Lives of Scripture

Sheshbazzar was "the prince of Judah" whom the Persian king Cyrus appointed to lead the first return of Jewish exiles from Babylon to Jerusalem, after Cyrus's decree that the LORD had stirred him to issue (Ezra 1:1-8). Cyrus personally counted out to Sheshbazzar the gold and silver vessels Nebuchadnezzar had plundered from Solomon's temple -- 5,400 articles in all -- which Sheshbazzar carried back to Jerusalem with the returning exiles (Ezra 1:8-11). Years later, when Persian officials questioned the Jews' authority to rebuild, the elders answered that Cyrus himself had appointed Sheshbazzar governor and that he had laid the temple's foundations, work that had continued ever since (Ezra 5:14-16). Some older interpreters identified Sheshbazzar with Zerubbabel, who leads the building project in the chapters that follow, though most scholars today treat them as two distinct leaders of the return; Scripture itself never states they are the same man. Whichever is true, Sheshbazzar's brief appearance marks a pivotal moment in redemptive history: after seventy years of exile, God kept His promise through Jeremiah to bring His people home and restore worship at His temple, entrusting the first practical steps of that restoration to a leader remembered mainly for the vessels he carried and the foundation he laid.