A King's Cliff: Darius at Behistun

A French general, Gardanne, thought a cliff carving in Iran showed Christ and his twelve apostles. It shows a king.

Scripture: Then work stopped on God’s house which is at Jerusalem. It stopped until the second year of the reign of Darius king of Persia.

The verse names Darius, king of Persia. Did he leave anything we can still see?

Just before, a letter from King Artaxerxes is read before Rehum and Shimshai the scribe. They go to Jerusalem and halt the Jews by force of arms.

Darius the Great was crowned king of Persia in the summer of 522 BC, and ruled until 486.

It is cut into a limestone cliff at Mount Behistun, in western Iran, about a hundred metres above an ancient road from Babylon to Ecbatana.

It is written in three languages, all in cuneiform, an ancient script, and is the longest known inscription of its kind.

Scripture: In his own account, Darius fought nineteen battles in one year, ending December 521 BC, against rebels he calls impostors. He credits the grace of Ahura Mazda.

Robert Sherley saw it in 1598 and brought it to the attention of Western European scholars. His party wrongly thought it Christian.

From 1835, British officer Henry Rawlinson studied it. He scaled the cliff and, with a local youth's help, copied the Old Persian text. By 1847, one source says, he had sent Europe a complete copy.

How does this connect to Ezra? Ezra names Darius, king of Persia, and the inscription is by Darius the Great. The sources here don't spell out that it's the same king. But the sources say it opens with a brief autobiography, then recounts his rebellions and victories. They don't link it to Ezra.

Some details stay uncertain: the fallen figure is only reputed to be Gaumata, and one figure and Darius's beard look like later additions.

So it shows us the king's world, though the sources don't connect it to the building site. May the Lord Jesus Christ be with you today. Follow along for tomorrow's find.