Cyrus issued the decree that, according to the biblical account, allowed Jews exiled in Babylon to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple. This is known as the Edict of Cyrus and is described in Ezra and at the end of 2 Chronicles.
Cyrus the Great founded the Achaemenid Persian Empire and conquered Babylon in 539 BC. The biblical narrative places his decree in the first year of his rule over Babylon. It authorizes the return of the exiles, the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem, and the restoration of sacred vessels taken from Solomon’s Temple.
The return began the process often called the Return to Zion and eventually led to the Second Temple period. Cyrus is portrayed unusually positively in the Hebrew Bible; Isaiah even calls him the Lord’s anointed, despite Cyrus not being an Israelite. Historians debate the precise form and historicity of the biblical decree, but Cyrus is the canonical answer. Darius and Artaxerxes appear in later stages of the Temple’s reconstruction, while Xerxes ruled between them.