Cyrus, Exile and Longing for Home
There are some characters in the Bible who appear for only a moment, but when they appear, the whole story turns.
Cyrus is one of them.
He is not a prophet. He is not a priest. He is not a son of David. He is not even part of Israel. He is a Persian king, a ruler of nations, a man of empire. Historically, he is remembered as Cyrus the Great, the founder of the Persian Empire and the conqueror of Babylon. But Scripture remembers him for something even more surprising: Cyrus is the king God used to bring His people home.
Cyrus’ story tells us something about God’s sovereignty. But his appearance also becomes the crux, if not the defining moment, of something even larger: the theme of exile.
So our word today has two parts:
Who was Cyrus? What can we learn about his role in God moving the plot forward?
What does it mean to be an elect exile? Was it just one theme of this plot or is it actually the bigger picture that we Christians share with the Israelites as we await the final enthronement of Jesus our King on earth?
The Theme
The Experience
The Instruction
Part 1: Who is Cyrus
1.1 Overview
Cyrus the Great was the Persian king whom God raised up to conquer Babylon and bring an end to the Jewish exile, fulfilling prophecies spoken through Isaiah more than a century before Cyrus was born. Though he did not know the God of Israel, and worshipped several pagan gods, Scripture uniquely calls him God's "shepherd" and "anointed," highlighting God's sovereignty over nations and rulers.
After capturing Babylon in 539 B.C., Cyrus issued a decree allowing the Jewish people to return to Jerusalem, rebuild the temple, and restore covenant worship. His life demonstrates God's faithfulness to His promises in Isaiah 40–45 and serves as a foreshadowing of Jesus Christ—the greater Deliverer who would lead God's people out of spiritual exile and into ultimate redemption.
—
Why do you say, O Jacob,
and speak, O Israel,
“My way is hidden from the Lord,
and my right is disregarded by my God”?
Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
his understanding is unsearchable.
He gives power to the faint,
and to him who has no might he increases strength.
Even youths shall faint and be weary,
and young men shall fall exhausted;
but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
they shall walk and not faint.
Isaiah 40:27-31 ESV
—
Thus says the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus,
whose right hand I have grasped,
to subdue nations before him
and to loose the belts of kings,
to open doors before him
that gates may not be closed:
“I will go before you
and level the exalted places,
I will break in pieces the doors of bronze
and cut through the bars of iron,
I will give you the treasures of darkness
and the hoards in secret places,
that you may know that it is I, the Lord,
the God of Israel, who call you by your name.
For the sake of my servant Jacob,
and Israel my chosen,
I call you by your name,
I name you, though you do not know me.
I am the Lord, and there is no other,
besides me there is no God;
I equip you, though you do not know me,
that people may know, from the rising of the sun
and from the west, that there is none besides me;
I am the Lord, and there is no other.
I form light and create darkness;
I make well-being and create calamity;
I am the Lord, who does all these things.
Isaiah 45:1-7 ESV
—
1.2 Timeline Snapshot
The timeline between the reign of King Solomon and the Babylonian Exile spans roughly 350 years, transitioning from Israel’s golden age of unity to a devastating national fracture and eventual conquest. Key milestones in this history include:
c. 970–931 BC: Reign of King Solomon
Israel reaches its peak wealth and power. Solomon builds the First Temple in Jerusalem.c. 931 BC: The Divided Kingdom
Following Solomon's death, the nation splits into two:The Northern Kingdom (Israel): 10 tribes, capital initially in Samaria.
The Southern Kingdom (Judah): 2 tribes (Judah and Benjamin), capital in Jerusalem.
c. 875–797 BC: Ministries of Elijah and Elisha
Prophets emerge in the Northern Kingdom to combat idolatry and call the nation back to the covenant.722 BC: Fall of the Northern Kingdom
The Assyrian Empire conquers Israel, exiling the 10 tribes (often called the "Lost Tribes") and resettling the area with foreigners.605–586 BC: The Fall of Judah and the Exile
The Babylonian Empire, led by King Nebuchadnezzar II, conquers the Southern Kingdom in stages:605 BC: First wave of exiles is taken, including Daniel.
597 BC: Second wave of exiles is taken, including King Jehoiachin and Ezekiel.
586 BC: Jerusalem is besieged, the First Temple is destroyed, and a final wave of captives is deported to Babylon, fulfilling the 70-year exile.
1.3 Setting Up the Big Picture: Key Moments and Lessons
Warnings of exile in Isaiah and Jeremiah point to the people’s empty religiosity: their hearts were ultimately not turned to God completely. Isaiah ministered during the Assyrian crisis, but he prophetically saw beyond his own generation. He warned that Judah’s sin would eventually lead to Babylonian exile.
Isaiah confronts the heart of Judah’s problem: they still practiced religion outwardly, but inwardly had abandoned God.
