A Better Basis for Belief -SOME STRIKING FULFILLMENTS OF PROPHECY

 In fulfillment of these prophecies, Cyrus took Babylon in 539 B.E.  The city was in the midst of a druken orgy, the gates had been left unbarred, there was no real resistance put up by the surprised soldiers.  In his first regional year Cyrus issued this proclamation, according to the Scripture record:  "All the kingdoms of the earth hath Jehovah, the God of heaven, given me; and he hath changed me to build him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah.  Whosoever there is among you of all his people, his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem." (2 Chronicles 36:22,23; Ezra 1:1-3, margin, AT) Note that he attributes his victory to God.  On his own cylinders he records his triumph over Babylon and gives the credit to divine aid, and on one of his bricks he says: "The great gods have delivered all the lands into my hand." 

To allow the Jews to return to Jerusalam to re-establish true worship of Jehovah there was  in accord with Cyrus' policy.  Of course, Cyrus was polytheistic in worship and not monotheistic, so we cannot say he became a true worshipper of Jehovah himself. Jehovah used and maneuvered Cyrus for His purpose, as shown by Ezra 1:1 and Isaiah 44:28  and Isaiah 45:1 .  He used Cyrus for his purpoe in bring about the Jewish restoration in 537 B. C. , just as he had used another heathen king seventuy years before to carry faithless Judah into captivity, calling that one "Nebuchadnezzar the kng of Babylon, my servant." (Jeremiah 25:9) But Cyrus' policy was to restore images to their former shrines, for one of his cylinder reads:  "I perfer the gods to their shrines."  Cyrus recognized that Jehovah was the God of the Jews, and that his temple had been in Jerusalem, so his proclamation ordered the restoration of Jehovah's worship to be made there, "since he is the God who is in Jerusalem." (Ezra 1:3, AT)  Regardless of Cyrus' policy, however, the poin this that Jehovah foreknew and foretold these things centuries before they happened.

Next time: A Better Basis for Belief - SOME STRIKING FULFILLMENTS OF PROPHECY

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