Orders from King Darius to build the temple
6
📚Then Darius the king issued an order, and a search was made in the archives, where the treasures were stored in Babylon. 2 📚And a scroll was found at Ecbatana 📖, in the palace that is in the province of the Medes 📖, and in it a record was written as follows: 3 📚“In the first year of King Cyrus, King Cyrus issued a decree concerning the house of God at Jerusalem, ‘Let the house be built, the place where they offered sacrifices, and let its foundations be firmly laid. Its height is to be sixty cubits, and its width sixty cubits 📖, 4 📚with three rows of large stones, and a row of new timber. And let the expenses be paid from the king’s house. 5 📚And also let the gold and silver articles of the house of God, which Nebuchadnezzar took from the temple at Jerusalem and brought to Babylon, be restored and brought back to the temple at Jerusalem, each one to its place, and put them in the house of God.’
6 📚“Now therefore, Tatnai, governor beyond the River, Shethar-Boznai, and your companions the Apharsachites, who are beyond the River, stay at a distance from there. 7 📚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 its place.
8 📚“Moreover, I issue this decree concerning what you must do for the elders of these Jews for the building of this house of God: expenses from the king’s goods, from the taxes beyond the River, are immediately to be given to these men, so that they are not hindered. 9 📚And let what they need, both young bulls and rams and lambs, for the burnt offerings of the God of heaven, wheat, salt, wine, and oil, in accordance with the appointment of the priests who are at Jerusalem, be given them day by day without fail,
6:8-9 God so worked that the plot of enemies to stop the work was turned to a means of actually helping the work go forward. Such is God’s great and wise sovereignty over the affairs of men. Compare Gen 50:20.⚜
10 📚so that they can offer fragrant sacrifices to the God of heaven, and pray for the life of the king and of his sons.
6:10 The Persian rulers usually had a tolerant attitude toward religion. They encouraged the building or restoration of temples in other lands as well as Judah. They were not devoted to the God of Israel, but merely thought that all nations should have the religion and the gods they chose and be able to worship without hindrance. Their object was the well being of themselves and the empire.⚜
11 📚“Also I have issued a decree, that whoever alters this word, let timber be pulled down from his house and set up, and let him be hanged on it, and let his house be made a refuse heap for this.
12 📚And the God who has caused his name to dwell there, destroy all kings and people who take in hand to change and destroy this house of God at Jerusalem. “I Darius have issued a decree. Let it be done with speed”.
6:6-12 This portion gives the letter King Darius wrote to the governor.⚜
Dedication of the completed temple
13 📚Then Tatnai 📖, governor on this side the River, Shethar-Boznai, and their companions, quickly acted in accordance with the message Darius the king had sent. 14 📚And the elders of the Jews built, and they prospered through the prophesying of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah 📖 the son of Iddo. And they built, and finished it, in accordance with the commandment of the God of Israel, and in accordance with the command of Cyrus and Darius, and Artaxerxes 📖 king of Persia. 15 📚And 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.
16 📚And the children of Israel, the priests, and the Levites, and the rest of the children of the captivity, observed the dedication of this house of God with joy, 17 📚and offered at the dedication of this house of God a hundred bulls, two hundred rams, four hundred lambs, and, as a sin offering 📖 for all Israel, twelve he-goats, in accordance with the number of the tribes of Israel. 18 📚And they appointed the priests in their divisions, and the Levites in their courses, for the service of God at Jerusalem, as it is written in the book of Moses.
First Passover at Jerusalem after the exile
19 📚And the children of the captivity kept the Passover on the fourteenth day of the first month.
20 📚For the priests and the Levites were purified together, all of them were clean 📖, and they killed the Passover for all the children of the captivity, and for their brethren the priests, and for themselves. 21 📚And the children of Israel who had come back from captivity, and all those who had separated themselves 📖 from the filth of the nations of the land, to seek the LORD God of Israel, ate it with them, 22 📚and joyfully kept the Feast of Unleavened Bread 📖 seven days. For the Lord had made them joyful, and had turned the heart of the king of Assyria 📖 toward them, to encourage them in the work of the house of God, the God of Israel.