Ezra 1:1-3
Amplified Bible, Classic Edition
1 Now in the first year of [a]Cyrus king of Persia [almost seventy years after the first Jewish captives were taken to Babylon], that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might begin to be accomplished, the Lord 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:(A)
2 Thus says Cyrus king of Persia: The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and He has charged me to build Him a house at Jerusalem in Judah.
3 Whoever is among you of all His people, may his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem in Judah and rebuild the house of the Lord, the God of Israel, in Jerusalem; He is God.
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- Ezra 1:1 Cyrus, a heathen ruler of a heathen empire (Persia), was “twice named [before his birth] in the book of Isaiah as anointed of God and predestined to conquer kings and fortified places and to set the Jews free from captivity (Isa. 44:28; 45:1-14). Daniel... records that during the night that followed a great feast, Belshazzar, the king of the Chaldeans, was slain, and Darius the Mede received the kingdom (Dan. 5:30, 31). Darius was the predecessor of Cyrus, or his regent, in Babylonia (Dan. 6:28)” (John D. Davis, A Dictionary of the Bible). God gave Cyrus the resolution and the desire to execute His intention. That the Lord at this time chose a heathen as His instrument was in accordance with the new position that the empires of the world were henceforth to assume toward the kingdom of God (J.P. Lange, A Commentary).
Jeremiah 25:11-12
Amplified Bible, Classic Edition
11 And this whole land shall be a waste and an astonishment, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon [a]seventy years.(A)
12 Then when seventy years are completed, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans, says the Lord, for their iniquity, and will make the land [of the Chaldeans] a perpetual waste.(B)
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- Jeremiah 25:11 As both sacred and secular history show, this prophecy was approximately literally fulfilled, whether it refers to the duration of the Babylonian Empire (with its heyday from the beginning of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign in 605 b.c. till its downfall in 539), or to the length of the Jewish captivity in Babylon (with the first deportation in 605 b.c. and the first return in 538). For the marvelous literal fulfillment of specific details concerning the destruction and perpetual desolation of Babylon, see footnotes on Isa. 13:22 and 14:23.
Jeremiah 29:10
Amplified Bible, Classic Edition
10 For thus says the Lord, When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you and keep My good promise to you, causing you to return to this place.
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