According to the Hebrew Bible Cyrus comes on the scene and issues the decree to rebuild the city and temple.
Not so fast...Look at Daniel 9:25 again:
"So you are to know and discern
that from the issuing of a decree
to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince
there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; it will be built again, with plaza and moat, even in times of distress.
Daniel 9:25 (NASB)
There is no mention of a decree to rebuild the Temple in this verse. Cyrus gave a decree to rebuild the Temple, but it wasn't until Artaxerxes (444 BC) that a decree was issued to rebuild the city and its walls.
Cyrus issued the decree to rebuild
the Temple circa
538 BC:
Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he sent a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and also
put it in writing, saying: "Thus says Cyrus king of Persia, 'The LORD, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth
and He has appointed me to build Him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. ~'Whoever there is among you of all His people, may his God be with him! Let him go up to Jerusalem which is in Judah and rebuild the house of the LORD, the God of Israel; He is the God who is in Jerusalem.
Ezra 1:1-3 (NASB)
Darius later finds this same decree and affirms (circa
521 BC) the building of
the Temple only according to the decree of Cyrus:
Then King Darius issued a decree, and search was made in the archives, where the treasures were stored in Babylon.
"
Leave this work on the house of God alone;
let the governor of the Jews and the elders of the Jews rebuild this house of God on its site. "Moreover, I issue a decree concerning what you are to do for these elders of Judah in the rebuilding of this house of God: the full cost is to be paid to these people from the royal treasury out of the taxes of
the provinces beyond the River, and that without delay.
Ezra 6:1,7-8 (NASB)
Artaxerxes reaffirmed the decrees of Cyrus and Darius to Ezra in 457 BC:
Blessed be the LORD, the God of our fathers, who has put
such a thing as this in the king's heart,
to adorn the house of the LORD which is in Jerusalem,
Ezra 7:27 (NASB)
But the Temple standing by itself wasn't secure. It wasn't until Nehemiah persuaded Artaxerxes to let him return to Judah to rebuild the city and its walls that the decree was issued to do just that!
And it came about in the month Nisan, in
the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes (
444 BC), that wine
was before him, and I took up the wine and gave it to the king. Now I had not been sad in his presence.
Nehemiah 2:1 (NASB)
I said to the king, "If it please the king, and if your servant has found favor before you,
send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers' tombs, that I may rebuild it."
Then the king said to me, the queen sitting beside him, "How long will your journey be, and when will you return?" So it pleased the king to send me, and I gave him a definite time. And I said to the king, "If it please the king, let letters be given me for the governors
of the provinces beyond the River, that they may allow me to pass through until I come to Judah, and a letter to Asaph the keeper of the king's forest,
that he may give me timber to make beams for the gates of the fortress which is by the temple, for the wall of the city and for the house to which I will go." And the king granted them to me because the good hand of my God
was on me.
Nehemiah 2:5-8 (NASB)
The decree to rebuild Jerusalem did not come until the 20th year of the reign of Artaxerxes, even though three previous decrees had been issued to rebuild only the Temple!
But what does Daniel 9:25 say again???
"So you are to know and discern
that from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince
there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks;
it will be built again, with plaza and moat, even in times of distress.
Daniel 9:25 (NASB)
The decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem came almost 100 years after Cyrus had died, and it was given to Nehemiah, not Ezra!
Cyrus cannot be "Messiah the Prince" of Daniel 9:25, as he was already dead when this decree was issued.