King James Version · The Persian return
Nehemiah 4
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But it came to pass, that when heard that we builded the wall, he was wroth, and took great , and mocked the . And he spake before his brethren and the army of , and said, What do these feeble ? will they fortify themselves? will they ? will they make an end in a day? will they revive the stones out of the heaps of the rubbish which are burned? Now the was by him, and he said, Even that which they build, if a fox go up, he shall even break down their stone wall. Hear, O our ; for we are despised: and turn their upon their own head, and give them for a prey in the land of : And cover not their , and let not their be blotted out from before thee: for they have provoked thee to before the builders. So built we the wall; and all the wall was joined together unto the half thereof: for the people had a to work. But it came to pass, that when , and , and the , and , and the Ashdodites, heard that the walls of were made up, and that the breaches began to be stopped, then they were very wroth, And conspired all of them together to come and to fight against , and to hinder it. Nevertheless we made our unto our , and set a watch against them day and night, because of them. And Judah said, The strength of the bearers of burdens is decayed, and there is much rubbish; so that we are not able to build the wall. And our said, They shall not know, neither see, till we come in the midst among them, and them, and cause the work to cease. And it came to pass, that when the which dwelt by them came, they said unto us ten times, From all places whence ye shall return unto us they will be upon you. Therefore set I in the lower places behind the wall, and on the higher places, I even set the people after their families with their , their spears, and their bows. And I looked, and rose up, and said unto the nobles, and to the , and to the rest of the people, Be not ye afraid of them: remember , which is great and terrible, and fight for your brethren, your sons, and your daughters, your wives, and your houses. And it came to pass, when our heard that it was known unto us, and had brought their to nought, that we returned all of us to the wall, every one unto his work. And it came to pass from that time forth, that the half of my servants wrought in the work, and the other half of them held both the spears, the shields, and the bows, and the habergeons; and the were behind all the house of Judah. They which builded on the wall, and they that burdens, with those that laded, every one with one of his hands wrought in the work, and with the other hand held a weapon. For the builders, every one had his girded by his side, and so builded. And he that sounded the was by me. 19And I said unto the nobles, and to the , and to the rest of the people, The work is great and large, and we are separated upon the wall, one far from another. In what place therefore ye hear the sound of the , resort ye thither unto us: our shall fight for us. So we laboured in the work: and half of them held the spears from the rising of the morning till the stars appeared. Likewise at the same time said I unto the people, Let every one with his servant lodge within , that in the night they may be a guard to us, and labour on the day. So neither I, nor my brethren, nor my servants, nor the men of the guard which followed me, none of us put off our clothes, saving that every one put them off for washing.
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.