What if Cyrus had not freed the Jews?

Ezra then states that Cyrus designated Sheshbazzar, a “prince of Judah,” to go to Jerusalem to build the Temple, and that Cyrus returned the Temple vessels which Nebuchadnezzer had taken, including gold and silver bowls and basins. (See Ezra 1:7-11.) Ezra also reports that 42,360 individuals responded to the invitation to return to Jerusalem, and that their neighbors supported them. (See Ezra 2:64, 1:6.)

  According to Ezra, those who returned set up an altar in Jerusalem, and the following year laid the foundation for a new temple.  (See Ezra 3:2-8.) Neighbors opposed the construction, however, and successfully secured an injunction against it. (See Ezra 4:4-24.) The returnees subsequently resumed construction anyway and then appealed to Cambyses’ successor, King Darius (r. ~ 522-486), who found a memorandum of Cyrus concerning the construction and ordered the governors of the province to assist in the construction. (See Ezra 5:1-6:12.) The Second Temple was completed in the Spring of the sixth year of Darius’s reign, either 516 or 515 BCE. (See Ezra 6:13-15.)

  Decades later, the Persian Empire had a new monarch, King Artaxerxes I (r. ~ 465-424 BCE).  Artaxerxes appointed the priest Ezra “to regulate Judah and Jerusalem according to the law of your God, which is in your care.” (See Ezra 7:14.) He also appointed another Judahite, Nehemiah, as his cup bearer, a position of trust and status. (See Nehemiah 1:11.) Subsequently, when Nehemiah sought permission from Artaxerxes to travel to Jerusalem, the King not only granted the request, but supported the mission with the appointment of Nehemiah as governor.  (See Neh. 2:4-9.) Nehemiah arrived in Jerusalem in 445 BCE, and focused on rebuilding the walls of the ancient city. (See Neh. 1:1, 2:17, 19, 4:1-6.)  Again some neighbors sought to undermine the project, but to no avail. (See Neh. 3:33-38, 6:1-19.) According to Nehemiah’s memoirs, Ezra brought the written Torah to Jerusalem and read it to the people, with the Levites translating and explaining. (See Neh. 8:1-8.) Ezra and Nehemiah both called for ethnic separateness and both  banned intermarriage. (See Ezra 9:1-2, 10:10-11; Neh. 13:1-3, 23-27.)

  There are reasons for skepticism about the accuracy of Ezra’s and Nehemiah’s memoirs. Neither Ezra nor Nehemiah was an eye witness to Cyrus’s pronouncements, and there are inconsistencies in the texts. Nevertheless, this much seems clear: in or around 538 BCE Cyrus issued a proclamation which was inscribed on a clay cylinder and which allowed the Judahites to return to Judah and Jerusalem and live their lives consistent with their customs and beliefs. Some took advantage of the offer, ultimately rebuilt a second Temple and reinstated an active Jewish presence centered in and around the Temple. Temple-centric Judaism lasted until 70 CE when Roman legions led by Titus crushed a Jewish rebellion and destroyed Jerusalem and the renovated sanctuary.

  Cyrus’s proclamation of 538 BCE was both unprecedented and historically unique. Certainly the Assyrians who destroyed the Kingdom of Israel, dispersed the indigenous population and repopulated the conquered land with allies were not as benevolent. Nor was King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia, whose scorched earth and deportation policy for Judah sought capitulation, rather than conciliation. The list can be extended for emperors grand and petty subsequent to Cyrus, from Alexander through Constantine to present times.

  Cyrus was special, and but for his extraordinary approach, there would have been:

• no proclamation of return,
• no encouragement extended to facilitate a return to the native land,
• no repatriation of perhaps tens of thousands of individuals,
• no leadership appointed to guide the rebuilding of the Temple,
• no return of artifacts taken from the Temple,
• no rebuilding of the Temple,
• no chance for Nehemiah or someone like him to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem to protect the people and the Temple,
• no security for Judah against its neighbors and enemies, and, critically,
• no people to whom or place to which Ezra, or anyone like him, could bring written documents containing the lore of and law for the Judahites or begin to refashion a community separate from their neighbors and reunite them with their land and their god.

  Each of these factors was vital to the survival and success of the Jewish People. Conversely, without all of them the folkways of Judah would have become a distant memory, just as the customs of the northern kingdom became for its dispersed tribes and as they were becoming for the many Judahites who chose to remain in Babylon or who moved elsewhere.

  For instance, had Cyrus merely stated that exiled peoples could return home, but did not encourage them to do so, how many fewer would have made the journey? If they made the journey, but were not provided safe passage along the way and security on arrival, how many would have survived? If treasures of the first Temple were not returned, would the second Temple have achieved any legitimacy? Even if some people returned and began to rebuild the Temple, but had no authorized leadership, would they have been successful in creating a new community? If they created a community, but there was no writing to remind them of their past and set forth national values, would there have been a firm enough foundation upon which to build a future?

  Thanks to Cyrus, enough Judahites not only returned, they proceeded to conserve some core ancient precepts, reform others and reconstruct their shattered civilization. The father and daughter Oz have summarized the result this way: “The Babylonian returnees indeed reinvented Israel: a new temple, a new calendar, new laws against intermarriage, an enhanced particularism, a recently canonized bookshelf, and a new lineage of text-based scholarship.” (Amos Oz and Fania Oz-Salzberger, jews and words (Yale 2013), at 164.) Moreover, as archeologist Israel Finkelstein and historian Neil Asher Silberman have observed: “This is also the moment in our story when we must change our terminology: the kingdom of Judah becomes Yehud – the Aramaic name of the province in the Persian empire – and the people of Judah, the Judahites, will henceforth be known as Yehudim, or Jews.” (Finkelstein and Silberman, The Bible Unearthed (Free Press 2001), at 297.)