Ezra 6:3
In the first year of Cyrus the king the same Cyrus the king made a decree concerning the house of God at Jerusalem, Let the house be builded, the place where they offered sacrifices, and let the foundations thereof be strongly laid; the height thereof threescore cubits, and the breadth thereof threescore cubits;
In his first year Cyrus made a written proclamation published throughout all his kingdom providing for the return of the Hebrews and the rebuilding of the temple at Jerusalem in answer to the exiles' prayers for divine intervention on behalf of Zion. The proclamation authorized the rebuilding of the house of God at Jerusalem, with Cyrus acting as God's agent to give the Jewish people liberty and means to rebuild. When the work was later questioned, Darius searched out, found and upheld this decree of Cyrus and ordered the rebuilding to continue with expenses paid from the royal treasury.
The house was to be built at Jerusalem on its former site where sacrifices had been offered, with its foundations strongly and firmly laid. Its height was to be sixty cubits and its breadth sixty cubits, constructed with three rows of great stones and a row of new timber. The expenses were to be paid from the king's house and treasury, and the gold and silver vessels that Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the Jerusalem temple to Babylon were to be restored and brought again to the temple at Jerusalem.
The rebuilding begun under Cyrus and continued by his successor was afterward roused by the preaching of Haggai and Zechariah amid harassment by the Samaritans and others. Then provincial officers of the Medo-Persian realm came to Jerusalem and asked who had authorized the restoration, but because the Jews trusted in the Lord for guidance they answered wisely so the officers could not cause them to cease until the matter came to Darius. They wrote to Darius Hystaspes calling his attention to the original decree of Cyrus commanding that the house be rebuilt at royal expense, and Darius upheld it.
The decree belongs to a single decree to restore the Jerusalem temple which Cyrus began, Darius carried forward, and Artaxerxes completed, the later decrees continuing and completing the decree of Cyrus, so that the commandment relevant to the seventy weeks is dated to the seventh year of Artaxerxes, 457 B.C. It is also described by others as the second command or decree for building the house of the Lord, issued by Darius after the proclamation of Cyrus. In either reckoning it shows that the Lord still moves upon the hearts of kings and rulers and upon the world in behalf of His people for the advancement of His cause. He has placed His goods in the hands of unbelievers to be used for the work that must be done for a fallen world, and their gifts open avenues for the truth to go and are to be received and used for His cause.
As long as the Spirit of God strives with the world, His people are to receive as well as to impart favors, accepting what He moves men in the world to do in behalf of His cause and for its advancement, including help connected with the religious liberty question. Such gifts are not to be refused because the givers have no sympathy with the work and no faith in Christ and no practice of His words. They must not cut off those favors or withdraw from help God has moved men to give, nor bind up means God would have set free, nor take a course that brings conflict with the authorities and powers of the world, nor build a wall of separation between God's workers and the world, nor bring on the time of trouble before the time.