Zerubbabel Before Darius

After the slaughter of the Magi, who had held the government of the Persians for a year after the death of Cambyses, the families called the seven families of the Persians made Darius son of Hystaspes their king. While he was still a private man, Darius had vowed to God that if he became king he would send all the vessels of God that were in Babylon to the temple at Jerusalem. As it happened, about this time Zerubbabel, who had been made governor of the Jews who had been in captivity, came to Darius from Jerusalem, for there was an old friendship between him and the king. He was also judged worthy, with two others, to be one of the king’s bodyguards, and so he obtained the honor he had hoped for.

In the first year of his reign Darius gave a splendid feast, prepared on a grand scale, for those about him and those born in his household, together with the rulers of the Medes, the princes of the Persians, the district governors of India and Ethiopia, and the generals of the armies of his hundred and twenty-seven provinces. When they had eaten and drunk their fill, and more than their fill, they all went off to bed in their own houses, and King Darius went to bed as well. But after he had rested a little part of the night he woke up, and being unable to sleep any more, he fell into conversation with his three bodyguards. He promised that to whichever of them made the speech on the questions he would put to them that came closest to the truth and to the dictates of wisdom, he would grant, as the prize of his victory, the right to wear purple, to drink from cups of gold, to sleep on gold, to have a chariot with bridles of gold, a turban of fine linen and a chain of gold around his neck, and to sit next to the king himself because of his wisdom. “And he will be called my kinsman,” he said. When he had promised them these gifts, he asked the first of them, “Is not wine the strongest?” the second, “Are not kings?” and the third, “Are not women? Or is not truth the strongest of all?” When he had set them to think about these problems, he went to rest. In the morning he sent for his great men, the princes and district governors of Persia and Media, took his seat in the place where he used to give audience, and told each of his bodyguards to declare what he thought about the questions put to him, in the hearing of them all. [a]

So the first of them began to speak about the strength of wine, and proved it this way: “Gentlemen, when I am to give my opinion of wine, I find that it surpasses everything, and these are the signs of it. It deceives the minds of those who drink it. It brings the mind of the king down to the level of an orphan’s, of one who needs a guardian, and it lifts the mind of the slave to the boldness of a free man; the needy man’s mind becomes like the rich man’s. For it changes and renews people’s souls when it gets into them. It quenches the sorrow of those in misfortune and makes them forget the debts they owe to others, and makes them think themselves the richest of all men. It makes them talk not of small sums but of talents, and of such other things as befit only the wealthy. More than that, it makes them heedless of their commanders and of their kings, and it takes away the memory of their friends and companions; for it arms men even against those dearest to them and makes them seem the greatest strangers to them. And when they have sobered up and slept off their wine in the night, they get up without knowing anything they did while they were drinking. I take these as signs of power, and from them I conclude that wine is the strongest and most unconquerable of all things.” [d]

When the first had given these proofs of the strength of wine, he stopped, and the next began to speak about the strength of a king. He set out to prove that it was the strongest of all, more powerful than anything else that seems to have any force or wisdom, and he began his proof like this: “It is men who govern all things. They force the earth and the sea to yield them what they want, and over these men kings rule and have authority. Now those who rule over the strongest and most powerful of all living creatures must surely deserve to be thought unconquerable in power and force. For example, when these kings command their subjects to make war and face dangers, they are listened to; and when they send them against their enemies, their power is so great that they are obeyed. They command men to level mountains and to pull down walls and towers; yes, when men are ordered to be killed and to kill, they submit to it, so as not to seem to break the king’s commands; and when they have conquered, they bring what they have won in the war to the king. Those also who are not soldiers but farm the ground and plow it, when they have endured the labor and all the hardships of farming and have reaped and gathered in their crops, bring tribute to the king. Whatever the king says or commands is done of necessity, and without delay, while he meanwhile is filled with every kind of food and pleasure and sleeps in peace. He is guarded by men who keep watch, and who are, as it were, fixed to the spot by fear; for no one dares to leave him, even when he is asleep, nor does anyone go away to look after his own affairs. Each one counts this the only necessary work, to guard the king, and gives himself wholly to it. How then can it fail to appear that the king surpasses all in strength, when so great a multitude obeys his commands?”

When this man had fallen silent, the third, who was Zerubbabel, began to instruct them about women and about truth. He said: “Wine is strong, and so is the king, whom all men obey; but women are superior to them in power. For it was a woman who brought the king into the world; and as for those who plant the vines and make the wine, it is women who bear them and bring them up. Indeed, there is nothing we do not receive from them. These women weave our clothes, and our household affairs are looked after and kept safe by them; we cannot live apart from women. When we have gathered a great deal of gold and silver, or anything else of great value and worth having, and then see a beautiful woman, we leave all these things and stare open-mouthed at her face, and we are willing to give up what we have so that we may enjoy her beauty and win it for ourselves. We also leave father and mother, and the land that feeds us, and often forget our dearest friends, for the sake of women; yes, we are bold enough to lay down our lives for them. But what will most of all make you see the strength of women is this. Do we not take pains and endure a great deal of trouble, on land and sea alike, and when we have gained something as the fruit of our labors, do we not bring it to the women as to our mistresses and give it to them? Why, I once saw the king, the lord of so many peoples, slapped in the face by Apame, the daughter of Rabezakes Themasius, his concubine, and his diadem taken from him and put on her own head, while he bore it patiently. When she smiled, he smiled; when she was angry, he was sad; and as her moods changed, he flattered his wife and drew her back to good terms by humbling himself greatly before her, whenever he saw her displeased with him.” [e]

