Saga of the Second Temple

The story of the great awakening

Somewhere in the Book of Isaiah there is a passage that describes the spirit in which the Jewish exiles, returning from Babylon to rebuild the Temple at Jerusalem in the days of Cyrus king of Persia, journeyed across the desert and climbed the steep, ragged Judean hills to their ruined city. "Thy watchmen shall lift up the voice; with the voice together shall they sing: for they shall see eye to eye, when the LORD shall bring again Zion. Break forth into joy, sing together, ye waste places of Jerusalem: for the LORD hath comforted his people, he hath redeemed Jerusalem..." (Isa.52:8‑9) That deliverance from Babylonian captivity was a very different thing from the Exodus out of Egypt. Under Moses the earlier Israelites had gone out in haste and by flight, first eating the Passover girded as for a journey and with every evidence of urgency. They had gone out against the wishes of the Egypt that had held them captive for four generations. But this time things were different. "Ye shall not go out with haste, nor yet by flight." (v.12) Cyrus had issued a decree encouraging them to go and given them necessities for the journey and the wherewithal to commence a new life in an empty and desolate land. He had restored to them the holy treasures that Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the Temple and brought to Babylon fifty years previously, and had commanded them to build again the magnificent building that his predecessor had destroyed. No wonder they rejoiced! No wonder that, in the words of the Psalmist, singing of this very event, "When the LORD turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream. Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing: then said they among the heathen (nations), The LORD hath done great things for them. The LORD hath done great things for us;…we are glad." (Psa.126:1‑3)

It was in this spirit that fifty thousand immigrants came into the land and immediately set about raising the walls of the Temple. The enthusiasm was great at first, for the influence of Daniel, the man who had once been Nebuchadnezzar’s Prime Minister, was still strong upon them. Daniel, too old now to come back to Judea, had blessed their going. Now in the seventh month, the time of the Feast of Tabernacles, that commemorated their journeying in the wilderness for forty years after their departure from Egypt, they were gathered together in Jerusalem. From all the villages and hamlets of Judea they had come to worship before God at the first ceremonial to be conducted on the sacred site since Nebuzar‑adan the commander‑in‑chief of Nebuchadnezzar’s army had set fire to the Temple, and burned it to the ground. That had been a time of disaster and sorrow; this was one of hope and expectation. The house of the Lord was to be rebuilt and the ancient ceremonies restored, and Israel would once more bear a name among the nations. This was the faith that burned brightly in every breast.

The little community had two leaders of sterling worth, Zerubbabel the prince and Joshua the High Priest. Zerubbabel was of the kingly line; he traced his natural descent from Nathan the son of David. The royal pedigree from Solomon had become extinct in Jehoiachin, and the humbler line of Nathan took its place after the Captivity; thus, Zerubbabel was its present representative. Through him, though he knew it not, the royal line was to be carried on until of his descendants, one day, Jesus would be born in Bethlehem. Joshua the son of Jehozadak was a High Priest for the times. Nothing is known of his father, who was Israel’s High Priest during the Babylonian captivity. His grandfather, Seraiah, High Priest in the days of Zedekiah, was executed by the Babylonians at the capture of the city. Jeremiah’s picture of the political intrigues of that period indicate that the priests were hand in glove with the king and very possibly Seraiah was entangled with politics more than he should have been and suffered a fate he might have avoided had he been more devoted to his own commission before God. Nebuchadnezzar had a shrewd insight into the honesty or otherwise of men and it is impossible not to notice the difference between the respective treatments he meted out to Seraiah and to Jeremiah, who had kept out of politics and maintained, very faithfully, his witness to God. (Jer.39:11‑14 and 52:24‑27). But it is evident that Joshua was of sterling worth. The approving tone of Zechariah’s third chapter shows that he was a man the Lord could use. Under these two men, Zerubbabel and Joshua, Israel could have risen very quickly to a place of honour and power among the nations.

The people failed them. The people, who had come back from Babylon with songs of praise on their lips for so great deliverance, in joy that the Lord had turned again their captivity, began to lose their first fine enthusiasm, began to care more for their own farms and gardens and houses than for the house of the Lord. The affairs of daily life loomed as of greater moment than the service of God, and when the adversaries of Judah began to put obstacles in the way of the restoration work Israel in the mass were not at all averse to letting the case go by default.

While Cyrus lived, the work went on, but not at the pace originally planned. The Samaritans, bitter enemies of Judah, hindered the work. It was not entirely stopped, but neither was it pressed ahead with zeal and expedition. They made one great and grievous mistake.

If the Samaritan complaint to Cambyses II (Ahasuerus Ezra 4:6), the successor of Cyrus, recorded in Ezra 4, was true, and not a malicious misrepresentation on their part, then the Jews were at that time engaged in building, not only the Temple, but also the walls and foundations of the city. Now it is important to notice that the decree of Cyrus gave no mandate to build the city; it was to build the Temple only. There was a deep truth here for Israel to learn. Their Temple was to rise, undefended, in the midst of a hostile population. The Lord himself would defend both his Temple and his people—but they would not. They fell after the same example of unbelief that has been seen so often in world history—resource to material means of defence to defend Divine interests. They would not understand that God is able to defend his own.

