A few of them went westward and settled among the aborigines of Europe whom they soon killed or subjugated.
Others went southward and occupied the plateau of Iran and the plains of India.The Persians,together with the Medes,took hold of several mountain ranges which had been depopulated by the ferocious military expeditions of the Assyrians.
Here they organised themselves into something which at first resembled a cowboy republic.Out of these humble beginnings had grown that strange kingdom of Persia which was elevated to the rank of an empire by the conquests of Cyrus.
Cyrus himself was a very remarkable man.He only made war when he could not accomplish his purpose by means of intrigue and diplomacy.He did not march against Babylon until he had isolated that powerful city from all her former vassals and allies.This was slow work.
It took almost twenty years,and this period had been one of intense excitement for the exiles.
From the very beginning,they had suspected that “Kurus”might be the Messiah who at Jehovah's instigation was to deliver them from their Babylonian yoke.They had followed his adventures with breathless interest.First they had heard of him as making war upon the Cappadocians.
A little later,so travellers had told them,he was engaged in a struggle with Croesus,King of the Lydians and a great personal friend of Solon,the law-giver of the Greeks.
Next,rumour had him in Asia Minor,where he was said to be building a fleet with which to invade the shores of Greece.
A whole chorus of prophets watched this man's campaigns with almost indecent zeal.Whenever there was a report of another Persian victory,all the people broke forth into songs of praise and hope.
The days of Babylon (of this they were convinced)were numbered.The wicked city had refused to listen to the words of Jehovah.
Jehovah was ready to punish her for her crime.
When at last the impossible happened and Babylon fell,the Jewish captives celebrated the event with frantic joy.Then they rushed forth to kiss the feet of their new masters and asked that they be allowed to return to the old country.
Cyrus made no objection.
He prided himself upon his tolerance.
All the subject races of the old Babylonian empire were at once given permission to return to their homes.Cyrus,however,went further.
He seems to have had an almost Roman indifference towards the private opinions of other people.
If the Jews or the Phoenicians or the Cilicians preferred their own gods to those of the Persians,that was their business.
They were welcome to build such temples as they thought best.
They could fill them with images or leave them bare,just as they preferred.
Provided they paid their taxes and obeyed the King's “satraps”or governors,they could shape their own political and religious lives as suited them best,and the King would see to it that no one dared to interfere.
Furthermore,the idea of a wholesale return of the Jewish exiles to the land of Canaan had a practical side which greatly appealed to this sagacious ruler.He hoped to make Persia a maritime nation.
The cities of Phoenicia already obeyed his will.
But between Phoenicia and Babylonia lay the deserted ruins of Palestine.
It was necessary to repopulate this desert.
A few vague attempts in this direction had already been made by the Babylonians.They had sent immigrants to the former kingdom of Israel.These had settled down among the half-starved remnants of the original population.Together with these,they had formed a new race,called the Samaritans,remnants of which may be found to-day in some of the Palestine villages of the north.
They had never been very prosperous.They were a strange mixture,composed of Hebrews and Babylonians and Assyrians and Hittites and Phoenicians,who were held in the most profound contempt by the pure Jews of the former Judaean kingdom,When Cyrus began to restore order in Palestine,he first of all tried to find the descendants of the captives from Israel.Not a trace could be found of these exiles or their children.They had been completely absorbed by their Babylonian neighbours and their fate is as much of a mystery to-day as it was in the year 538B.C.
It was easy,on the other hand,to deal with the Judaeans.They had maintained their racial integrity.
A royal edict of the year 537urged them to return at once to Jerusalem.At the same time,it gave them permission to rebuild the temple.It restored to them all the golden and silver implements which Nebuchadnezzar had taken to Babylon,some forty years before,and it encouraged the Judaeans to turn Jerusalem into a new national capital which should rival the extinct but not forgotten splendour of Solomon's old residence.
After half a century of prayer,the words of the prophet had come true.
The exile of Jehovah's children had come to an end.
The Jews were at liberty to leave their prison.
But now that the door stood open,behold!only a few of the captives availed themselves of the opportunity to go home.
The majority remained quietly in Babylon or moved to Ecbatana or to Nippur or to Susa or to one of the other great centres of the new Persian empire.A very small minority undertook the long and dangerous journey through the desert.They were pious men who took their religious duties very seriously.
And they now established upon the ruins of Jerusalem a new state which,devoid of all foreign influence,was to be devoted exclusively to the worship of Jehovah.
It would have been natural if Daniel had assumed the leadership over those who returned to Palestine.
But Daniel was too old to travel.The Persians treated him kindly and retained him in his office.For a short time he came under the suspicion of disloyalty,because he continued to pray to Jehovah when the king had issued a decree forbidding all petitions to either gods or men for the period of a month.As a result of this disobedience,he had been condemned to death and had been thrown before the lions.