Iran Plans on Destroying Tomb of King Cyrus, Friend of the Jews
Pastor Dale Morgan
Iran Plans on Destroying Tomb of King Cyrus, Friend of the Jews*
by Ezra HaLevi
(IsraelNN.com) Iran is planning on submerging the tomb of King Cyrus
(Coresh), the Persian King known for authorizing the Jewish exiles to
return to Jerusalem to rebuild the Holy Temple.
According to a report by Omedia, an Iranian organization is demanding
that the International Criminal Court take action against those responsible.
The Iranian ayatollahs are planning on destroying the tomb as part of a
general campaign to sever the Persian people from their non-Islamic
heritage; Cyrus was thought to be a Zoroastrian and was one of the first
rulers to enforce a policy of religious tolerance on his huge kingdom.
Journalist Ran Porat quoted a young Iranian who said that the measures
being taken by the Islamic Republic’s regime include the destruction of
archaeological sites significant to this heritage.
“The government is in the final stages of constructing a dam in southern
Iran that will submerge the archaeological sites of Pasargad and
Persopolis – the ancient capital of the Persian Empire,” the report
states. “The site, which is considered exceptional in terms of its
archaeological wealth and historical importance, houses the tomb of the
Persian King Cyrus.”
Cyrus, who lived from 576-530 BCE, liberated Babylonian Jewry from their
exile in the famous Declaration of Cyrus (mentioned in the book of Ezra
in both Hebrew and Aramaic).
A group of Iranian academics opposed to the regime’s policies founded a
group called the Pasargad Heritage Foundation with hopes of getting the
United Nations involved in protecting the historical site. Most
recently, the foundation filed a petition with the International
Criminal Court against the Iranian official in charge of maintaining the
sites, charging him and his bureau with "crimes against humanity, due to
the systematic state-sanctioned destruction of the culture of the
ancient Iranian world and its historical heritage."
Though the city of Pasargad is a ruin, Cyrus’s Tomb has remained largely
intact and it has been partially restored to counter its natural
deterioration over the years.
Cyrus was praised in the Tanach (Isaiah 45:1-6), though he was also
criticized for believing the false report of the Cuthites, who wanted to
halt the building of the Second Temple. They accused the Jews of
conspiring to rebel, so Cyrus in turn stopped the construction of the
temple, which would not be completed until 516 BCE, during the reign of
Darius the Great, the grandson of Queen Esther.