Matters improved somewhat as Cyrus entered upon his victorious career.  Was he the man in whom the Messianic prophecies had found their fulfilment?  The majority were unwilling to think so.  For it was out of Israel (they argued) that the Messiah was to proceed who should establish the kingdom of God upon the ruins of the kingdoms of the world; the restitution effected by means of a Persian could only be regarded as a passing incident in the course of an historical process that had its goal entirely elsewhere.  This doubt was met by more than one prophetical writer, and especially by the great anonymous author to whom we are indebted for Isaiah xl.-lxvi.  “Away with sorrow; deliverance is at the door!  Is it a humiliating thing that Israel should owe its freedom to a Persian?  Nay, is it not rather a proof of the world-wide sway of the God of Jacob that He should thus summon His instruments from the ends of the earth?  Who else than Jehovah could have thus sent Cyrus?  Surely not the false gods which he has destroyed?  Jehovah alone it was who foretold and foreknew the things which are now coming to pass,—­because long ago He had prearranged and predetermined them, and they are now being executed in accordance with his plan.  Rejoice therefore in the prospect of your near deliverance; prepare yourselves for the new era; gird yourselves for the return to your homes.”  It is to be observed, as characteristic in this prophecy, how the idea of Jehovah as God alone and God over all—­in constantly recurring lyrical parenthesis he is praised as the author of the world and of all nature—­is yet placed in positive relation to Israel alone, and that upon the principle that Israel is in exclusive possession of the universal truth, which cannot perish with Israel, but must through the instrumentality of Israel, become the common possession of the whole world.  “There is no God but Jehovah, and Israel is his prophet.”

For many years the Persian monarch put the patience of the Jews to the proof; Jehovah’s judgment upon the Chaldaeans, instead of advancing, seemed to recede.  At length, however, their hopes were realised; in the year 538 Cyrus brought the empire of Babylon to an end, and gave the exiles leave to seek their fatherland once more.  This permission was not made use of by all, or even by a majority.  The number of those who returned is stated at 42,360; whether women and children are included in this figure is uncertain.  On arriving at their destination, after the difficult march through the desert, they did not spread themselves over the whole of Judah, but settled chiefly in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem.  The Calebites, for example, who previously had had their settlements in and around Hebron, now settled in Bethlehem and in the district of Ephrath.  They found it necessary to concentrate themselves in face of a threatened admixture of doubtful elements.  From all sides people belonging to the surrounding nations had pressed into the depopulated territory