World English Bible · The Persian return
Joel 1
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word that came to , the son of . Hear this, you , and listen, all you inhabitants of the land! Has this ever happened in your days, or in the days of your fathers? Tell your children about it, and have your children tell their children, and their children, another generation. What the swarming has left, the great has eaten. What the great has left, the has eaten. What the has left, the caterpillar has eaten. Wake up, you drunkards, and weep! , all you drinkers of , because of the sweet , for it is your . For a nation has come up on my land, strong, and without number. His teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he has the fangs of a lioness. He has laid my waste, and stripped my fig tree. He has stripped its bark, and thrown it away. Its are made white. Mourn like a virgin dressed in for the husband of her youth! The and the drink are house. The priests, ministers, mourn. The field is laid waste. The land mourns, for the grain is destroyed, The has dried up, and the oil languishes. Be confounded, you farmers! , you keepers, for the wheat and for the barley; for the harvest of the field has . has dried up, and the fig tree withered— the pomegranate tree, the palm tree also, and the apple tree, even all of the trees of the field are withered; for joy has withered away from the sons of men. Put on and mourn, you priests! , you ministers of the . Come, lie all night in , you ministers of my , for the and the drink are withheld from your house. a . Call a solemn . Gather the and all the inhabitants of the land to the , your , and . Alas for the day! For is at hand, and it will come as from . Isn't the food before our eyes, joy and gladness from the house of our ? The seeds rot under their clods. The granaries are laid desolate. The barns are broken down, for the grain has withered. How the animals groan! The herds of livestock are perplexed, because they have no pasture. Yes, the flocks of sheep are made desolate. , I cry to you, for the has devoured the pastures of , and the flame has burned all the trees of the field. Yes, the animals of the field pant to you, for the water brooks have dried up, and the has devoured the pastures of .
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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.