World English Bible · The Persian return
Zechariah 11
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Open your doors, , that the may devour your cedars. , cypress tree, for the cedar has fallen, because the stately ones are destroyed. , you oaks of , for the strong forest has come down. A voice of the of the ! For their is destroyed—a voice of the roaring of young lions! For the pride of is ruined. my says: "Feed the slaughter. Their buyers slaughter them and go unpunished. Those who sell them say, ' be , for I am rich;' and their own don't them. For I will no more the inhabitants of the land," ; "but, behold, I will every one of the men into his neighbor's hand and into the hand of his king. They will strike the land, and out of their hand I will not them." So I fed the flock to be slaughtered, especially the oppressed of the flock. I took for myself two . The one I called "" and the other I called "Union", and I fed the flock. I the three in one month; for was weary of them, and their also loathed me. Then I said, "I will not feed you. That which dies, let it ; and that which is to , let it ; and let those who are left eat each other's ." I took my and cut it apart, that I might break my that I had made with all the peoples. It was broken in that day; and thus of the flock that listened to me knew that it was word. I said to them, "If you think it best, give me my wages; and if not, keep them." So they weighed for my wages thirty pieces of silver. said to me, "Throw it to the —the handsome price that I was valued at by them!" I took pieces of silver and threw them to the in house. Then I cut apart my other , Union, that I might break the brotherhood between Judah and Israel. said to me, "Take for yourself yet again the equipment of a foolish . For, behold, I will raise up a in the land who will not visit those who are , neither will seek those who are scattered, nor heal that which is broken, nor feed that which is sound; but he will eat the meat of sheep, and will tear their hoofs in pieces. Woe to the worthless who leaves the flock! will strike his arm and his right eye. His arm will be completely withered, and his right eye will be totally blinded!"
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.