1:21 until the first year of King Cyrus. Babylon fell to Cyrus in 539 b.c., or sixty-six years after Daniel had been taken captive to Babylon. Daniel lived through the entire period of the Babylonian captivity. Cyrus issued a decree in the first year of his reign permitting the Israelites to return from captivity, and to take with them the vessels from the temple that had been seized by Nebuchadnezzar (Ezra 1:7–11). The statement does not mean that Daniel died in the first year of Cyrus (10:1).