World English Bible · The Persian return
Esther 5
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Now on the third day, put on her royal clothing and stood in the inner court of the king's house, next to the king's house. The king sat on his royal in the royal house, next to the entrance of the house. When the king saw the queen standing in the court, she obtained in his sight; and the king held out to the golden that was in his hand. So came near and touched the top of the . Then the king asked her, "What would you like, queen ? What is your request? It shall be given you even to the half of ." said, "If it seems good to the king, let the king and come today to the banquet that I have prepared for him." Then the king said, "Bring quickly, so that it may be done as has said." So the king and came to the banquet that had prepared. The king said to at the banquet of , "What is your petition? It shall be granted you. What is your request? Even to the half of it shall be performed." 7Then answered and said, "My petition and my request is this. If I have in the sight of the king, and if it pleases the king to grant my petition and to perform my request, let the king and come to the banquet that I will prepare for them, and I will do tomorrow as the king has said." Then went out that day joyful and glad of , but when saw in the king's , that he didn't stand up nor move for him, he was filled with against . Nevertheless restrained himself, and went home. There, he sent and called for his friends and Zeresh his wife. recounted to them the of his riches, of his children, all the things in which the king had promoted him, and how he had advanced him above the princes and servants of the king. also said, "Yes, the queen let no man come in with the king to the banquet that she had prepared but myself; and tomorrow I am also invited by her together with the king. Yet all this avails me nothing, so long as I see the sitting at the king's ." Then Zeresh his wife and all his friends said to him, "Let a gallows be made fifty high, and in the morning speak to the king about hanging on it. Then go in merrily with the king to the banquet." This pleased , so he had the gallows made.
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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.