King James Version · The Persian return
Zechariah 9
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The burden of the word of in the land of Hadrach, and shall be the rest thereof: when the eyes of man, as of all the tribes of Israel, shall be toward . And also shall border thereby; , and Zidon, though it be very . And did build herself a strong hold, and heaped up silver as , and fine gold as the mire of the streets. Behold, will cast her out, and he will smite her in the sea; and she shall be devoured with . shall see it, and fear; also shall see it, and be very sorrowful, and ; for her shall be ; and the king shall from , and shall not be inhabited. And a bastard shall in , and I will the pride of the . And I will take away his out of his , and his from between his teeth: but he that remaineth, even he, shall be for our , and he shall be as a governor in Judah, and as a . And I will encamp about mine house because of the army, because of him that passeth by, and because of him that returneth: and no oppressor shall pass through them any more: for now have I seen with mine eyes. Rejoice greatly, O daughter of ; shout, O daughter of : behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is , and having ; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass. And I will the chariot from , and the horse from , and the battle bow : and he shall speak peace unto the heathen: and his shall be from sea even to sea, and from the river even to the ends of the earth. As for thee also, by of thy I have sent forth thy prisoners out of wherein is no water. Turn you to the strong hold, ye prisoners of : even to day do I declare that I will render double unto thee; When I have bent Judah for me, filled the bow with , and up thy sons, O , against thy sons, O , and made thee as of a mighty man. And shall be seen over them, and his arrow shall go forth as the lightning: and shall blow the , and shall go with whirlwinds of the south. of hosts shall defend them; and they shall devour, and with sling stones; and they shall drink, and make a noise as through ; and they shall be filled like bowls, and as the corners of the . And their shall them in that day as the his people: for they shall be as the stones of a , lifted up as an ensign upon his land. For how great is his goodness, and how great is his beauty! corn shall make the young men cheerful, and the maids.
The 1611 translation, public domain. Its original printing included the Apocrypha, which is why the deuterocanonical books can be read here. 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.