World English Bible · The Persian return
Esther 4
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Now when found out all that was done, tore his clothes and put on with , and went out into the middle of the city, and wailed loudly and bitterly. 2He came even before the king's , for no one is allowed inside the king's clothed with . In every province, wherever the king's and his came, there was great among the , and , and weeping, and ; and many lay in . maidens and her came and told her this, and the queen was exceedingly grieved. She sent clothing to , to replace his , but he didn't receive it. Then called for Hathach, one of the king's , whom he had appointed to attend her, and commanded him to go to , to find out what this was, and why it was. So Hathach went out to , to the city square which was before the king's . told him of all that had happened to him, and the exact sum of the money that had promised to pay to the king's treasuries for the of the . He also gave him the copy of the writing of the that was given out in to destroy them, to show it to , and to declare it to her, and to urge her to go in to the king to make to him, and to make request before him for her people. 9Hathach came and told the words of . 10Then spoke to Hathach, and gave him a message to : "All the king's servants and the people of the king's provinces know that whoever, whether man or woman, comes to the king into the inner court without being called, there is one law for him, that he be put to , except those to whom the king might hold out the golden , that he may live. I have not been called to come in to the king these thirty days." 12They told words to . Then asked them to return this answer to : "Don't think to yourself that you will escape in the king's house any more than all the . For if you silent now, then relief and will come to the from another place, but you and your house will . Who knows if you haven't come to for such a time as this?" 15Then asked them to answer , "Go, gather together all the who are present in , and for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day. I and my maidens will also the same way. Then I will go in to the king, which is against ; and if I , I ." 17So went his way, and did according to all that had commanded him.
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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.