World English Bible · The Persian return
Nehemiah 6
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Now when it was reported to , , the , and to the rest of our that I had built the wall, and that there was no breach left in it (though even to that time I had not set up the doors ), and sent to me, saying, "Come! Let's meet together in the villages in the plain of Ono." But they intended to harm me. I sent to them, saying, "I am doing a great work, so that I can't come down. Why should the work cease while I leave it and come down to you?" They sent to me four times like this; and I answered them the same way. Then sent his servant to me the same way the fifth time with an open letter in his hand, in which was written, "It is reported among the nations, and says it, that you and the intend to rebel. Because of that, you are building the wall. You would be their king, according to these words. You have also appointed to proclaim of you at , saying, 'There is a king in Judah!' Now it will be reported to the king according to these words. Come now therefore, and let's take together." Then I sent to him, saying, "There are no such things done as you say, but you imagine them out of your own ." For they all would have made us afraid, saying, "Their hands will be weakened from the work, that it not be done." But now, strengthen my hands. I went to the house of the son of the son of , who was shut in at his home; and he said, "Let us meet together in house, within , and let's shut the doors of ; for they will come to kill you. Yes, in the night they will come to kill you." I said, "Should a man like me flee? Who is there that, being such as I, would go into to his life? I will not go in." I discerned, and behold, had not sent him, but he pronounced this against me. and had hired him. He was hired so that I would be afraid, do so, and , and that they might have material for an evil report, that they might me. "Remember, my , and according to these their works, and also the and the rest of that would have put me in fear." So the wall was finished in the twenty-fifth day of , in fifty-two days. When all our heard of it, all the nations that were around us were afraid, and they lost their confidence; for they perceived that this work was done by our . Moreover in those days the nobles of Judah sent many letters to , and letters came to them. For there were many in Judah to him because he was the son-in-law of the son of Arah; and his son had taken the daughter of the son of as wife. Also they spoke of his good deeds before me, and reported my words to him. sent letters to put me in fear.
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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.