That was a test on the people. Now, at all events, they could have said, as did Peter on a certain memorable occasion "Whether it be right…to hearken unto you (men) rather than unto God, judge ye; for..." (Acts 4:19‑20 RV) They could have defied both the Samaritans and the king’s edict, and taken themselves in prayer to God for his leading and his protection, and gone forward in faith that his purposes would be accomplished. But they did not. Therefore, in consequence "then ceased the work of the house of God which is at Jerusalem. So it ceased unto the second year of the reign of Darius king of Persia." (Ezra 4:24).

So, the whole glorious dream faded and the golden hopes with which the exiles had set out to return to their own land were in less than a decade dashed to the ground. At the first breath of opposition the people had wilted and laid down their tools, and turned themselves to the secular pursuits of every day, tilling the land and gaining livelihoods, building houses and organising communal life, buying and selling, marrying and giving in marriage, the while the deserted, half‑finished house of God stood on Mount Moriah, a crumbling monument to the fickleness of man and the weakness of faith.

But in the second year of Darius, nineteen years after the exiles had returned from Babylon and ten years after work on the Temple had been completely stopped, something momentous happened. Two young men, Haggai and Zechariah, suddenly came into the public eye and commenced preaching in Jerusalem and Judea. Haggai started first; two months later he was joined by his fellow‑prophet Zechariah. These two young men, without any material resources, accomplished in the short space of four years what twenty years of time backed by all the material wealth of the thousands of Israel, the influence of Zerubbabel and Joshua, the authority of the decree of Cyrus, had failed to do. They achieved the rebuilding and the dedication of the Temple!

If the Zechariah and Iddo of Neh.12 are the same as the prophet and his forebear of those names mentioned in Zech.1:1, which is probable, then Zechariah must have been a very young man, certainly at most in his early twenties, for Iddo his grandfather would then have returned to Judea in the first year of Cyrus, probably an old man. On this assumption, it is likely that Haggai, about whose antecedents we know nothing, was a young man also. There is a freshness and vigour about both their prophecies that seems to suggest as much. Zerubbabel the prince and Joshua the High Priest would by this time, twenty years after the Return, be getting on in years, at the very least in late middle‑age; Neh.12:16 indicates that later on Zechariah held office in the priesthood under Joiakim, the High Priest who succeeded Joshua. The two older men would probably be to some extent dispirited and discouraged at the failure of their high hopes, the adverse decision of Artaxerxes and the apathy of the people of Israel combining to dissuade them from any considerable activity in the direction of restoring the Temple. Then like a thunderbolt came the message, declaimed in the streets and squares of the city, told in the ears of shepherds and peasants in the countryside, brought to the notice of the prince and the High Priest, word that prophets were arisen again in Israel. A message for the times, a message that told with decision and conviction to what cause was due their unhappy condition and the failure of their one‑time high ideals and hopes. "Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your ceiled (panelled) houses, and this house lie waste?" demanded Haggai. "Now therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts; Consider your ways"! (Hag.1:4‑5) Scarcely had the tones of his accusation died upon the air than the equally penetrating voice of his brother‑prophet Zechariah commanded attention. "The LORD hath been sore displeased with your fathers. Therefore...thus saith the LORD of hosts; Turn ye unto me...and I will turn unto you." (Zech.1:2‑3) Then Haggai again "Go up to the mountain, and bring wood, and build the house; and I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified, saith the LORD." (Hag.1:8) To Joshua, the people’s High Priest, Zechariah addressed himself deliberately "Thus saith the LORD of hosts; if thou wilt walk in my ways, and if thou wilt keep my charge, then thou shalt also judge my house, and shalt also keep my courts" (Zech.3:7); with Haggai rejoining "Be strong, O Zerubbabel, saith the LORD; and be strong, O Joshua, son of Josedech, the High Priest, and be strong, all ye people of the land, saith the LORD, and work: for I am with you." (Hag.2:4)

Haggai and Zechariah had put their fingers upon the source of the trouble. Faith and zeal had sunk to a low ebb: there was no longer that heavenly vision which had inspired the first emigrants to wend their way across the desert with songs and thanksgiving on their lips, and their faces turned toward Zion. Because faith and zeal had waned, the enemies of Israel and of God had loomed nearer and more menacing, and in fear and doubt the work of God had been stopped.

