The King's Heart is a Stream of Water Text: 2 Chronicles 36:22-23
Introduction: The End is the Beginning
The book of 2 Chronicles ends in what appears to be catastrophic failure. The city of God is a pile of rubble. The glorious temple of Solomon has been looted and burned. The Davidic king is a captive, and the people of God have been hauled off to Babylon. The promises seem to have evaporated. If you were to read this account as a secular historian, you would write "The End" and close the book on the failed nation-state of Judah. This is what our modern pessimists do. They look at the state of our culture, they see the ruins, and they conclude that the story is over.
But God is a master storyteller, and He never ends on a downbeat. He is the author of eucatastrophe, the sudden, joyous turn. The final two verses of this book are not an epilogue to a tragedy. They are the prologue to a comeback story. They are not the end of the book; they are the hinge upon which all of history turns. They are a powerful demonstration that God is not wringing His hands in heaven when empires rise and fall on earth. He is the one moving the pieces. He is the one directing the play. And He directs it down to the smallest detail, according to the script He wrote beforehand.
These verses are a frontal assault on the idea that history is a random, meaningless series of events. They are a rebuke to all the hand-wringing pietists who think the world is spinning out of God's control. And they are a glorious promise that God's purposes for His people cannot be thwarted by military might, political maneuvering, or cultural decay. God holds the king's heart in His hand like a watercourse, and He directs it wherever He pleases.
The Text
Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to complete the word of Yahweh by the mouth of Jeremiah, Yahweh stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he had a proclamation pass throughout his kingdom, and also put it in writing, saying,
"Thus says Cyrus king of Persia, 'Yahweh, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and He has appointed me to build Him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever there is among you of all His people, may Yahweh his God be with him, and let him go up!'"
(2 Chronicles 36:22-23 LSB)
The Unseen Hand on the World's Throne (v. 22)
We begin with the historical and theological setting. Notice how the two are woven together.
"Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to complete the word of Yahweh by the mouth of Jeremiah, Yahweh stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia..." (2 Chronicles 36:22a)
The first thing we see is that God works in real history. This is not "once upon a time." This is "in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia." This is a datable event. The God of the Bible is the God who steps into time and space and gets His hands dirty. He is the Lord of history, not a detached deity of abstract principles.
But why this year? Why this king? The text tells us plainly: "in order to complete the word of Yahweh by the mouth of Jeremiah." History is not random. History is teleological; it has a goal. And that goal is the fulfillment of God's Word. God had spoken through Jeremiah that the exile would last 70 years (Jeremiah 29:10). God set His alarm clock, and when it went off, He went to work. The rise of the Persian empire and the fall of Babylon were not geopolitical accidents. They were appointments in God's calendar. God toppled the world's superpower on schedule in order to keep a promise He made to a remnant of exiles. Let that sink in. Your personal checkbook is not managed with this kind of meticulous care.
And how does God accomplish this? "Yahweh stirred up the spirit of Cyrus." This is the doctrine of divine providence in action. Cyrus was the most powerful man in the world. He was a conqueror, a strategist, a political genius. And he was a pawn on God's chessboard. He thought he was acting according to his own brilliant ideas of statecraft. He likely saw that having a friendly, repatriated people group on the border with Egypt was a good buffer. He thought it was his idea. But behind his thoughts, behind his spirit, was the Spirit of Yahweh, stirring, prompting, and directing. This is not a violation of Cyrus's will; it is the establishment of it. God did not force Cyrus to do something he hated. God made it so that what Cyrus wanted to do was exactly what God had decreed to be done. This is the mystery and the glory of God's sovereignty.
The Public Proclamation (v. 22b-23)
God's private stirring of Cyrus's heart results in a very public action.
"...so that he had a proclamation pass throughout his kingdom, and also put it in writing, saying, 'Thus says Cyrus king of Persia...'" (2 Chronicles 36:22b-23a)
God uses the ordinary means of government and communication. He employs royal decrees, official scribes, and the imperial postal service. This is a profoundly important principle. God's kingdom advances not just through miraculous intervention but through cultural and political structures. God can and does use pagan governments for the good of His church. This is why we are commanded to pray for kings and all who are in high positions (1 Timothy 2:2). We should pray that God would stir up their spirits, just as He did with Cyrus, to create a quiet and peaceable life for His people and to advance His kingdom, whether they realize they are doing it or not.
