Iran, by Another Name, Was Once the Savior of Israel

A story out of time for our time: The Prophet Isaiah wrote of Cyrus, King of Persia (now Iran) who knew not God but was chosen by God to restore freedom to Israel.

June 25, 2025 by Father Gordon MacRae

It is hard for me to NOT write about some developments especially when they fall within the realm of human rights and religious freedom. If I fail to address what seems to engulf the attention of entire nations, then I feel as though I am overlooking the elephant in the sacristy. The world was riveted to events in Iran, Israel, and the United States on Saturday, June 21, 2025. There is a backstory that rises up out of ancient times in the same place where nuclear Armageddon was possibly prevented on that day.

This post is about Cyrus the Great, the Sixth Century BC conqueror and King of the Persian Empire in what is now modern day Iran. King Cyrus is the subject of a reading from the Prophet Isaiah (45:1):

“Thus says the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have grasped to subdue nations before him and ungird the loins of kings, to open doors before him that gates may not be closed.”

Read on, please, because this Cyrus, pulled from the pages of Biblical history as the ancestor of contemporary Iran, was once the salvation of Israel.

In Defense of Jerusalem

“Thus says the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have grasped, subduing nations before him, and making kings run in his service, opening doors before him, and leaving the gates unbarred: For the sake of Jacob, my servant, of Israel, my chosen one, I have called you by your name, giving you a title, though you knew me not. I am the Lord and there is no other; there is no God besides me. It is I who arm you, though you know me not, so that toward the rising and the setting of the sun people may know that there is none besides me. I am the Lord. There is no other.”

— Isaiah 45:1, 4-6

There is little known of the Prophet Isaiah except that he lived in Jerusalem and his prophetic activity extended from about 740 BC to 701 BC, a period of about forty years. In the passage above, the Lord, through Isaiah, is addressing a man named Cyrus who is called by God and given power and a title, “though you knew me not.” The power and authority given to Cyrus is not for Cyrus, but rather so that “the people may know that there is none besides me. I am the Lord.”

Two centuries after the prophesies of Isaiah, in 597 BC, Israel fell under the armies of Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar II. This account, told in the Second Book of Kings (Ch. 24ff) resulted in two waves of exile of the Jews into Babylon. In the first wave, in 597 BC, Israel’s leaders were compromised and taken away. This undermining of the leaders was for the purpose of destroying the religious identity of the people. Then, in 586 BC, the real devastation came. Babylon destroyed the Temple and the entire city of Jerusalem, and sent the remaining Jews into exile.

Then, some two centuries after first appearing in the prophecy of Isaiah, God took the right hand of a man named Cyrus, who knew not God, and subdued nations before him, placed kings in his service, opened doors and unbarred gates just as predicted. Cyrus the Great conquered Babylon and all its surrounding regions to become first King of the Persian Empire — which again includes present-day Iran. Cyrus did not live a lifestyle that the People of God had any reason to respect. He did not appear to believe in anything but himself.

But Cyrus had one quirky trait that seemed to have been instilled in him by a much Higher Authority. Despite his personally sinful lifestyle and quest for Earthly powers, Cyrus developed a deep respect for the Jews and their Faith, even though he personally shared in none of it. The Lord God had groomed him, knocked down kingdoms before him, so Cyrus did what only the Emperor of the Persian Empire could do. He issued an edict ordering the reconstruction of the city of Jerusalem and its Temple, and he returned the Chosen People from their fifty-year exile in 539 BC to the land of Israel earning him an honored place in Judaism and Salvation History as Israel’s Redeemer.

The Prophet Ezra and the Decree of Cyrus

The Prophet Isaiah presents Cyrus as appearing in about 545 BC as the hope for Jerusalem. He is bestowed by Isaiah with a rather lofty title, “the anointed of Yahweh.” Such a title marked the beginning of the Age of Messianic Prophecy for Israel. The title would have been seen as a great insult to the Jews, but in forced exile they came to view Cyrus for his present actions and not his past pursuits. Isaiah (44:28) expanded his title to “Shepherd of Israel,” in recognition of the strangest trait that was found in him: his almost obsessive insistence on the promotion of religious liberty and the establishment of laws that will guarantee and protect it for the Jewish People and for Israel.

