the assurance of being an instrument chosen to carry out God's designs (v. 2) fell short. God meant to show that it was He Himself and no other who fulfilled His Word. That is why it says: "The LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia" (v. 1). He also stirred up the spirit of the chief fathers of Judah and Benjamin and the spirit of the priests and of Levites (v. 5).

Three things are announced here. First, the commission Cyrus himself had received about the Lord's house. Second, his royal permission for any of the Jews to return to Jerusalem to build the temple. Third, his invitation to those Jews who would stay in his lands to join those who left, by freewill offerings toward the object they had in view.

In the first instance, God delivered a remnant of His people from captivity and brought them back to the Land, under Zerubbabel, in order to build the house of the Lord (Ezra 1:2-3). But once the house was built, it became necessary to build the walls and set up the gates to guard the sanctity of the house of the Lord.