Archaeology

Cyrus Cylinder

Era: c. 539 BC
Location: Babylon (modern Iraq)
Discovered: 1879

A Persian royal decree on a clay cylinder describing Cyrus the Great's policy of returning displaced peoples to their homelands and helping them restore their temples — the very policy that allowed the Jews to return from exile.

The find

Discovered by Hormuzd Rassam at Babylon, the cylinder records Cyrus's capture of Babylon (539 BC) and his stated policy of repatriating peoples Nebuchadnezzar had deported. The biblical books of Ezra and Isaiah present this exact policy from the Jewish side.

Why it matters

The cylinder independently confirms the historical setting of the Jewish return from exile (Ezra 1; 2 Chronicles 36:22-23), and it makes the prophecy in Isaiah 44:28–45:1 all the more remarkable — where Cyrus is named by name well over a century before he was ever born.

Cross-linked Scripture

Doctrine check

Sources

·British Museum: Cyrus Cylinder
·Kuhrt, A. (2007). The Persian Empire: A Corpus of Sources