Chapter Three

3–1–3. The rebuilding of the altar by the returned Jews. 4–6. The restoration of lawful worship. 7–11. The beginning of the temple construction in Jerusalem. 12–13. A characterization of the people’s mood.

Ezra 3:1. When the seventh month came, and the children of Israel were already in the cities, then the people gathered together as one man in Jerusalem. The year of the altar construction is not specified. But it is certain that it was the same year in which the return of the Jews from Babylonian captivity occurred. From verse 6 it is evident that the altar was erected before the foundation of the temple, and the latter, according to verse 8, took place already in the second year after the return. The seventh month was chosen for the public assembly and the construction of the altar because it was pre-eminently the month of worship and the most important festivals. The assembly on the first day of this month was appointed in the law of Moses (Num 29:1).

Ezra 3:2. Then Jeshua, son of Jozadak, and his brothers the priests, and Zerubbabel, son of Shealtiel, and his brothers rose up and built the altar of the God of Israel, in order to offer burnt offerings upon it, as it is written in the law of Moses, the man of God. Everything necessary for the construction of the altar was, without doubt, prepared in advance; therefore the construction could be completed in one day and in the presence of the assembled people. By the brothers of Zerubbabel, who alongside Jeshua and the priests are named as the leaders of the construction, we must understand the representatives of the community, the heads of families.

Ezra 3:3. And they set the altar on its foundations, so that they were in fear of the foreign peoples; and they offered burnt offerings on it to the Lord, burnt offerings morning and evening. “And they set the altar on its foundations,” that is, on the place where it was in Solomon’s temple. It is possible that in addition, material from the old altar was laid into the foundation of the newly erected altar. The immediate motive for the construction of the altar was, according to verse 3, fear before the foreign peoples. The Jews hastened to construct the altar in order to “seek divine help for themselves” (Keil).

Ezra 3:4. And they celebrated the feast of booths, as prescribed, with daily burnt offerings in the prescribed number, according to the ordinance of each day. Ezra 3:5. And after that they offered the regular burnt offering, and at the new moons, and at all the festivals dedicated to the Lord, and every voluntary offering of the Lord from everyone who was willing-hearted. Ezra 3:6. From the first day of the seventh month they began to offer burnt offerings to the Lord. But the foundation of the temple of the Lord had not yet been laid. With the construction of the altar, proper performance of the worship ordained in the law was restored, and the celebration of festivals was begun.

Ezra 3:7. And they gave money to the stonecutters and carpenters, and food and drink and oil to the Sidonians and Tyrians, so that they would bring cedar wood from Lebanon to the sea to Jaffa, with the permission of Cyrus, king of Persia. Ezra 3:8. In the second year of their coming to the house of God in Jerusalem, in the second month, Zerubbabel, son of Shealtiel, and Jeshua, son of Jozadak, and their other brothers, the priests and Levites, and all who came from captivity to Jerusalem began the work and appointed the Levites from twenty years old and upward to oversee the work of the house of the Lord. Following the construction of the altar, they began to prepare material for the building of the temple, and in the second year after the return (that is, in 536), the laying of the temple foundation was accomplished. To this testimony of the passage under discussion, other biblical indications appear to contradict it. Thus, the prophet Haggai, who came forth in the 2nd year of Darius Hystaspes, speaks of how in his time the temple was “in desolation” (Hag 1:4); the people said: “it is not the time to build the house of the Lord” (Hag 1:2), and the prophet himself therefore had to turn to the Jews with an appeal: “go up to the mountain and bring wood, and build the temple” (Hag 1:8). Only after this speech did Zerubbabel and Jeshua, according to the words of the prophet Haggai, “come and begin to do works in the house of the Lord of hosts” (Hag 1:14). On the basis of (chiefly) the cited testimony of the prophet Haggai, Schrader (Die Dauer zweiten Tempelbaues. Theol. Stud. und Kritik. 1864. p. 460–504, and after him a whole series of scholars, suppose that the laying of the temple foundation was accomplished not in the second year after the return from captivity (536 B.C.), but in the second year of Darius Hystaspes, when the prophet Haggai appeared) (520–519 B.C.). In view of the testimony of Haggai the indications Ezra 3:7-8 are considered unreliable. However, it is scarcely the case that the testimony of the prophet Haggai contradicts Ezra 3:7-8. The word “desolation,” used by the prophet of the temple (Hag 1:4), does not mean that the temple was absent (desolation = empty, vacant). As can be concluded from the contrast of the Lord’s house to the paneled (boarded up) houses of the Jews themselves, by “desolation” the prophet indicates only the incompleteness of the construction. Likewise, the saying used by the prophet’s contemporaries: it is not yet the time, it is not the time to build the house of the Lord, does not have the meaning that the Jews down to 520 B.C. had not begun the construction, “considering themselves still under God’s wrath” (Wellhausen). The said proverb by which the Jews sought to explain the stoppage in the construction of the temple and to justify their indifference to this matter arose naturally from those obstacles that the poor and weak community had to overcome. In view of this, the prophet Haggai’s invitation: “go up to the mountain and bring wood, and build the house” (Hag 1:8) must be understood as an invitation to continue the construction, not to begin it. The prophet uses in this passage not the verb “to found,” as in Ezra 3:6, but the more general “to build.” Moreover, the prophet speaks of timber (“bring wood”), which is needed for the continuation of the construction, not of stone, which is needed for the laying of the foundation. Thus, the book of the prophet Haggai does not refute the testimony of the passage we are examining about the laying of the temple foundation under Cyrus in the second year after the return of the Jews. This fact is confirmed also by Ezra 5:15-16, where in the testimony from the time of Darius, after mentioning the decree of Cyrus concerning the construction of the temple (verse 15), it is noted: “then (that is, in the reign of Cyrus) that Sheshbazzar (Zerubbabel) came and laid the foundations of the house of God in Jerusalem, and from then until now (that is, until the time of Darius) it is being built and is not yet finished.”

Ezra 3:12. But many of the priests and Levites and chiefs of the fathers, the elders who had seen the former temple, when the foundation of this temple was laid before their eyes, wept aloud, but many also shouted aloud for joy. Ezra 3:13. And the people could not distinguish the shout of joy from the weeping of the people, because the people shouted with a loud shout, and the sound was heard far off. Since from the destruction of the first temple (586 B.C.) to the laying of the new one (536 B.C.) only 50 years had passed, among those gathered for the celebration, among the priests, Levites, and elders, there were many such people who had seen the former temple. The national celebration aroused in them a feeling of deep sorrow, which could arise in some from the consciousness of the insignificance of the future temple compared with Solomon’s (Hag 2:3), in others from the memories of the sufferings of captivity that emerged with special force in the solemn hour. But many, and first of all, of course, the young priests, “shouted aloud for joy.”