In regard to the restoration of Israel, this hope was fulfilled in 538 BC when Cyrus ordered the protection of the Jews and their return to Jerusalem to oversee the rebuilding of their Temple from the treasury of the Persian Empire. The full text of the Decree of Cyrus appears in the Book of the Prophet Ezra (6:3-5), a passage once doubted for its authenticity but now accepted as authentic by modern Scripture scholars:

“In the first year of Cyrus the King, a decree concerning the House of God in Jerusalem: Let the House be rebuilt, the place where sacrifices are offered and burnt offerings are brought. Its height shall be sixty cubits and its breadth sixty cubits with three courses of great stone and one course of timber. Let the cost be paid from the royal treasury. And also let the gold and silver vessels of the House of God, which Nebuchadnezzar took out of the Temple and brought to Babylon, be restored to Israel and returned to the Temple in Jerusalem, each to its place in the House of God.”

— Ezra 6:3-5

The Prophet Ezra went on to describe that some of the restoration of Jerusalem was interrupted by local vassal kings who did not believe that the conquering tyrant, Cyrus, would issue such an order. A complaint was made by a local governor to Darius I, King of Hystaspis, that the Jews were rebuilding the city. Darius then found an authenticated copy of the Decree of Cyrus, and ordered that the Temple and reconstruction of the city will be continued with no further hindrance. This was the same King Darius, by the way, who threw Daniel in the lions’ den (Daniel 6:6ff).

Is there a point of understanding to be considered from all this in our present time? Only you can arrive at such a conclusion. I have already arrived at mine, and I must come down on the side of religious liberty and those, some of whom knew not God, who are nonetheless chosen and set in place to bring it about for those in Covenant with God.

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Note from Father Gordon MacRae: Thank you for reading and sharing this post, which strives to bring context out of the past and into the present for a story that is consuming our news. In the Seventh Century AD, some 1,200 years after the events described in this post, Arabs brought Islam to the Middle East and it spread.

You might also like these related posts out of history:

Behold the Lamb of God Upon the Altar of Mount Moriah

Qumran: The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Coming Apocalypse

Left in Afghanistan: Taliban, al Qaeda, ISIS-K, Credibility

On Good Authority, “Salvation Is from the Jews”

The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”

For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”

Simon of Cyrene Compelled to Carry the Cross

Simon of Cyrene was just a man coming in from the country to Jerusalem for the Passover when his fated path intersected the Way of the Cross and Salvation History.

Holy Week 2023 by Fr. Gordon MacRae

I first wrote about Simon of Cyrene in Holy Week, 2010. While restoring that post, I ended up completely rewriting it. It led me almost immediately to a vivid example of the descent of this world at a time when faith invites us to ascend to Eternal Life. We are all going to die. It is an ordinary part of life. But don’t just die. Set out now for home. The only true path to life leads “To the Kingdom of Heaven through a Narrow Gate.”

A single sentence about Simon of Cyrene in each of the Synoptic Gospels conveys a wealth of meaning with a roadmap to the way home. Several readers told me privately and in comments that they were struck by these last few sentences in a recent post that mentioned Pornchai Moontri. In “God in the Dock: When Bad Things Happen to Good People,” I wrote,

“It was upon reading [a] passage from Pope Benedict that Pornchai made his decision to journey with me from the Exodus, through the desert, to the Promised Land toward which we, in hope, are destined. Faith never rescued us from our trials, but it taught us to carry one another's cross like Simon of Cyrene. That is the key to Heaven. Even in suffering and sorrow, it is the key to Heaven.”

Under the weight of Earthly Powers, this world loses sight of our true destiny while the great masses of people focus only on what they have stored up in this life. When a bank fails those whose treasury contains little more than money in life, people panic, some even commit suicide. It's a tragedy unfolding before our very eyes in the weeks leading up to Holy Week.

I turn 70 years old on Easter Sunday this year. It haunts me to reflect on how much the values of this world have changed in my lifetime. While researching this post about Simon of Cyrene, I came across a reference to The Greatest Story Ever Told, a 1960 United Artists film production of the life of Jesus from his birth to his Resurrection. Today, many of the woke denizens of Hollywood might shun such a project, but in 1960 it drew an enormous cast of Hollywood stars clamoring to be part of 'it.