Behold now the difference! The prohibition of the Persian king was still in force. "Cause these men to cease, and that this city be not builded, until commandment shall be given from me." (Ezra 4:21). The wrath of the king could still be backed by the military might of Persia if this handful of Jews dared to rebel against his express decree. The Samaritans, the ancient enemies at whose instigation the work had been stopped ten years previously, were still there, malignantly watchful, and would not hesitate to report any new activity to the king without delay. There was no change in the circumstances; no reason from the outward and material point of view why any fresh endeavour would not meet the same fate as past ones. And yet, most remarkable of happenings, the fervent preaching of these two youngsters so wrought upon the minds and hearts of the people that they forgot all their fears and apathy, regained their faith, and without so much as giving a thought to the king of Persia, rose up as one man to resume the building of their Temple. "Then the prophets, Haggai the prophet, and Zechariah the son of Iddo, prophesied unto the Jews that were in Judah and Jerusalem in the name of the God of Israel...then rose up Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Jeshua the son of Jozadak, and began to build the house of God which is at Jerusalem: and with them were the prophets of God helping them." (Ezra 5:1‑2). That is only the bald historical note of the happening; let the books of Haggai and Zechariah tell the splendid story in their own way, how that the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, and Joshua, the high priest, and all the people, so that they came and did work in the house of the Lord (Hag.1:14); how the Lord promised "the glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former" (Hag.2:9) and that wonderful award, set as a gem in this inspiring prophecy "from the day that the foundation of the LORD’s temple was laid...FROM THIS DAY WILL I BLESS YOU." (Hag.2:18‑19). Let the splendid imagery of Zechariah’s visions illuminate those joyful days, the view of Jerusalem inhabited as towns without walls for the multitude of men and cattle therein, of the prosperity of Judah and the defeat of her enemies, and the kingship of the Lord established over all the earth. The wonderful inspiration that we ourselves draw from this thrilling book we owe to the days when those two young men stood in the markets of Jerusalem and bade the people forget their fears, pay no heed to the mandates of the heathen king, and enter the service of the Lord God in the building of his sanctuary.

Of course, it was not long before the Samaritans were there again, taking particulars from the leaders, and sitting down to write another report to the Persian king—Darius this time—at Babylon. Note the difference in the spirit with which their questioning was met on this occasion. "We are the servants of the God of heaven and earth, and build the house that was builded these many years ago…" (Ezra 5:11) There was no fear and hesitation now; the same Zerubbabel and Joshua, the same builders and labourers, the same citizens, who ten years ago had laid down their tools at the king’s behest, now proudly declared their determination to continue. Last time they ran away from the lion; this time they faced the lion, and defied him in the strength of the Lord their God.

The sequel? Let Darius answer for himself, in his reply to the complainants "Let the work of this house of God alone; let the governor of the Jews and the elders of the Jews build this house of God in his place. Moreover I make a decree..." (Ezra 6:7‑8) and Darius went on to command that assistance be given to these Jews in their work, with materials and money, and offerings to be made to God on the king’s behalf; that any who hindered the work or violated the king’s word should himself be put to death. "I Darius have made a decree; let it be done with speed." (Ezra 6:12)

How often do we repeat to each other the old saying "Fear knocked at the door; faith opened it; and no one was there!" Here is an instance where that principle was put into practice and a whole people reaped the reward of faith. But there was much more involved than the building of a house of prayer for that generation. It was from this day, when the Temple began to be built, that there commenced the development of that Jewish people, with its distinctive worship, to which Jesus came nearly five centuries later. It was at this time that the Old Testament as we know it was completed, in the sayings and writings of Haggai and Zechariah and Malachi, to be welded into an authoritative canon of Scripture by Ezra the pious priest fifty years later. Those enthusiastic and zealous Jews under Zerubbabel and Joshua, Haggai and Zechariah, builded better than they knew when they defied the powers of this world and laid their hands to the Lord’s work. They brought the work and the story of the Old Testament to its consummation and prepared the way for the New.

"This house was finished on the third day of the month Adar, which was in the sixth year of the reign of Darius the king." (Ezra 6:15). Four short years. In that brief space of time they had built the sanctuary, erected the great altar, set the golden vessels of Solomon’s Temple, brought back from Babylon, in place, and were ready to reinstate the ceremonial offerings that were commanded by Moses. It was nearly the season of the Passover. Nisan followed Adar, and from the third day of Adar there would only be some six weeks to the fourteenth day of Nisan and the celebration of Israel’s most solemn feast.

Accomplishment, therefore, follows faith and zeal, never doubt and unbelief. We who have been set free from a great bondage are given the privilege of becoming Temple‑builders. It is in the strength of God that we play our part in that work of building the Temple which is to be a house of prayer for all nations; as we share together in Passover let us remember that there was a time when the powers of this Age, the powers of evil, had to be defied before God’s protection could be manifested and his work go forward. It may be so again. God grant that in such case we are found, not like those who weakly acquiesced in the command to stop work, but those who joyfully and zealously went forward to the execution of their Divine commission, trusting their God for defence while they laboured in the interests of his work in the earth.

AOH