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It was Cyrus the Great who conquered Babylon, which then became The Medo-Persian Empire that lasted between the years 539-331 B.C.

(See, Isa. 44:24,28; 45:1-4)

2007-03-20 05:38:38 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 2 0

Babylon was the capital of Babylonia, the alluvial plain between the Euphrates and Tigris. After the fall of the Assyrian empire (612 BCE), Babylon became the capital of the ancient Near East, and king Nebuchadnezzar adorned the city with several famous buildings. Even when the Babylonian Empire had been conquered by the Persian king Cyrus the Great (539), Babylon remained a splendid city. Alexander the Great and the Seleucid kings respected the city, but after the mid-second century, the city's decline started.

2007-03-20 12:36:20 · answer #2 · answered by Karen 3 · 1 0

Isa.45:1;
And 200 years later king Cyrus of world Empire #4. gave the decree to rebuild the temple. Ezra, Neheniah, Haggai and Zachariah were involved in this and several leader after Cyrus, did honor his decree.

2007-03-21 01:50:00 · answer #3 · answered by jeni 7 · 0 0

Cyrus the great. He was the first ruler in world history to write a decree of human rights.

His list of human rights is inscribed on a clay tablet in the UN headquarters building

http://video.yahoo.com/video/play?vid=225507&fr=yfp-t-501

2007-03-20 12:47:57 · answer #4 · answered by Melanie T 3 · 0 0

Cyrus the Mede.

2007-03-20 12:38:50 · answer #5 · answered by Da Mick 5 · 1 0

Dario

2007-03-20 12:34:36 · answer #6 · answered by Alberto G 2 · 0 1

It wasn't Cyrus was it?

2007-03-20 12:34:26 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 3 0

I believe it was Agamemnon.

2007-03-20 12:34:36 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 0 1

This is kind of long, but very interesting and gives the prophecy and the fulfillment...

Cyrus, a Man with a Prophetic Role

FEW men throughout the course of human history were foretold to fulfill a specific role in God’s purpose. Cyrus the son of Cambyses and the founder of the Persian Empire, however, was such a man. His conquest of Babylon in 539 B.C.E. and the subsequent release of the Jews from exile were foretold long before his birth.

It was in the eighth century B.C.E. that Jehovah declared by means of his prophet Isaiah:

“‘I, Jehovah, am doing everything . . . the One making the word of his servant come true, and the One that carries out completely the counsel of his own messengers; the One saying of Jerusalem, “She will be inhabited,” and of the cities of Judah, “They will be rebuilt, and her desolated places I shall raise up”; the One saying to the watery deep, “Be evaporated; and all your rivers I shall dry up”; the One saying of Cyrus, “He is my shepherd, and all that I delight in he will completely carry out”; even in my saying of Jerusalem, “She will be rebuilt,” and of the temple, “You will have your foundation laid.”’

“This is what Jehovah has said to his anointed one, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have taken hold of, to subdue before him nations, so that I may ungird even the hips of kings; to open before him the two-leaved doors, so that even the gates will not be shut.”—Isa. 44:24–45:1.

The accounts of ancient historians confirm the fulfillment of this amazing prophecy. While differing somewhat in their presentation, Greek historians Herodotus and Xenophon both relate the same basic account. Cyrus diverted the Euphrates River, which flowed through Babylon and served as part of its system of defense. The conquering armies then marched through the riverbed, gaining access to the city through the gates along the quay. Having given themselves up to feasting and revelry, the Babylonians were caught completely by surprise, and the city fell that very night.

Also, as had been foretold, Cyrus issued a decree that enabled Jewish exiles to return to their homeland to rebuild the temple. That decree read: “This is what Cyrus the king of Persia has said, ‘All the kingdoms of the earth Jehovah the God of the heavens has given me, and he himself has commissioned me to build him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever there is among you of all his people, Jehovah his God be with him. So let him go up.’”—2 Chron. 36:23.

That such a decree would have been in harmony with this ruler’s policies is confirmed by the inscription on the Cyrus Cylinder. Therein he is quoted as saying: “I returned to [certain previously named] sacred cities on the other side of the Tigris, the sanctuaries of which have been ruins for a long time, the images which (used) to live therein and established for them permanent sanctuaries. I (also) gathered all their (former) inhabitants and returned (to them) their habitations.”—Ancient Near Eastern Texts by James B. Pritchard, 1955, p. 316.

The first-century Jewish historian Josephus credits Cyrus with issuing the decree because of having had the prophecy of Isaiah called to his attention. He writes:

“In the first year of Cyrus’s reign—this was the seventieth year from the time when our people were fated to migrate from their own land to Babylon—God took pity on the captive state and misfortune of those unhappy men and, as He had foretold to them through the prophet Jeremiah before the city was demolished, that, after they should have served Nebuchadnezzar and his descendants and endured this servitude for seventy years, He would again restore them to the land of their fathers and they should build the temple and enjoy their ancient prosperity, so did He grant it them. For he stirred up the spirit of Cyrus and caused him to write throughout all Asia, ‘Thus says King Cyrus. Since the Most High God has appointed me king of the habitable world, I am persuaded that He is the god whom the Israelite nation worships, for He foretold my name through the prophets and that I should build His temple in Jerusalem in the land of Judea.’

“These things Cyrus knew from reading the book of prophecy which Isaiah had left behind two hundred and ten years earlier. For this prophet had said that God told him in secret, ‘It is my will that Cyrus, whom I shall have appointed king of many great nations, shall send my people to their own land and build my temple.’ Isaiah prophesied these things one hundred and forty years before the temple was demolished. And so, when Cyrus read them, he wondered at the divine power and was seized by a strong desire and ambition to do what had been written; and, summoning the most distinguished of the Jews in Babylon, he told them that he gave them leave to journey to their native land and to rebuild both the city of Jerusalem and the temple of God, for God, he said, would be their ally and he himself would write to his own governors and satraps who were in the neighbourhood of their country to give them contributions of gold and silver for the building of the temple and, in addition, animals for the sacrifices.”—Antiquities of the Jews, Book XI, Chap. 1, pars. 1, 2, translated by Ralph Marcus.

Commenting on this statement of Josephus, The Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible (Vol. One, p. 1055) says: “There is every reason to accept the testimony of Josephus at this point.” Many critics, however, disagree. They simply cannot accept that the prophecy about Cyrus could have been written before the fall of Babylon in 539 B.C.E. They maintain that chapters 40 to 66 of Isaiah were written by someone who lived after these things happened. Their claim denies that Jehovah God can reveal matters to his servants long before they occur and that he can make his word come true.

2007-03-20 12:48:12 · answer #9 · answered by wannaknow 5 · 1 1

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