Some of the film industry's most stellar actors were cast, some surprisingly in even minor roles: Max von Sydow portrayed Jesus, Dorothy McGuire was Mary, Claude Rains was Herod the Great, Jose Ferrer was Herod Antipas, Charlton Heston was John the Baptist, Telly Savalas was Pontius Pilate. He shaved his head for the role and never grew his hair back again. This is why he was bald when he played the famous NYPD detective, Kojak. David McCallum was Judas Iscariot. The list of Hollywood stars goes on and on.

The great John Wayne was cast as a captain of the Roman Centurions who professed his belief in Jesus at the foot of the Cross, as depicted in the top graphic on this post. John Wayne became a Catholic not long after this film. Today, his grandson is a Catholic priest in California.

Simon of Cyrene was portrayed by Sidney Poitier who three years later won an Academy Award for his portrayal of a drifter who became a handyman for a community of nuns in Lillies of the Field. He was an interesting choice to play Simon of Cyrene. In New Testament times, Cyrene was a major city in Northern Africa with a large Jewish population in what is present day Libya. It was the home of Lucius, a prophet and teacher of Antioch mentioned in Acts 13:1, and of Simon, a man who ventured to Jerusalem for the Passover but found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time or, depending on your perspective, in the right place at the right time.

Weep Not for Me, Jerusalem

My first inkling to learn about Simon of Cyrene was during Holy Week in 2000, nine years before this blog began. An old friend planning a visit to the Holy Land asked me to write a prayer that he promised to leave in a crevasse in the famous Western Wall. Known popularly as the “Wailing Wall,” it was built by Herod the Great (who was not so great, really!). That section of wall was all that remained standing after the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple by the Romans in 70 AD. Known in Hebrew as “ha-Kotel ha-Maaravi,” it is today one of the holiest pilgrimage sites in the Holy Land.

According to the Midrash, a collection of ancient rabbinic scholarship, the Wall survived the destruction of the Temple because the Shekhinah, the Divine Presence, rests there. My friend left my handwritten prayer in a crevasse in that Wall. Just a day later, during a historic pilgrimage to the Holy Land, Pope John Paul II left his own prayer in that same place in the Wall. I recall hoping that his was not blocking mine!

On that same day, just beyond the city walls, my friend came upon a tourist area where a photographer was capitalizing on the presence of the Pope. He tried to coax my friend into picking up a mock cross and carrying it for a photograph. My friend was appalled by the disconnect between what happened at Calvary 2000 years earlier and what was happening in that present scene. He refused to pick up the cross.

Reflecting on the scene upon his return from Jerusalem, my friend wrote to me in prison asking, “What can you tell me about Simon of Cyrene?” His question took me to a single sentence in each of the Synoptic Gospels from which I felt compelled to unpack some hidden meaning. It turned out that there was much to unpack.

Jesus, denounced by the Chief Priests, tried and condemned before Pilate, was mercilessly scourged to the point of near death. Roman soldiers tasked with his crucifixion feared that he may die before the ascent of Golgotha while bearing history's heaviest cross. Roman law allowed soldiers to press Jews into service for Rome so they forced a passerby to assist the “King of the Jews” as recounted in all three of the Synoptic Gospels:

“As they went out, they came upon a man of Cyrene, Simon by name; this man they compelled to carry the cross.”

— Matthew 27:32

“And as they led [Jesus] away, they seized one Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country, and laid on him the cross to carry it behind Jesus.”

— Luke 23:26

“And they compelled a passer-by, Simon of Cyrene who was coming in from the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to carry his cross.”

— Mark 15:21

Sidney Poitier as Simon of Cyrene in The Greatest Story Ever Told

He Was There When They Crucified My Lord

Crucifixion was entirely unknown in Jewish history until the Roman occupation of Palestine in 31 BC. Sacred Scripture, however, contained echoes of the sacrifice to come. Some 2,000 years before Jesus ascended Calvary bearing his Cross, Abraham was summoned by God to sacrifice his son, Isaac in the land of Moriah (Genesis 22).

Israelite tradition (2 Chronicles 3:1) identifies Moriah as the site of the future Jerusalem Temple. What became Golgotha or Calvary was one of its foothills. Obedient but brokenhearted, Abraham placed upon his son the wood for his sacrifice and together they climbed Mount Moriah.

