ible. A vast
number, however, of the inhabitants of the country were carried away,
and they remained, for two generations, in a miserable bondage. Some
of them were employed as agricultural laborers in the rural districts
of Babylon; others remained in the city, and were engaged in servile
labors there. The prophet Daniel lived in the palaces of the king. He
was summoned, as the reader will recollect, to Belshazzar's feast, on
the night when Cyrus forced his way into the city, to interpret the
mysterious writing on the wall, by which the fall of the Babylonian
monarchy was announced in so terrible a manner.

One year after Cyrus had conquered Babylon, he issued an edict
authorizing the Jews to return to Jerusalem, and to rebuild the city
and the Temple. This event had been long before predicted by the
prophets, as the result which God had determined upon for purposes of
his own. We should not naturally have expected that such a conqueror
as Cyrus would feel any real and honest interest in promoting the
designs of God; but still, in the proclamation which he issued
authorizing the Jews to return, he acknowledged the supreme divinity
of Jehovah, and says that he was charged by him with the work of
rebuilding his Temple, and restoring his worship at its ancient seat
on Mount Zion. It has, however, been supposed by some scholars, who
have examined attentively all the circumstances connected with these
transactions, that so far as Cyrus was influenced by political
considerations in ordering the return of the Jews, his design was to
re-establish that nation as a barrier between his dominions and those
of the Egyptians. The Egyptians and the Chaldeans had long been deadly
enemies, and now that Cyrus had become master of the Chaldean realms,
he would, of course, in assuming their territories and their power, be
obliged to defend himself against their foes.

Whatever may have been the motives of Cyrus, he decided to allow
the Hebrew captives to return, and he issued a proclamation to that
effect. As seventy years had elapsed since the captivity commenced,
about two generations had passed away, and there could have been very
few then living who had ever seen the land of their fathers. The Jews
were, however, all eager to return. They collected in a vast assembly,
with all the treasures which they were allowed to take, and the stores
of provisions and baggage, and with horses, and mules, and other
beasts of burden to transport t