After the Christmas festivities have concluded at the end of December, our thoughts often turn to the coming year. While we may be on vacation and our daily rhythms may be slower, we can take time to reflect on where the last year has brought us and where we hope the new year will take us. These reflections sometimes come with pain and regret over the choices we’ve made. Yet the prospect of starting a new year fills us with hope and expectancy. To feel like we have the opportunity to begin again with a fresh start, no matter what we had encountered this last year is a blessing.

But our anticipation of a fresh start pales in comparison to the sense of hope the Israelites must have felt when Cyrus, the king of Persia, released them to return to their homeland in Judah after seventy long years of captivity in Babylon. The previous king, Nebuchadnezzar, had deported the Israelites from their homeland. But the Lord prompted Cyrus to send the captives home to Jerusalem to rebuild God’s temple (Ezra 1:2–3). Cyrus also returned to them treasures that had been taken from the temple. Their lives as God’s chosen people, in the land God had appointed for them, began afresh after a long season of hardship in Babylon as a consequence of their sin.