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246
Royalty and Ruin
“O Lord, ... we have sinned. ... Neither have we heeded Your
servants the prophets, who spoke in Your name to our kings and our
princes, to our fathers.”
“O Lord, according to all Your righteousness, I pray, let Your
anger and Your fury be turned away from Your city Jerusalem, Your
holy mountain; because for our sins, and for the iniquities of our
fathers, Jerusalem and Your people are a reproach to all those around
us.”
“O Lord, listen and act! Do not delay for Your own sake, my
God.”
Verses 4-6, 16, 19
.
Even before the prophet had finished his prayer, Gabriel appeared
to him again, called his attention to the vision he had seen, and
outlined in detail the seventy weeks that were to begin at “the going
forth of the command to restore and build Jerusalem.”
Verse 25
.
The beginning of Cyrus’s reign marked the completion of the
seventy years since Nebuchadnezzar had taken the first company of
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Hebrews to Babylon. God had used Daniel’s deliverance from the
den of lions to create a favorable impression on the mind of Cyrus.
The noble qualities of the man of God as a statesman of farseeing
ability led the Persian ruler to show him great respect and to honor
his judgment. And now God moved on Cyrus to understand the
prophecies written about him and to grant the Jewish people their
liberty.
The king saw the words that more than one hundred years before
his birth had foretold the manner in which Babylon would be taken.
He read the message that the Ruler of the universe had addressed
to him: “I will gird you, though you have not known Me, that they
may know from the rising of the sun to its setting that there is none
besides Me.” “I have named you, though you have not known Me.”
As he viewed the inspired record, “He shall build My city and let My
captives go free, not for price nor reward,” his heart was profoundly
moved, and he determined to fulfill his divinely appointed mission.
Isaiah 45:5, 6, 4, 13
. He would let the Judean captives go free!
In a proclamation published “throughout all his kingdom,” Cyrus
made known his desire: “The Lord God of heaven ... has commanded
me to build Him a house at Jerusalem which is in Judah. Who is
among you of all His people? May his God be with him, and let him
go up to Jerusalem ... and build the house of the Lord God of Israel