Isaiah 1:4 (ESV)
“Ah, sinful nation,
a people laden with iniquity,
offspring of evildoers,
children who deal corruptly!
They have forsaken the Lord,
they have despised the Holy One of Israel,
they are utterly estranged.”
More than a century later, Jeremiah ministers during Judah’s final decline as Babylon begins rising to power. He warns that Judah’s greatest danger is not Babylon — it is their refusal to repent.
Jeremiah 2:13 (ESV)
“for my people have committed two evils:
they have forsaken me,
the fountain of living waters,
and hewed out cisterns for themselves,
broken cisterns that can hold no water.”
Jeremiah especially attacks Judah’s false confidence in the Temple itself:
Jeremiah 7:4 (ESV)
“Do not trust in these deceptive words: ‘This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.’”
The people believed Jerusalem could never fall because God’s Temple was there. Jeremiah warns that covenant disobedience has made judgment inevitable.
Jeremiah 25:11 (ESV)
“This whole land shall become a ruin and a waste, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.”
—
Although we will never fully know why God chose exile as His verdict for His people then, we also know that as much as it was a prophesied “punishment” we can’t say it was all bad.
God’s admonishment is always for our good. And we’ll see this even more in part 2.
Walter Breggueman in his book, “Out of Babylon” further elaborates, as he cites numerous renowned scholars of Judaism that…
“Within the Old Testament, Babylon occupies a central position in what it means to be Jewish. In the Old Testament, the imagining of Babylon is inescapably from the perspective of Jewishness. To start with, Jews perceive Babylon as threat, but then Babylon is also recognized as a viable venue for faithfulness over a long period of time.”
Eleven years before the destruction of the Temple, King Nebuchadnezzar had taken some 10,000 of the elite among the Jews and transplanted them to Babylon in an attempt to weaken Judea and prevent it from rebelling. In so doing, he unwittingly set up the next 2,500 years of Jewish history. In little more than a decade, those 10,000 Jews — which included prophets and sages like Ezekiel, Daniel and Ezra, as well as the entire Sanhedrin – created the foundation of the Jewish future.
So we learn that:
God had a plan and purpose (though a difficult one) for sending His people into exile. He would not abandon His chosen beloved people—the Jews. His commitment to them was not based on their good works. God’s steadfast love to His people was based on His grace.
God had not abandoned His people. Though many of them had witnessed the unthinkable—the Jerusalem Temple’s destruction—God would allow the Jewish people to return and rebuild it. What an encouragement this was not just for the exiles, but also for their descendants during their 70-year exile.
God’s promises to Israel were dependent on Him keeping His word to them.
God’s Sovereignty Over Leadership: Even though Cyrus did not actively worship the God of Israel, the Bible describes him as God’s "anointed" shepherd. This reminds us that God can use anyone—regardless of their personal background, political standing, or religious affiliation—to accomplish His purposes and bless others.
Part 2: Elect Exiles
We contemporary Christians experience a spiritual exile that mirrors biblical patterns before Cyrus came into the scene. The entire biblical narrative from Genesis 3 through Revelation 21 unfolds within exile—humanity’s alienation from God—until God’s reconciliation restores the original creation design.
Modern believers, like our spiritual ancestors Abraham, Noah, Jacob…all occupy the status of strangers and exiles in this world—the true diaspora scattered among the nations.
C.S. Lewis famously put words to something every Christian has experienced.
"If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world."
2.1 The Theme: Exile didn’t begin in Babylon
Exile began in Eden.
When Adam and Eve sinned, they were sent out from the garden. Humanity was driven from the place of God’s presence. The world became, in the deepest sense, a place away from home. From that moment forward, the Bible becomes the story of God pursuing His people in the far country.
That is why exile keeps appearing throughout Scripture.
We repeatedly understand God’s people as pilgrims and sojourners. Abraham wandered in tents. Moses named his son Gershom:
“I have been a sojourner in a foreign land.”
— Exodus 18:3 (ESV)
David confessed:
“For we are strangers before you and sojourners, as all our fathers were. Our days on the earth are like a shadow, and there is no abiding.”
1 Chronicles 29:15 (ESV)
Even Israel’s memory of Egypt shaped their ethics:
“You shall not wrong a sojourner or oppress him, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.”
Exodus 22:21 (ESV)
“You shall not oppress a sojourner. You know the heart of a sojourner, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.”
Exodus 23:9 (ESV)
Again and again, God’s people know what it means to be displaced.
Do you feel this yourself? In a big city like Chicago, it’s almost natural to start out feeling disconnected as you get established. But perhaps this theme for Christians runs much deeper.
Exile is never only geographical. It is spiritual. It is theological. It is the condition of being made for God and yet living in a world estranged from Him. It is the ache of being created for communion and yet experiencing distance, loss, judgment, and longing.
