World English Bible · The Persian return
Zechariah 3
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He showed me standing before , and standing at his to be his adversary. said to , " rebuke you, ! Yes, who has chosen rebuke you! Isn't this a burning stick plucked out of the ?" Now was clothed with filthy garments, and was standing before . He answered and spoke to those who stood before him, saying, "Take the filthy garments off him." To him he said, "Behold, I have caused your to pass from you, and I will clothe you with rich clothing." I said, "Let them set a clean turban on his head." So they set a clean turban on his head, and clothed him; and was standing by. solemnly assured , saying, " of Armies says: 'If you will walk in my ways, and if you will follow my instructions, then you also shall judge my house, and shall also keep my courts, and I will give you a place of access among these who stand by. Hear now, , you and your fellows who sit before you, for they are men who are a sign; for, behold, I will bring out my servant, the Branch. For, behold, the stone that I have set before : on one stone are seven eyes; behold, I will engrave its inscription,' of Armies, 'and I will remove the of that land in one day. In that day,' of Armies, 'you will invite every man his neighbor under and under the fig tree.'"
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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.