Isaac asked his father, “Where is the lamb for the sacrifice?” Abraham answered, “God will provide himself the lamb for the offering, my son” (Genesis 22:8). In the end, an Angel of the Lord stayed Abraham’s hand, and his obedience became the basis for God’s covenant with Israel. Two millennia later, in that same place, God Himself did provide the lamb for the sacrifice. Hence, in our Liturgy, Jesus is the “Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.”

Crucifixion was a common form of capital punishment among Persians, Egyptians, and Romans from the 6th century BC to the 4th century AD. The punishment was ritualized under Roman law which required that a criminal be scourged before execution. The accused had to carry the entire cross or just the crossbeam from the place of scourging to the execution. Crucifixion was abolished in 337 AD by Emperor Constantine out of respect for the emergence of Christianity in the Roman Empire. Jews carried out their own form of capital punishment by stoning, but the Romans forbade such executions when they occupied Palestine. This is why Jesus was handed over to Pilate for trial.

The gruesome punishment of crucifixion was reserved by the Romans for criminals, seditionists, and slaves. Roman law forbade the crucifixion of a citizen for any crime. Saint Paul, who was a Roman citizen, could not be crucified so he was martyred by Emperor Tertullian, likely by beheading, in 60 A.D.

When Pilate had Jesus scourged, he may have instructed his tormentors to go beyond the usual torture hoping to convince the Sanhedrin and the mob that scourging was punishment enough. That plan failed when the crowd, spurred on by the Chief Priests, shouted “Crucify Him!”

However Jesus had been beaten so severely that Roman soldiers doubted that he could carry his cross the entire distance to Calvary alone. Note that I use the terms “Golgotha” and “Calvary” interchangeably. They are one and the same place. Golgotha is a Greek translation from an Aramaic word meaning “Place of the Skull,” a name likely derived from the fact that many executions were carried out there. “Calvary” is derived from “calvaria,” the Latin translation of Golgotha.

A condemned man was then led through the crowds to the place of crucifixion. Just as today, most of the people in the crowds assumed that an all-powerful and righteous state has justly condemned a real criminal to punishment, so many joined in the mocking and humiliation even if they knew nothing of the accused or the alleged crime. It was part of the ritual. Along the way, the condemned was forced to carry his cross — or at least the crossbeam upon which his arms would be tied and his hands or wrists nailed (see John l9:l7).

In 1994, the year I was sent to prison, archeological remains of a crucified man were discovered intact near Jerusalem. It was the first evidence of what actually took place in a typical Roman crucifixion.

It is unclear from the Gospel passages above exactly what part of the Cross was imposed upon Simon of Cyrene. Luke’s Gospel refers to Simon carrying the Cross behind Jesus, a position which also came to be symbolic of discipleship. It is likely that Jesus, like other condemned, carried the crossbeam upon which he would be nailed, while Simon may have carried the vertical beam or the rear of the entire Cross.

I learned from Mel Gibson’s famous film, The Passion of the Christ, that Simon of Cyrene is the person in the Gospel to whom I can most relate. I did not pick my cross willingly, nor do I willingly carry it. I did not see it as a share in the Cross of Christ at first. Few of us ever do.

The Passion of the Christ portrayed with power what I have always imagined must have become of Simon of Cyrene. Something stirred within him compelling him to remain there. He became a part of the scene, setting his own journey aside. The lights went on in Simon’s soul and he became compelled not just from Roman force, but from deep within himself.

Note that Saint Mark alone mentions that Simon of Cyrene had two sons, Alexander and Rufus. The Gospel implies that both became well known to the early Church. Being the earliest of the Gospels to come into written form, Mark addressed his Gospel to Gentile Christians in Rome. So did Saint Paul in his Letter to the Romans. Mark was with Paul at the time he was imprisoned in Rome so he was likely aware of Simon’s profound transformation as a witness to the Crucifixion and Saint Paul’s knowledge of his sons, Rufus and Alexander cited in Saint Mark’s Gospel.

Hence in the concluding verses of Paul’s Letter to the Romans Paul wrote: “Greet Rufus, eminent in the Lord, and also his mother who is a mother to me as well” (Romans 16:13).

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Note from Fr. Gordon MacRae: Thank you for reading and sharing this post which is now on our list of Holy Week posts for our sponsored Holy Week Retreat. It is not too late to follow the Way of the Cross this week by pondering and sharing our

A Personal Holy Week Retreat from Beyond These Stone Walls.

The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.

Click or tap the image for live access to the Adoration Chapel.

The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”

For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”