King James Version · The Persian return
Daniel 12
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And at that time shall stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be , every one that shall be found written in the book. And many of them that of the earth , some to , and some to and contempt. And they that be shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to as the stars . But thou, O , shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased. Then I looked, and, behold, there stood other two, the one on this side of the bank of the river, and the other on that side of the bank of the river. And one said to the man clothed in linen, which was upon the waters of the river, How long shall it be to the end of these wonders? And I heard the man clothed in linen, which was upon the waters of the river, when he held up his and his left hand unto , and sware by him that liveth for ever that it shall be for a time, times, and an half; and when he shall have accomplished to scatter the of the people, all these things shall be finished. And I heard, but I understood not: then said I, O my , what shall be the end of these things? And he said, Go thy way, : for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end. Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but shall do wickedly: and none of shall understand; but shall understand. And from the time that the daily shall be taken away, and the that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days. is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days. But go thou thy way till the end be: for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days.
The 1611 translation, public domain. Its original printing included the Apocrypha, which is why the deuterocanonical books can be read here. Notes and cards are EKLI’s own.
The world at this moment · The Persian return, 539 BC to 332 BC ›
Persia takes Babylon and reverses its policy, sending exiled peoples home to rebuild their temples. Judah returns as a small province, rebuilding under imperial permission rather than independence.
- Persia
- The largest empire the world had yet seen, from the Indus to the Aegean, run through provinces, a royal road, and a postal system. Its policy on conquered peoples was to send them home and fund their temples, in exchange for loyalty and prayers for the king. The Cyrus Cylinder states the policy in Cyrus's own words, and Ezra opens with the same policy applied to Judah.
- Judah
- A small, poor province called Yehud, a fraction of the old kingdom, with a rebuilt temple that made the people who remembered the first one weep. No king, and no prospect of one. Leadership passes to priests and scribes, which shapes everything afterward.
- Greece
- Persia and Greece collide at Marathon and Salamis, Persia loses, and Athens spends the following decades on the Parthenon, tragedy, and Socrates. Herodotus writes the first history in order to explain that war. Then Plato and Aristotle, whose vocabulary the church will still be using at Nicaea eight centuries later.
- Further afield
- Rome throws out its kings and becomes a republic. In India and China this is the age of the Buddha's early followers and of Confucian teaching taking hold. More of what the world still thinks with was invented in this era than in almost any other.