14. What is recorded on the Cyrus Cylinder?

¹⁴ The Cyrus Cylinder. Some time after he began ruling as king of the Persian World Power, Cyrus’ capture of Babylon in 539 B.C.E. was recorded on a clay cylinder. This outstanding document is also preserved in the British Museum. A part of the translated text follows: “I am Cyrus, king of the world, great king, legitimate king, king of Babylon, king of Sumer and Akkad, king of the four rims (of the earth), . . . I returned to [certain previously named] sacred cities on the other side of the Tigris, the sanctuaries of which have been ruins for a long time, the images which (used) to live therein and established for them permanent sanctuaries. I (also) gathered all their (former) inhabitants and returned (to them) their habitations.”i

Interestingly, 200 years previously, Jehovah had prophetically named Cyrus as the one who would take Babylon and bring about the restoration of Jehovah’s people.​—Isa. 44:28; 45:1; 2 Chron. 36:23.