direction is paralleled by Isa 45:1, which proclaims Cyrus to be Yahweh’s “anointed” (i.e., his Messiah). Ezra 1–2 provides a census of those who returned under the leadership of Sheshbazzar, “the prince of Judah” (Ezra 1:8), totaling some 42,360 individuals (Ezra 2:64), with the detailed enumeration by households being repeated in Neh 7:6-73. However, a blanket amnesty is not actually announced in the Cyrus Cylinder, since the statement quoted above that “I gathered all their inhabitants and returned