Ezra 1:1

Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia,.... Not in the first of his reign over Persia, for he had been many years king over that, and now had all the kingdoms of the earth given him, Ezra 1:2,

Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, that he made a

EZRA CHAPTER 1 Cyrus's proclamation to Israel for building the Lord's temple at Jerusalem, Ezra 1:1-4. The chief of the people prepare for their return, Ezra 1:5,6. Cyrus restores the vessels of the temple to Sheshbazzar prince of Judah, Ezra 1:7,8. Their number, Ezra 1:9-11. In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, to wit, of his empire or reign in Babylon; for he had now been king of Persia for many years. Stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, i.e. put into him a mind and will to his work.

Ezra 1:1 Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and [put it] also in writing, saying,Ver. 1. Now] Heb. And; for the former history, recorded in the Chronicles, is continued by Ezra, that ready scribe, and perfect in the law, Ezra 7:6. Yet not so prompt or perfect can I deem him, as that he should, by memory, restore the Bible that was burnt, together with the temple, by the Babylonians. And yet that was the opinion of many ancients, grounded upon some passages in that Apocryphal Esdras (Irenae., Tertull., Clem. Alex., Jerome, Aug., Euseb.). We read also of one Johannes Gatius Ciphaleditanus, who, out of the vain confidence of his learning and memory, was wont to give out, that if the Holy Scripture should be lost out of the world, he would not doubt, by God’ s grace, to restore it whole again. Of Cranmer indeed (a far better man, and a profounder divine) it is storied, that he had memorised most of the New Testament by heart. And of Beza, that, being more than eighty years of age, he could say perfectly, without the book, any Greek chapter in St Paul’ s Epistles (Mr Leigh, Annot. on John 5:39). In the first year] Heb. In the one year. The Hebrews oft use one for first. So do also the apostles in Greek, Matthew 28:1-20 : John 20:1; John 20:19 1 Corinthians 16:1-24 : 2 Kings 6:1; one being the first number; neither was it without a mystery that Pythagoras bade his scholars ever to have respect, ειςμοναδα; as Moses also his, saying, "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord," Deuteronomy 6:4. Of Cyrus] Heb. Coresh, so named by God more than a hundred years before he was born, Isaiah 40:28, and so honoured by the Persians (as the founder of their monarchy) that they liked the better of all that were hawk-nosed, like unto him. See the like of Josiah, 1 Kings 13:2. The Persian word signifieth a lord, or great prince, as Hen. Stephanus noteth; and thence the Greeks have their κυρος, authority, κυριος, lord; and we our word sir, as some will have it. Plutarch, in Artaxerxes, saith that the Persians call the sun Cyrus. And it may very well be so, for the Hebrews also call the sun δψρ Cheres, from its glistering brightness. King of Persia] So he had been more than twenty years before this, and done many great exploits; but this was the first year of his empire, of his cosmocraty , of the monarchy translated from the Babylonians to the Persians. The greatest kingdoms have their times and their turns, their rise and their ruin, when they shall live by fame only. Persia, having oft changed her masters since Cyrus, remaineth a flourishing kingdom to this day; but wholly Mahometan.

I. THE FIRST RETURN UNDER .(1-4) The decree of Cyrus: marking an epoch of very great importance, and therefore repeated almost word for word from the end of Chronicles. (1) The first year.—Cyrus became king of Persia in B.C. 559. Twenty years afterwards he took Babylon from Belshazzar; and this first year of his rule in Babylon was his beginning as an agent in Jewish affairs and for the Kingdom of God. Stirred up.—By a direct influence, probably through the instrumentality of Daniel. This prophet we may suppose Cyrus to have found in Babylon, and to have had his mind directed to the express prediction of Isa 44:28, where his name is mentioned. But the writer, who again and again records the prophetic intervention of Haggai and Zechariah (Ezra 5:1; Ezra 6:14), makes no allusion to the part that Daniel the earlier prophet had taken. He refers only to the Divine prediction by Jeremiah, which must be fulfilled: “And it shall come to pass, when seventy years are accomplished, that I will punish the king of Babylon” ( Jeremiah 25:12); “For thus saith the Lord, that after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon, I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place” (Jeremiah 29:10). (2) Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia.—In the interpretation of this decree two courses are open. We may suppose that “the spirit” of Cyrus was so effectually “stirred up” by the Spirit of God, through the prophecies of Isaiah, as to send out a written proclamation avowing his faith in Jehovah-Elohim, and thus publicly accepting the prediction: “He hath charged me to build.” In this case the parenthesis of Ezr 1:3 (He is the God) may be compared with the confession of his father-in-law, Darius the Mede: “He is the living God” (Daniel 6:26). Or we may assume that “Ormazd” in the original was reproduced in the Hebrew version that accompanied it by its equivalent, “Jehovah.” The latter supposition avoids the difficulty involved in making Cyrus disavow the national faith in the presence of his empire. The decree itself runs much in the style of those found in the majority of Persian inscriptions, such as “By the grace of Ormazd is Darius king;” and the spirit of tolerance! and piety in it is perfectly in harmony with all ancient testimonies to the character of Cyrus. (4) Whosoever remaineth.—As to all the Remnant in all places. There is a singular correspondence between this and the beginning of Nehemiah; but there this familiar name for the survivors of the great national catastrophe is used of those who had returned to Jerusalem, while here it is used for the dispersion in all the provinces of the empire (Nehemiah 1:3). Where he sojourneth.—Every individual Jew is thus significantly supposed to be only an exile. Let the men of his place help him.—The heathen subjects of Cyrus are required to assist the departing sojourner, and expected also to send freewill offerings to the Temple.