That is why even after Cyrus allows the people to return, the story still feels unfinished. The people come back to the land. The temple was rebuilt. Jerusalem begins to rise from the ruins. But something is still missing. The glory has not fully returned. The throne of David is not restored in its fullness. The people are back in the land, but they are still under the shadow of foreign powers. They have returned from Babylon, but the deeper exile remains.
And this is where the story of Israel becomes the story of all of us.
The New Testament does not treat exile as a theme that ended when the Jews returned from Babylon. It takes up the language of exile and applies it to the Church. Peter writes to believers and calls them “elect exiles.” That phrase is both beautiful and unsettling:
Elect exiles.
Chosen, yet scattered.
2.2 Jesus as Our Final Liberator King
The story of Israel’s exile becomes one of the clearest biblical pictures for understanding the Christian life. After Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem and carried Judah into Babylon, Israel came to understand exile not merely as political defeat, but as God’s verdict against generations of covenant compromise and divided worship.
The New Testament takes this exile language and applies it directly to Christians. The church is presented as the continuation of the covenant people of God—the “New Israel”—not defined by ethnicity or geography, but by faith in Christ.
Peter opens his letter:
“To those who are elect exiles of the Dispersion…”
1 Peter 1:1 (ESV)
And later:
“Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.”
1 Peter 2:11 (ESV)
The language is unmistakable. Christians are now described using Israel’s exile identity. Believers live in the world, but do not ultimately belong to it. The church exists spiritually where Israel once existed primarily geographically: dwelling among foreign powers while awaiting full restoration.
This theme stretches across the New Testament. Paul writes:
“But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Philippians 3:20 (ESV)
The writer of Hebrews says of the faithful:
“These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar… having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.”
Hebrews 11:13 (ESV)
And again:
“For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come.”
Hebrews 13:14 (ESV)
Cyrus brought the exiles back to Jerusalem, but he could not end the deeper exile. He could send people home to the land, but he could not bring humanity home to God. He could issue a decree, but he could not cleanse the human heart. He could overthrow Babylon, but he could not overthrow sin and death.
For that, we need a greater King.
Jesus is the greater Cyrus.
Cyrus was called God’s anointed in a limited and temporary sense. Jesus is the true Anointed One, the Christ. Cyrus opened the way for captives to return from Babylon. Jesus opens the way for sinners to return to God. Cyrus helped rebuild a temple made with stones. Jesus builds a people in whom God’s Spirit dwells. Cyrus defeated an earthly empire. Jesus defeats the powers of sin, death, and the devil.
And the power of the gospel: God doesn't merely send a deliverer. He enters exile Himself. Jesus ends our exile by entering it Himself.
The Son of God left the glory of heaven and came into the far country. He took on flesh. He entered our sorrow, our weakness, our grief, and our alienation. He was rejected by His own. He was cast outside the city. He bore the judgment we deserved. On the cross, He experienced the ultimate exile so that we could be brought home.
And then He rose.
The resurrection is the beginning of the new creation. It is the declaration that death will not have the last word, that exile will not be permanent, that the King has been enthroned and His kingdom is coming in fullness.
But we still wait.
2.3 The Experience: “No Place Like Home”
So what does this feel like existentially?
We are home, and we are not home yet.
We belong to God, but we live as strangers.
We have hope, but we still lament.
We are citizens of heaven, but we seek the good of the city where God has placed us.
We are elect exiles.
That is the Christian life in two words.
We are elect because God has set His love on us in Christ. We belong to Him. We have been chosen by grace, redeemed by the blood of Jesus, and born again to a living hope. But we are also exiles because we still live in a world that does not fully recognize the King we serve.
“Exiles means we are not home. We are on our way home, but we are not home. And this is extraordinarily important for you to know, because it is right of us to stress the great things that happen when you become a Christian. The minute you become a Christian, you know that you are wholly pardoned, completely accepted and loved. But once you become a Christian, ultimately you haven’t arrived. You have just begun. The Christian life, when we talk about Christians being exiles, means your Christian life will never be all that completely satisfying. Things will never be just right. There will be struggles all during your Christian life. You know why? Because even though you’re a Christian, even though you’re loved, you are not home.”
- Tim Keller
Psalm 90:1 (ESV)
“Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.”
Philippians 3:20 (ESV)
“But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.”
What does home feel like to you? It bears the weight of who we fully are: furniture arranged to how we live, memories all over the walls and shelves, our deepest secrets (not to mention actual dirt and mess and filth!) all around…
We know that our longing for physical homes is matchless. So our longing for our spiritual homes- our souls’ final home- is ever deeper.
2.4 The Instruction: Live with Intention, In Tension
So the Christian life is a life of holy tension. We are not home yet, but this does not mean Christians should despise the world or withdraw from it.
