Thus says Cyrus king of Persia, The LORD God of heaven has given me all the kingdoms of the earth; and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah.
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Bede
AD 735
Therefore the Lord made Cyrus similar to his onlybegotten Son, our God and Lord Jesus Christ. Just as Cyrus, after destroying the empire of the Chaldeans, freed the people of God, and sent them back to their homeland and ordered them to rebuild the temple, which had been set on fire in Jerusalem, taking care that his edict was proclaimed everywhere through letters, so that Jeremiah’s words might be fulfilled, through which he had predicted what would have happened in the future; so the mediator between God and humanity, after destroying all over the world the kingdom of the devil, called back from that tyranny his elect, who had been scattered, and now gathers them in his church.
The ancient histories, with which also the Scripture of Daniel agrees, relate that Cyrus, king of the Persians, after allying with Darius, king of the Medians, destroyed the empire of the Babylonians and killed their last king, Balthazar, and razed and ransacked their capital. And therefore Cyrus, knowing that the kingdom of Israel had been entrusted to him by God, as soon as he defeated that kingdom that had captured the people of Israel and kept them in bondage, gave the Israelites permission to return to their homeland and to rebuild the house of their God, which had been set on fire. And not only did he proclaim by words that sentence of release to those present, but also he communicated it to those who were away in all the provinces of his kingdom by means of letters and testified through public voice that he who is the God of Israel was truly the maker of all kingdoms.
The 'children of the province' means the children of Judea, not of Babylon. For to this province belonged not only those who were deported from Judea to Babylon but also those who were born in Babylon from their stock - those who, though born in the flesh in Babylon, yet longed with all their soul for Judea and Jerusalem. Their distinguished leader Zerubbabel was a figure of these people: his name indicates that he was born in Babylon, but by his intention and his deeds he shows that he was a citizen of Jerusalem. In a higher sense, however, the children of the Church are the children of the heavenly homeland, not only those who have already been imbued with the sacraments of the Church but even those who, though wandering in error for some time (i.e. among the impious), nevertheless were preordained to life by divine election before the world began, and are to be consecrated by the mysteries of divine grace at their own due time. About these it is aptly And they returned to Jerusalem ...
Earth, which had belonged to the king of Babylon. (Haydock)
This may be an hyperbole, or allusion to Isaias xlv. 1. (Menochius)
The dominions of Cyrus were very extensive, (Xenophon, Cyrop. i. and viii.) reaching from Ethiopia to the Euxine sea He acknowledges that he received all from the hand of God. Nabuchodonosor makes a similar confession of his supreme dominion; (Daniel ii. 47.) and the potentates of Egypt and of Rome, procured sacrifices to be offered to him. But what advantage did they derive from this sterile knowledge of his divinity? since they did not honour him accordingly, but wished to join his worship with that of idols; though the force of miracles and of reason must have convinced them that there is but one God. (Calmet)
House, or temple, Isaias xliv. 28.
Judea. So the Septuagint read, but the Hebrew has "Juda "all along. The whole country now began to be known by the former name. (Haydock)