THE BOOK OF EZRA Chronological Notes relative to this Book -Year from the Creation, according to Archbishop Usher, whose system of chronology is most generally received, 3468. -Year before the birth of Christ, 532. -Year before the vulgar era of Christ's nativity, 536. -Year of the Julian Period, 4178. -Year since the flood of Noah, according to the English Bible, 1812. -Year of the Cali Yuga, or Indian era of the Deluge, 2566. -Year from the vocation of Abram, 1386. -Year from the destruction of Troy, 649. This we collect from three passages in Dionysius of Halicarnassus, (who flourished in the Augustan ages) which state that an interval of four hundred and thirty-two years elapsed from the destruction of Troy to the building of Rome. -Year from the foundation of Solomon's temple, 475. -Year since the division of Solomon's monarchy into the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, 439. -Year of the era of Iphitus, who re-established the Olympic games, three hundred and thirty-eight years after their institution by Hercules, or about eight hundred and eighty-four years before the commencement of the Christian era, 349. -Year since the conquest of Coroebus at Elis, usually styled the first Olympiad, (being the twenty-eighth Olympiad after their re-establishment by Iphitus,) 241. -First year of the sixty-first Olympiad. -Year of the Varronian or generally received era of the building of Rome, 218. This is upon the supposition that Rome was built in the last year of the sixth Olympiad. -Year from the building of Rome, according to Cato and the Fasti Consulares, 217. Dionysius of Halicarnassus follows this account; for he says that the metropolis of the Roman work was built in the first year of the sixth Olympiad, which was the first year of Charops, the first decennial archon of the Athenians. -Year from the building of Rome, according to Polybius, 216. -Year from the building of Rome, according to Fabius Pictor, who lived about two hundred and twenty-five years before the Christian era, 212. -Year of the Nabonassarean era, 212. -Year since the destruction of the kingdom of Israel by Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, 186. -Year from the destruction of Solomon's temple by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, 53. -Year of Servius Tullius, the sixth king of the Romans, and father-in-law of Tarquin the Proud, 43. -Year of Ariston, king of Lacedaemon, and of the family of the Proclidae, or Eurypontidae, 29. -Year of Anaxandrides, king of Lacedaemon, and of the family of the Eurysthenidae, or Agidae, 28. N. B. The kings of the Lacedaemonians of the families of the Proclidae and the Eurysthenidae sat on the throne together for several hundred years. -Year of Amyntas, the ninth king of the Macedonians, 12. -Year of the reign of Cyrus, computing from the year in which he dethroned his grandfather Astyages, the last king of Media, 24.

Ch. Ezra 1:1-4. The Decree of CyrusThe history of the time throws light upon the action of Cyrus, whose Decree gave life to the seemingly lifeless bones of Israel (Ezekiel 37) and restored the scattered flock to their pasture (34). Except by his personal attendants, the fall of Nabonidus, the last king of Babylon, had been hailed by all with satisfaction. The priests had been alienated from him by his neglect of the defences of the great temples. The generals and nobles despised a king, who absented himself from his capital and his troops, and entrusted to his son the chief command. The poorer classes had no respect for a weak monarch, who failed to protect them from the invader and only imposed on them heavy tasks of building. Cyrus was welcomed in Babylon as Deliverer and saluted as ‘the Great King.’ The Jewish colony who, although they had been taught by their prophets to expect Cyrus’ ultimate success, could hardly have foreseen so easy a victory, so bloodless a capture of Babylon, as that which the Inscriptions describe, would have been among the most demonstrative in their rejoicing over his success. They saw before them the possibility of the near realization of their hopes. Cyrus was too shrewd a sovereign to throw away any opportunity of cementing together the various elements of his newly conquered empire. He could cheaply earn the affection of many a subject race by gratifying its hopes and removing from Babylon the symbols of its servitude. He gave permission therefore to those of this class resident in the Capital, to take back their gods that had been forcibly removed to Babylon, and to set them up in their former homes. To the Jews he granted corresponding (and, perhaps, in recognition of their special services in his cause, peculiar) privileges. He gave permission to the worshippers of Jehovah to return to their own country, to resume the worship and to rebuild the Temple at Jerusalem. They had no images or gods to carry with them. But the sacred vessels, regarded with deep veneration, which had been carried off from Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, were given back once more into the keeping of the priests. Ezra 1:1-3 (as far as the words ‘let him go up’) are almost word for word the same as 2 Chronicles 36:22-23. The very slight differences clearly arise from errors of transcription. We have here (a) Ezra 1:1, the short form ‘Yirm’yah’ instead of the longer ‘Yirmyahu’—(both of which are found for Jeremiah): (b) Ezra 1:1 ‘by the mouth’ instead of ‘at the mouth’: (c) Ezra 1:3, ‘his God be with him’ instead of ‘the Lord his God be with him’. The fact, that the book of Ezra opens with the same passage as closes the books of Chronicles, has been differently explained. (1) On the hypothesis, that Ezra-Nehemiah are a separate composition from the books of Chronicles, it is supposed that the compilers of both works made use of the same written documents.

By the first year of Cyrus is to be understood the first year of his sovereignty over the Jews, or 538 B.C.

1. The first year — Not the first year of his becoming sovereign of the Persians, but the first of his immediate rule over Babylon, and the provinces of Western Asia, which had previously belonged to the Babylonian empire.