Jeremiah told the exiles:
“Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare."
Jeremiah 29:4-7
Peter therefore calls believers not to assimilate into the surrounding culture:
“Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable…”
1 Peter 2:12 (ESV)
The church’s task mirrors Israel’s task in Babylon:
preserve holiness,
resist assimilation,
seek the welfare of the surrounding city,
and remain faithful while awaiting restoration.
—
If Christians forget the theme of exile, we lose the framework that helps us understand where we are in the story.
We begin to expect the world to feel like our final home.
And when the world does not feel like home, we either grow bitter toward it, or we start bending ourselves to fit inside it.
That is the danger.
The exile theme teaches Christians that we are not abandoned, but we are also not home yet. We are “elect exiles”—chosen by God, loved in Christ, filled with the Spirit, but still living in a world that has not yet been fully renewed. If we forget that, several things happen.
First, we mistake comfort for faithfulness.
We begin to assume that the Christian life should be easy, secure, respected, and upwardly mobile. We expect obedience to produce immediate visible blessing. So when suffering comes, or when faithfulness makes us feel strange, costly, or misunderstood, we feel shocked. We think something has gone wrong.
But exile tells us: this tension is normal.
It is not strange that Christians feel out of place. It is strange when Christians feel too at home in Babylon.
Second, we become vulnerable to assimilation.
Babylon rarely begins by asking God’s people to stop believing. It simply asks them to belong somewhere else first.
It gives them new names, new ambitions, new measures of success, new stories of identity, new definitions of the good life. And slowly, without realizing it, Christians can begin to measure their lives by the same standards as everyone else: comfort, status, influence, romance, wealth, security, achievement, self-expression.
We may still believe Christian truths, but our imagination becomes Babylonian.
We still confess Jesus as Lord, but we live as if Babylon gets to define what matters.
Third, we lose our ability to lament.
If we forget exile, we will not know what to do with sorrow. We will either deny it with shallow optimism or drown in it with despair.
But exile gives Christians a language for grief. It lets us say, “This is not how the world is supposed to be,” without concluding, “God has failed.” It teaches us to weep over sin, death, injustice, and loss while still believing that God is moving the plot forward.
Without exile, suffering feels like a contradiction.
With exile, suffering becomes part of the waiting.
Fourth, we confuse America, success, family, career, or cultural influence with the kingdom of God.
This is one of the greatest dangers.
When Christians forget that they are exiles, they can start trying to make a permanent home out of temporary things. Even good things become ultimate things. A nation becomes Zion. A political movement becomes salvation. A career becomes identity. A family becomes heaven. A church platform becomes the kingdom.
But exile keeps us sober.
It reminds us that no earthly city, no earthly ruler, no earthly success, and no earthly belonging can bear the weight of our final hope.
We seek the good of the city, but we do not worship the city.
We love our neighbors, but we do not need their approval to know who we are.
We work for justice, beauty, and mercy, but we know the final restoration comes only when the King returns.
This brings us to the fifth danger: we forget how to hope.
Exile is not only about displacement. It is about longing. Hope, through this lens, is rooted in knowing all of this isn’t final.
Christians are not merely people who believe the right things. We are people waiting for a home. We are waiting for the return of Jesus, the resurrection of the dead, the renewal of creation, and the day when God dwells with His people forever.
If we forget exile, our hope shrinks.
We stop longing for the new creation and settle for a manageable life now. We stop praying “Your kingdom come” with urgency. We stop aching for the final enthronement of Jesus our King on earth.
And when hope shrinks, discipleship shrinks with it.
So the danger is not merely that Christians misunderstand one biblical theme.
The danger is that we misunderstand our entire location in the story.
We will either over-love the world because we think it is home, or over-hate the world because we forget God still loves it.
But the exile theme keeps us faithful.
It tells us: you are chosen, but you are scattered. You are loved, but you are waiting. You are not home, but you are not lost. Babylon is real, but it is not final. The King has come, and the King is coming again.
So we live with patience, courage, holiness, and hope.
We seek the good of the city.
But we keep our hearts set on the city that is to come.
Conclusion:
The Bible ultimately ends where exile ends. Revelation portrays “Babylon” not simply as an ancient empire, but as the symbol of the world’s rebellion against God. Yet Babylon finally falls, and the people of God receive a greater homeland:
“Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man.”
— Revelation 21:3 (ESV)
This is the final restoration Israel’s exile always pointed toward. Cyrus was a shadow. Jesus is the substance. Cyrus opened the road back to Jerusalem; Christ opens the way into the New Creation. And so Christians live now as exiles with hope—already rescued by the greater Cyrus, yet still awaiting the day when heavenly citizenship becomes eternal reality
Let’s pray through Jesus’ own words:
“I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 15 I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. 19 And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth."
— John 17 (ESV)