World English Bible · The Persian return
Zechariah 4
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who talked with me came again and wakened me, as a man who is wakened out of his sleep. He said to me, "What do you see?" I said, "I have seen, and behold, a lamp stand all of gold, with its bowl on the top of it, and its seven lamps on it; there are seven pipes to each of the lamps which are on the top of it; and two olive trees by it, one on the right side of the bowl, and the other on the left side of it." I answered and spoke to who talked with me, saying, "What are these, my ?" Then who talked with me answered me, "Don't you know what these are?" I said, "No, my ." Then he answered and spoke to me, saying, "This is word to , saying, 'Not by might, nor by , but by ,' of Armies. Who are you, great mountain? Before you are a plain; and he will bring out the with shouts of ', , to it!'" 8Moreover word came to me, saying, "The hands of have laid the foundation of this house. His hands shall also finish it; and you will know that of Armies has sent me to you. Indeed, who despises the day of small things? For these seven shall rejoice, and shall see the in the hand of . These are eyes, which run back and forth through the whole earth." Then I asked him, "What are these two olive trees on the right side of the lamp stand and on the left side of it?" I asked him the second time, "What are these two olive , which are beside the two golden spouts that pour the golden oil out of themselves?" He answered me, "Don't you know what these are?" I said, "No, my ." Then he said, "These are the two ones who stand by of the whole earth."
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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.