Persians

Cyrus and the Return from Exile

Persia conquered Babylon in 539 BC, and its first king, Cyrus the Great, issued a decree permitting the exiled Jewish population to return home and rebuild the Jerusalem temple (Ezra 1:1-4; 2 Chronicles 36:22-23) — a policy of restoring displaced peoples and their gods/temples well-attested in Persian records, and which Isaiah had astonishingly named Cyrus by name as God's chosen instrument over a century before he was born (Isaiah 44:28; 45:1). This decree ended Judah's seventy-year exile essentially on Jeremiah's own predicted schedule and set in motion the rebuilding chronicled in Ezra and Nehemiah.

Persia in Esther and Nehemiah

The book of Esther is set entirely within the Persian court a century or so later, under King Ahasuerus (widely identified with Xerxes I), where a Jewish orphan named Esther becomes queen and, with her cousin Mordecai, foils a plot by the official Haman to exterminate the empire's Jewish population — the origin of the Jewish festival of Purim (Esther 3-9). Nehemiah, cupbearer to the Persian king Artaxerxes, later obtains royal permission and resources to return to Jerusalem and rebuild its ruined walls (Nehemiah 1-2), completing the physical restoration Cyrus's decree had begun generations earlier.

Scripture references

• Ezra 1:1-4 — Cyrus's decree permits the exiles' return
• Isaiah 44:28; 45:1 — Cyrus named by God over a century before his birth
• Esther 3-9 — Esther and Mordecai save the Jews from Haman's plot
• Nehemiah 1-2 — Nehemiah obtains permission to rebuild Jerusalem's walls

Further reading

• Encyclopaedia Britannica: Achaemenid Dynasty