King James Version · The Persian return
Nehemiah 2
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And it came to pass in the month , in the twentieth year of the king, that was before him: and I took up the , and gave it unto the king. Now I had not been beforetime sad in his . Wherefore the king said unto me, Why is thy countenance sad, seeing thou art not sick? this is nothing else but sorrow of . Then I was very sore afraid, And said unto the king, Let the king live for ever: why should not my countenance be sad, when the city, the place of my fathers’ sepulchres, lieth waste, and the thereof are consumed with ? Then the king said unto me, For what dost thou make request? So I to the of . And I said unto the king, If it please the king, and if thy servant have found in thy sight, that thou wouldest send me unto Judah, unto the city of my fathers’ sepulchres, that I may build it. And the king said unto me, (the queen also sitting by him,) For how long shall thy journey be? and when wilt thou return? So it pleased the king to send me; and I set him a time. Moreover I said unto the king, If it please the king, let letters be given me to the governors beyond the river, that they may convey me over till I come into Judah; And a letter unto the keeper of the king’s forest, that he may give me timber to make beams for the of the palace which appertained to the house, and for the wall of the city, and for the house that I shall enter into. And the king granted me, according to the good hand of my upon me. Then I came to the governors beyond the river, and gave them the king’s letters. Now the king had sent captains of the army and horsemen with me. When the , and the servant, the , heard of it, it grieved them exceedingly that there was come a man to seek the welfare of the . So I came to , and was there three days. And I arose in the night, I and some few men with me; neither told I any man what my had put in to do at : neither was there any beast with me, that I rode upon. And I went out by night by the of the valley, even before the dragon well, and to the dung port, and viewed the walls of , which were broken down, and the thereof were consumed with . Then I went on to the of the fountain, and to the king’s pool: but there was no place for that was under me to pass. Then went I up in the night by the brook, and viewed the wall, and turned back, and entered by the of the valley, and so returned. 16And the knew not whither I went, or what I did; neither had I as yet told it to the , nor to the priests, nor to the nobles, nor to the , nor to the rest that did the work. Then said I unto them, Ye see the distress that we are in, how lieth waste, and the thereof are burned with : come, and let us build up the wall of , that we be no more a . Then I told them of the hand of my which was good upon me; as also the king’s words that he had spoken unto me. And they said, Let us rise up and build. So they strengthened their hands for this good work. But when the , and the servant, the , and the , heard it, they laughed us to scorn, and despised us, and said, What is this thing that ye do? will ye rebel against the king? Then answered I them, and said unto them, The of , he will prosper us; therefore we his servants will arise and build: but ye have no , nor right, nor memorial, in .
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.