Page:Legends of Old Testament Characters.djvu/386

364 XLIII. CYRUS, in the year 537 before Christ, put an end to the captivity of the Jews in Babylon, as had been foretold by Daniel; and not only did he permit the Jews to return to Jerusalem, but he furnished them with the means of rebuilding their city and temple. The Oriental writers, to explain the motive of Cyrus, say that his mother was a Jewess, and that he himself was married to the Jewess Maschat, sister of Zerubbabel, a granddaughter of the king Jehoiakim.

In 523 before Christ, Cambyses, having reigned a brief time, was succeeded by Smerdis, the Magian, who is called, in the Scriptures, Artaxerxes. He, being ill-disposed towards the Jews, withdrew from them the gifts made by Cyrus, and arrested their work. Smerdis, however, reigned only two years, and was succeeded by Darius Hystaspes, who continued the work of Cyrus, by the hands of Ezra or Esdras, one of the instruments used by God to restore His people.

Ezra was the son of Seraiah, of the lineage of Aaron.

In the Koran it is said that Ezra, passing through a village near Jerusalem, whose houses were ruined, exclaimed, "Can God restore these waste places, and revive the inhabitants?"

Then God made him die; and he remained dead for one hundred years. At the end of that time God revived him, and he saw the village rebuilt, and full of busy people.

The commentators on the Koran say that Ezra (Ozaïr), when young, had been taken away captive by Nebuchadnezzar, but that he was delivered miraculously from prison, and returned to Jerusalem, which he found in ruins. He halted at a village near the city, named Sair-Abad. Its houses were fallen and without inhabitants, but the fig-tree and vines remained in the gardens. Ezra collected the fruit, and made himself a little cell out of the fallen stones. And he kept near him the ass on which he had ridden.

The holy man, on contemplating from his hermitage the ruins of the holy city and the temple, wept bitterly before the