Cyrus II Over His Judeans, King of Persia

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                  

                                                                      

The Persian Empire (Iran)  has taken the Babylonian Empire.  Cyrus II was their king.  In the course of his conquests,  he had overrun the Babylonian Empire which included Judah.  He was unique as a conqueror.  

         King Darius I on his throne from (522-486 BCE inherited the throne from CYRUS.   At the beginning of his reign, he permitted Zerubbabel and the Jews  who had returned to Jerusalem to resume reconstruction of the Temple.

          

He and his son Darius  pursued an enlightened  policy towards these subjects , and by 538 BCE, granted to the exiles of Judah living in old Babylon to return to their homeland  and rebuild the destroyed Temple.  (Ezra 1: 1-44) (II Chronicles 36:22-3).  The Jewish exiles regarded Cyrus as a Divine agent (Is. 44:28)  (45:1). 

              Queen Esther who was winner in the beauty contest

Of course, our holiday of Purim, a very happy holiday, is from this history.  In fact, many stories have him as King Ahasueros (King Xerxes I) and Queen Esther's son or grandson.  Name derivation: The Hebrew name Ahasuerus (Akhashverosh) comes from the Old Persian name Xšayāršā, which Greek historians translated as Xerxes. Reign: He ruled the Persian Achaemenid Empire from 486 to 465 BCE.,   21 years.  

For the next two centuries, both the mass of Jews in EXILE in Mesopotamia and in the homeland in Judah were under Persian rule. It was under Persian auspices that there took place the return from exile to Judah which, however, continued to be a Persian Province with some degree of local autonomy.  

Moreover, the political unity of the Middle East under Persian rule made inevitable considerable movements of population from one part of this area to another.  

The Book of Esther envisages Jews living throughout the 127 provinces of the Persian Empire and depicts them as numerous and influential in the capital,  Susa (Shushan).  The exact period and historical settling of the plot against those described in this work cannot be ascertained.           

Babylonia lies inside Mesopotamia, while Media lies outside of it to the east.

                          LIVING IN THE HOMELAND 

 It is, however, certain that at least from  the 4th century BCE onward, Jews lived in considerable numbers in  Judah proper as they continued to do although little is known about their history when the area was controlled by PARTHIA, from 250 BCE onward.  Parthia was an Empire of Iranic people. of the (3rd century BCE-226 CE).  It ruled over the vast mass of the Jewish population in Mesopotamia.  Babylonia and Media.  

The Parthians restored Antigonus Mattathias to the throne of Judah in 40 BCE.