World English Bible · The Persian return
Nehemiah 8
Touch any underlined name to see who or where it is. Tap a verse number to see where it is taken up elsewhere.
All the people gathered themselves together as one man into the wide place that was in front of the water gate; and they spoke to the to bring the book of of , which had commanded to Israel. the priest brought before , both men and women, and all who could hear with understanding, on the first day of the seventh month. He read from it before the wide place that was in front of the water gate from early morning until midday, in the of the men and the women, and of those who could understand. The ears of all the people were attentive to the book of . the stood on a pulpit of wood, which they had made for the purpose; and beside him stood , Shema, Anaiah, , Hilkiah, and , hand; and on his left hand, , Mishael, , , Hashbaddanah, , and . opened the book in the sight of all the people (for he was above all the people), and when he opened it, all the people stood up. Then , the great . All the people answered, ", ," with the lifting up of their hands. They bowed their heads, and with their faces to the ground. Also , , , , , , , , , , , , , and the , caused the people to understand ; and the people stayed in their place. They read in the book, in of , distinctly; and they gave the sense, so that they understood the reading. , who was the governor, the priest and , and the who taught the people said to all the people, "Today is to your . Don't mourn, nor weep." For all the people wept when they heard the words of . Then he said to them, "Go your way. Eat , drink the sweet, and send portions to him for whom nothing is prepared, for today is to our . Don't be grieved, for the joy of is your strength." So the calmed all the people, saying, "Hold your peace, for the day is . Don't be grieved." All the people went their way to eat, to drink, to send portions, and to celebrate, because they had understood the words that were declared to them. On the second day, the heads of fathers' households of all the people, the priests, and the were gathered together to the , to study the words of . They found written in how had commanded by that the should in in the feast of the seventh month; and that they should publish and proclaim in all their cities and in , saying, "Go out to the mountain, and get olive , of wild olive, myrtle , palm , and of thick trees, to make temporary shelters, as ." So the people went out and brought them, and made themselves temporary shelters, everyone on the roof of his house, in their courts, in the courts of house, in the wide place of the water gate, and in the wide place of . All of those who had come back out of made temporary shelters and lived in the temporary shelters, for since the days of Joshua the son of to that day the had not done so. There was very great gladness. Also day by day, from the first day to the last day, he read in the book of of . They kept the feast seven days; and on the eighth day was a solemn , according to the .
A public domain modern English translation, free to read and share. 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.