Jerusalem Temple, walls rebuilt
Jerusalem Temple, walls rebuilt
Prophet Ezra convinces Jerusalem Jews to finish rebuilding the Temple that invading Babylonians destroyed about 70 years earlier. Then in another 70 years or so, Nehemiah, the Jewish wine-taster of the Persian king gets his king's permission to repair some of the walls around Jerusalem.
Map Persian province of Judah
Map Persian province of Judah
Map of the Persian province of Judah
After the Jewish nation of Judah fell to Babylonian invaders in 586, many survivors lived in exile. Some returned 50 years later, when Persians freed them.
It was only a partial freedom. The Jews lived for the next 200 years as a tiny province of Persia: Yehud, which is translated "Judah" or "Judea."
It was roughly a 40-mile-wide square plug of ground (60 km), in territory that became known as Palestine. The Jewish province included Jerusalem and beyond, into what are now central parts of Israel and Occupied Palestinian Territories.
Jerusalem is where Jews sacrificed animals to God. So when the Jews returned, they built a new temple and later restored some of the walls around the city, but not to the larger size it was before the defeat.
Map of Judah as a Persian province
Map Persian Empire in time of Ezra, Nehemiah
Map Persian Empire in time of Ezra, Nehemiah
Map Persian Empire in time of Ezra, Nehemiah, with Persian Empire Provinces. Persian kings at the time reigned over provinces like Judah, from Libya and Egypt in the west to the border of India in the distant east. The empire stretched 2,800 miles (4,500 km) from the Indus Valley on India’s border in the distant east, to Egypt, Libya, and Ethiopia’s border in the southwest. That’s about Bangor, Maine to Los Angeles.
Persian Empire in time of Ezra, Nehemiah
Nehemiah rebuilds walls of Jerusalem
Nehemiah rebuilds walls of Jerusalem
Nehemiah rebuilt walls, gates of Jerusalem
Nehemiah is one odd story. He’s a Jew serving wine to a Persian king in what is now Iran. Who saw that coming? The king, Artaxerxes, trusts this Jewish man with his life. How did Nehemiah get there? Likely he was the descendant of Jews taken captive to Babylon (Iraq) about 150 years earlier, when Babylon leveled Jerusalem and other cities and took the Jews captive. About 50 years later, Persia (Iran) defeated Babylon and freed the Jews and other captives to go home. But many Jews stayed because they grew up in exile. Iraq and Iran was the only homeland they knew. Yet, many returned to the land of their ancestors to rebuild Jerusalem and the other cities. Nehemiah gets word that Jerusalem’s walls are still broken down and the city gates are gone. It’s a city undefended. He can’t believe it. By this time, Jews have had about 90 years to fix those walls.Winetaster becomes city builder
So, Nehemiah talks the king into giving him a 12-year leave of absence so he can repair the walls. It certainly seems odd that the king would grant his winetaster’s Big Ask. Yet the king also agrees to give him the wood for the job, sends him with a detachment of soldiers as an escort, and then appoints him governor over the Jewish province of Judah. That’s what the southern Jewish nation of Judah had become, a Persian province ruled by a Persian king who even chose the songs Jews could sing at the Temple (Nehemiah 11:23). Earlier, when Babylon exiled Jews from their homeland, settlers moved in. They hated the idea of Jews returning to power because it meant the Jews would try to take back the land and get rid of everyone else. Nehemiah had 12 years to fix the walls. It took him 52 days. Nehemiah rallied Jerusalem-area Jews to join the work. They felt the clock sands slipping away while their neighbors plotted to stop the work. Murdering Nehemiah seems to have been one plan on the table. Attacking the work crew was another. Jewish construction workers carried their weapons on the job in daylight, guarded the walls all night, and didn’t get much sleep during those 52 days and nights. Nehemiah spent the rest of his 12-year leave reminding the people what it meant to be Jewish. They studied the Laws of Moses that we read today as the first five books in the Bible.JERUSALEM’S WALL BUILDERS: ROLL CREDITS
NEHEMIAH’S MOTLEY CONSTRUCTION CREW
Nehemiah 3 1Teams of people worked together repairing different parts of Jerusalem’s damaged wall and destroyed gates. SHEEP GATE. Elisheba the high priest worked alongside other priests to rebuild the Sheep Gate. Then they built the doors, set them in place, and dedicated the entire area to God. They did this all the way from the Tower of the Hundred to the Tower of the Hananel. 2WALL. Jericho men worked on the wall beside the gate. Zaccur son of Imri worked just beyond them. 3FISH GATE. Hassenaah’s sons built the Fish Gate. They set in the door and placed the beams, bolts, and bars. 4WALL. Meremoth worked beside them on wall repairs. He was the son of Uriah and grandson of Hakkoz. 5WALL. People from the village of Tekoa made repairs. But their noble leaders wouldn’t stoop to manual labor—even for the Lord. It was beneath them.More
Jerusalem walls, gates in time of Nehemiah
Map Battle of Thermopylae
Map Battle of Thermopylae
Map Battle of Thermopylae. King Xerxes, about a year before he is said to have married Jewish Queen Esther of the Bible, conquered Greece. Even with over 200,000 soldiers, he took heavy losses when he fought 300 Spartan warriors and a few hundred volunteers defending a narrow pass on a beach perhaps 100 meters wide, the length of a football field. The large army needed to take that route to Athens, further south.
