Cyrus the Anointed

In a comment on the description of Cyrus as a “shepherd” in Isaiah 44:24-45-7, John Goldingay (The Theology of the Book of Isaiah, 66-7) observes that “in Old Testament times, ‘shepherd’ was a recognizable way to describe the role of a king. A shepherd is in charge of his sheep both in terms of controlling them and of providing for them. Applied to a king, the image suggests both the holding of authority and the responsibility to protect the people.”

In the Hebrew Bible, the new David is the shepherd par excellence, but in Isaiah “it is Cyrus who is Yahweh’s shepherd, who will fulfill the Davidic role of commissioning the rebuilding of Jerusalem and of the temple. Cyrus is also Yahweh’s masiah.” 

To use these terms to describe a Gentile king, “would indeed raise eyebrows for Judahites,” especially for those in Babylon who had settled in and identified themselves with Babylon’s fortunes. Isaiah’s insistence that a Persian, and a Persian conqueror of Babylon, fulfills the Davidic calling “is deigned not only to lead to Israel recognizing Yahweh and to Cyrus recognizing Yahweh but to the ends of the earth recognizing Yahweh as the one who has devlivered them from Babylonian overlordship.”