Cyrus the Great
Cyrus the Great (c. 600–530 BCE) was the founder of the Achaemenid Persian Empire — the largest empire the ancient world had yet seen, stretching from Anatolia and Egypt to Central Asia and the Indus Valley. He is uniquely celebrated in Jewish scripture: Isaiah calls him God's 'anointed' (mashiach), and it was Cyrus who issued the decree in 538 BCE allowing the Jews to return from Babylonian exile and rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem. The Cyrus Cylinder (539 BCE) is regarded as the world's first human rights declaration. He is the only non-Jewish figure in the Hebrew Bible to be called Messiah.
Cyrus II of Persia conquered Babylon in 539 BCE without a battle, entering the city to popular acclaim after the Babylonian king Nabonidus had alienated the priesthood of Marduk. Within a year he issued the Cyrus Cylinder — a clay cylinder in cuneiform announcing his policy of restoring displaced peoples to their homelands and returning confiscated religious statues to their temples. This was a dramatic reversal of Assyrian and Babylonian practice, which had used mass deportation as a tool of imperial control.
For the Jewish people, Cyrus's decree was nothing less than divine intervention. The Babylonian Exile had begun in 586 BCE when Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Solomon's Temple and deported the Judean elite to Babylon. For fifty years, the community maintained its identity in exile through the revolutionary development of synagogue worship, the compilation of biblical texts, and the sharpening of a diaspora theology. When Cyrus allowed the return, it was experienced as the fulfillment of prophecy — the prophet Isaiah had predicted a deliverer would come from the east to free God's people, naming him Cyrus by name (Isaiah 44:28, 45:1).
The naming of Cyrus as God's 'anointed' (the same word used for the expected Messiah) in Isaiah is theologically extraordinary. It establishes a precedent: a non-Jewish ruler can serve divine purposes, can be an instrument of God's plan for Israel, even without being Jewish. This precedent has been invoked repeatedly in Jewish political theology — most recently by rabbis and evangelical Christians who have compared Donald Trump to Cyrus: a morally imperfect pagan king used by God to advance the interests of the Jewish people and the rebuilding of the Temple.
Professor Jiang uses the Cyrus precedent to illuminate the theological logic of the Trump-Israel alliance. The comparison is not metaphorical; it is a literal application of a biblical template. When Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu presented Trump with a coin depicting Cyrus and Trump side by side, he was invoking a specific prophetic framework: Trump as the new Cyrus, sent by God to enable the next stage of Israel's messianic destiny.
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Frequently asked questions
Who was Cyrus the Great? ＋
Cyrus the Great (c. 600–530 BCE) was the founder of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, which became the largest empire the ancient world had seen. He conquered Babylon in 539 BCE and issued the Cyrus Cylinder — regarded as history's first human rights declaration — announcing a policy of restoring displaced peoples to their homelands. He allowed the Jewish exiles to return to Judea and rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem. For this, Isaiah called him God's 'anointed' (mashiach) — making him the only non-Jewish figure in the Hebrew Bible to receive the title later used for the Messiah.
Why is Cyrus compared to Donald Trump? ＋
The comparison draws on the biblical precedent in Isaiah: a morally imperfect, non-Jewish pagan king used by God to advance the interests of Israel. Cyrus was not Jewish, did not worship the God of Israel, and was driven by political calculation — yet he served as the instrument of divine redemption for the Jewish people. Evangelical Christians and Israeli nationalists who compare Trump to Cyrus are invoking this template literally: Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital, moved the US embassy, and supported Israeli sovereignty claims — acting as a modern Cyrus regardless of his personal religious beliefs. Israeli PM Netanyahu presented Trump with a coin depicting both men side by side.