Xerxes at Battle of Thermopylae
Map Persian Empire’s Susa
Map Persian Empire's Susa
Map Persian Empire's Susa, nestled alongside a mountain stream, at the foot of the Zagros Mountains of what is now Iran.
Map Persian Empire Provinces
Map Persian Empire Provinces
Map Persian Empire Provinces. King Xerxes reigned over 127 provinces from Libya and Egypt in the west to the border of India in the distant east. The empire stretched 2,800 miles (4,500 km) from the Indus Valley on India’s border in the distant east, to Egypt, Libya, and Ethiopia’s border in the southwest. That’s about Bangor, Maine to Los Angeles.
Persian Empire Map
Persian Empire Map
Persian Empire map in the time of King Xerxes and Queen Esther, when the ACHAEMENID DYNASTY ruled the empire, 522 BC-486 BC.
The writer of the Bible Book of Esther uses the Hebrew version of Xerxes’ name: Ahasuerus. It’s a bit like the difference between the English name of “Stephen” showing up in Spanish as “Esteban.”
Xerxes the Great reigned from 486 BC until his top bodyguard assassinated him in 465 BC. He’s the king perhaps best known for defeating King Leonidas of Sparta at the Battle of Thermopylae and then destroying Athens and taking control of mainland Greece. Xerxes later left and took his army home. But many scholars say this Xerxes is fictional—a weak-minded caricature of the powerful ruler.
Media was a nation of people known as the Medes. They united with the Persians to defeat the Babylonian Empire. They lived in what is now northern Iran, just south of the Caspian Sea. Mount Ararat lies within this region. That’s where a Bible writer says Noah’s boat ran aground after the Great Flood (Genesis 8:4)
When Xerxes through a seven-day drinking party for his leaders, Queen Vashti, his wife before Esther, through a party for the wives. Women of nobility didn’t typically go to drinking parties with the men. Dancing ladies went there as entertainment. So, it would make sense for the queen to host the wives of the men. There’s no known mention of Queen Vashti in ancient Persian history outside of the Bible. That’s one of several reasons some scholars say this story is fictional and intended to teach readers a lesson about courage and justice and resilience of the Jewish people.
The king ordered his wife to come to the party, which she refused. The king’s wife was reserved for the king’s eyes only—for no other man. So, what self-respecting queen would put herself on display as a trophy wife in a room full of men on a seven-day drunk? She tried to protect her honor and possibly the honor of her husband, who was too drunk to realize that he was embarrassing himself.
On the advice of his legal experts, he banned Vashti from ever coming to see him again. Then he went on a hunt for a beautiful wife. His people found Esther, a young Jew.
Map of Esther's Persian Empire
Arabah Valley
Arabah Valley
Arabah Valley south of the Dead Sea stretches 100 miles (155 km) to the northern tip of the Red Sea's Gulf of Aqaba. The valley serves as a natural border between Israel in the west and Jordan in the east.