Cyrus II, 'the Great' — founder of the Persian empire, who took Babylon in 539 BC and issued the decree that ends the exile. Isaiah 45:1 calls him Jehovah's MASHIACH, his anointed — the only foreigner in the Bible given that title — and names him a century-and-a-half before, which is one of the standing arguments about the composition of Isaiah. ⚠ His policy of repatriating deported peoples and restoring their sanctuaries is attested outside the Bible on the CYRUS CYLINDER (British Museum), a clay barrel inscribed after the fall of Babylon — on which Cyrus credits MARDUK, in wording strikingly close to Ezra 1:2, with giving him the kingdoms and commissioning the work. Whether Ezra preserves a genuine Judean-language version of the same rescript or the Judean historian's framing of it is set out in the notes; the policy itself is not in doubt.