"I am the Lord, and there is none else; there is no God beside me. I
girded thee, though thou hast not known me. That they may know, from
the _rising of the sun_, and from the west, that there is none
beside me; I am the Lord and there is none else. _I form the
light_, and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil. I the
Lord do all these things.

"I have raised him up in Righteousness, and will direct all his ways;
he shall build my city, and let go my captives, not for price nor
reward, saith the Lord of Nations."

To this last verse, add the ordinance of Cyrus in fulfilling it, that
you may understand what is meant by a King's being "raised up in
Righteousness," and notice, with respect to the picture under which you
stand, the Persian King's thought of the Jewish temple.

"In the first year of the reign of Cyrus, [Footnote: 1st Esdras vi.
24.] King Cyrus commanded that the house of the Lord at Jerusalem
should be built again, _where they do service with perpetual
fire_; (the italicized sentence is Darius's, quoting Cyrus's decree
--the decree itself worded thus), Thus saith Cyrus, King of Persia:
[Footnote: Ezra i. 3, and 2nd Esdras ii. 3.] The Lord God of heaven
hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he hath charged me to
build him an house at Jerusalem.

"Who is there among you of all his people?--his God be with him, and
let him go up to Jerusalem which is in Judah, and let the men of his
place help him with silver and with gold, and with goods and with
beasts."