World English Bible · The Persian return
Ezra 5
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Now , the and the son of , prophesied to the who were in Judah and . They prophesied to them in the name of the of Israel. Then the son of , and the son of rose up and began to build house which is at ; and with them were of , helping them. At the same time , the governor beyond , came to them, with and their companions, and asked them, "Who gave you a to build this house and to finish this wall?" 4They also asked for the names of the men who were making this building. But the eye of their was on the of the , and they didn't make them cease until the matter should come to , and an answer should be returned by letter concerning it. The copy of the letter that , the governor beyond , and , and his companions the Apharsachites who were beyond , sent to the king follows. They sent a letter to him, in which was written: To the king, all peace. Be it known to the king that we went into the province of Judah, to the house of the great , which is being built with great stones and timber is laid in the walls. This work goes on with diligence and prospers in their hands. Then we asked those , and said to them thus, "Who gave you a to build this house, and to finish this wall?" 10We asked them their names also, to inform you that we might write the names of the men who were at their head. Thus they returned us answer, saying, "We are the servants of the of and earth and are building the house that was built these many years ago, which a great king of Israel built and finished. But after our fathers had provoked the of to , he gave them into the hand of king of , the , who destroyed this house and carried the people away into . But in the first year of king of , the king made a to build this house of . The gold and silver vessels of house, which took out of that was in and brought into of , those the king also took out of of , and they were to one whose name was , whom he had made governor. He said to him, 'Take these vessels, go, put them in that is in , and let house be built in its place.' Then the same came and laid the foundations of house which is in . Since that time even until now it has been being built, and yet it is not completed. Now therefore, if it seems good to the king, let a search be made in the king's house, which is there at , whether it is so that a was made by the king to build this house of at ; and let the king send his pleasure to us concerning this matter."
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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.