2 Chronicles 36:22

THE DECREE OF CYRUS THE KING OF PERSIA

"Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of Jehovah by the mouth of Jeremiah might be accomplished, Jehovah stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying, Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, All the kingdoms of the earth hath Jehovah, the God of heaven, given me; and he hath charged me to build him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever there is among you of all his people, Jehovah his God be with him, and let him go up."

Through the two great prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah God had foretold and prophesied exactly what and when the captivity of the Children of Israel would be terminated. It was Jeremiah who prophesied the exact duration of the captivity in Jeremiah 25 of his great prophecy. (See our comments on that chapter in the commentary, beginning on page 279.)

But another great prophet, namely Isaiah, had foretold and prophesied the nature and source of the very decree of Cyrus mentioned here even naming Cyrus generations before he was born. (See our discussion of this phenomenal prophecy on pp. 8,9, in our Commentary on Isaiah. The prophecy is recorded in Isaiah 45:1f, which is also discussed on pages 467 and the following pages of that commentary.)

There is no logical doubt whatever of the validity and integrity of those prophecies. The Jewish historian Josephus verifies them; and the very fact of such a thing as a captive nation being given permission to return to their own land, and even to be encouraged to do so, and aided financially in the project, is so contrary to the inclinations of human nature, so unheard of in any other instance, that the only intelligent conclusion must allow God as the Author of the prophecies.