And then we get the substance of the decree, and it is breathtaking.
"'Yahweh, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and He has appointed me to build Him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah.'" (2 Chronicles 36:23b)
This is a pagan emperor making a stunning theological confession. First, he acknowledges the source of his authority. Who gave Cyrus his kingdoms? Not his military prowess, not his political skill, not the Persian gods. "Yahweh, the God of heaven, has given me" them. Cyrus understands that his earthly authority is delegated authority. Every knee will bow and every tongue will confess this eventually, but here we see it happening on the lips of a pagan king. He calls Him the "God of heaven," recognizing His supreme, transcendent power over all earthly affairs.
Second, he acknowledges his specific commission. God's sovereignty is not vague and general; it is specific and particular. Cyrus knows he has a job to do. "He has appointed me to build Him a house in Jerusalem." The central purpose of this great geopolitical shift is the restoration of worship. The goal is not merely to send a displaced people back to their homeland. The goal is to rebuild the temple. The goal is to reestablish the place where heaven and earth meet, where God's presence dwells with His people. The central business of mankind is the worship of the true and living God, and here, God bends the entire Persian empire to that purpose.
The Open Invitation (v. 23c)
The decree concludes with a call to action, an invitation to the exiles.
"'Whoever there is among you of all His people, may Yahweh his God be with him, and let him go up!'" (2 Chronicles 36:23c)
This is the gospel call in miniature. The king has made a decree. The way has been opened. The penalty has been served. Now, who will go? Who will leave the relative comfort and familiarity of Babylon to return to the rubble and hard work of Jerusalem? This was a test of faith. It was easy to be a Jew in Babylon. It was hard to be a builder in Jerusalem. The call is to "go up." This is always the direction of faith. It is an ascent. It is a call to leave the flatlands of complacency and to climb the mountain of the Lord.
And notice the benediction that Cyrus gives: "May Yahweh his God be with him." The pagan king blesses the people of God in the name of God. This is a picture of the eschatological promise that the kings of the earth will bring their glory into the New Jerusalem (Revelation 21:24). When God's people are faithful, God causes even the nations to serve them and bless them.
The book of Chronicles, and indeed the entire Hebrew Bible as arranged by the Jews, ends on this word: "Let him go up!" It is not an ending. It is a starting pistol. It is a command. The story is not over. The work is just beginning. It is an open-ended invitation to participate in the great restoration project of God.
The Greater Cyrus and the Greater Return
This entire episode is a shadow, a type, of a much greater reality. Cyrus is a remarkable figure, an instrument in the hand of God. The name Cyrus is a form of the word for "anointed one." He is a gentile messiah, an anointed king who comes to deliver God's people from their bondage in Babylon and sends them to rebuild the temple.
But he points to the true Messiah, the true Anointed One, Jesus Christ. Jesus is the greater Cyrus. He is the King of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given not just the kingdoms of the earth, but all authority in heaven and on earth (Matthew 28:18). He came to deliver us not from a physical exile in Babylon, but from our spiritual exile in sin and death. He conquered a much greater foe than the Babylonian empire.
And He too has issued a proclamation. It is called the Great Commission. He has appointed us to build Him a house, not a house of stone and timber in Jerusalem, but a spiritual house, the Church, built of living stones (1 Peter 2:5). His decree is not just for a remnant of Jews, but for all nations.
The call is the same: "Let him go up!" We are called to leave the Babylon of this fallen world system, with its idolatries and its comforts. We are called to "go up" to the New Jerusalem. This means repenting of our sins and trusting in Christ. It means joining ourselves to His body, the church, and giving our lives to the great temple-building project of the gospel. It is a call to leave the rubble of our old lives and to become builders of the new creation.
The book of Chronicles ends with an open door and a command to move. This is where we live today. Christ, our Cyrus, has opened the way. He has defeated our enemies. He has issued the decree. He has promised His presence: "Lo, I am with you always." The only question that remains is the one that hung in the air at the end of this book: Who will go up?