And as the princes and rulers looked at one another, he began to speak about truth. He said: “I have already shown how powerful women are. But both these women and the king himself are weaker than truth. For though the earth is large and the heaven high and the course of the sun swift, all these move according to the will of God, who is true and righteous. For this reason we too ought to count truth the strongest of all things, and to hold that what is unrighteous has no force against it. Moreover, everything else that has any strength is mortal and short-lived, but truth is immortal and eternal. What it gives us is not a beauty that withers with time, nor riches that fortune can take away, but righteous rules and laws. It distinguishes them from injustice, and it rebukes what is unrighteous.” [f]

So when Zerubbabel had finished his speech about truth, and the crowd had cried out that he had spoken most wisely and that truth alone had unchanging strength, the kind that would never grow old, the king told him to ask for something beyond what he had promised, for he would give it to him because of his wisdom and the good sense in which he surpassed the rest. “And you will sit with me,” said the king, “and be called my kinsman.” When he had said this, Zerubbabel reminded him of the vow he had made in case he should ever come to the throne. This vow was “to rebuild Jerusalem and to build the temple of God in it, and to restore the vessels which Nebuchadnezzar plundered and carried to Babylon. And this,” he said, “is the request you now allow me to make, since I have been judged wise and understanding.”

The king was pleased with what he said. He got up and kissed him, and wrote to the district governors and the governors, ordering them to escort Zerubbabel and those going with him to build the temple. He also sent letters to the rulers in Syria and Phoenicia to cut cedar trees from Lebanon and carry them to Jerusalem, and to help him build the city. He wrote to them too that all the captives who went to Judea should be free; he forbade his deputies and governors to lay any royal taxes on the Jews; and he allowed them to hold, free of tribute, all the land they could take possession of. He ordered the Idumeans and Samaritans and the inhabitants of Coele-Syria to give back the villages they had taken from the Jews, and besides all this, that fifty talents should be given them for building the temple. He allowed them to offer their appointed sacrifices, and ordered that whatever the high priest and the priests needed, and the sacred garments in which they used to worship God, should be made at his own expense, and that the musical instruments the Levites used in singing hymns to God should be given them. Moreover, he ordered that portions of land should be given to those who guarded the city and the temple, and a fixed sum of money every year for their upkeep; and with all this he sent the vessels. And everything that Cyrus had intended to do before him for the restoration of the Jews, Darius also ordained should be done. [g]

When Zerubbabel had obtained these grants from the king, he went out of the palace, looked up to heaven, and began to give thanks to God for the wisdom he had given him and for the victory he had won by it, even in the presence of Darius himself. “I would not have been thought worthy of these benefits, O Master,” he said, “unless you had been gracious to me.” When he had given these thanks to God for his present circumstances, and had prayed to him to grant him the same favor in time to come, he went to Babylon and brought his countrymen the good news of the grants he had won for them from the king. When they heard it, they too gave thanks to God for restoring the land of their forefathers to them. So they gave themselves to eating and drinking, and for seven days they went on feasting and kept a festival for the rebuilding and restoration of their country. After this they chose rulers from the tribes of their forefathers to go up to Jerusalem, with their wives and children and pack animals. These traveled to Jerusalem with joy and gladness, under the escort of the men Darius sent with them, making music with songs and pipes and cymbals; and the rest of the Jewish people went along with them, rejoicing. [h]

So these men went, a certain fixed number from every family. I do not think it proper to list the names of those families one by one, so as not to draw my readers’ minds away from the connection of the events and make it hard for them to follow the thread of my narrative. But the total of those of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin who went up, above the age of twelve, was four million six hundred and twenty-eight thousand. The Levites were seventy-four; the women and children together numbered forty thousand seven hundred and forty-two. Besides these there were the Levite singers, one hundred and twenty-eight; the gatekeepers, one hundred and ten; and the temple servants, three hundred and ninety-two. There were also others who said they were Israelites but could not show their genealogies, six hundred and fifty-two. Some, too, were expelled from the number and the honor of the priests, because they had married wives whose genealogies they could not produce, and they themselves were not found in the genealogies of the Levites and priests; there were about five hundred and twenty-five of these. The servants who followed those going up to Jerusalem numbered seven thousand three hundred and thirty-seven; the singing men and singing women, two hundred and forty-five; the camels, four hundred and thirty-five; the draft animals, five thousand five hundred and twenty-five. The leaders of all this multitude so numbered were Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, a descendant of David, of the tribe of Judah, and Jeshua son of Jozadak the high priest. Besides these there were Mordecai and Serebeus, who were set apart from the multitude as rulers, and who also contributed a hundred minas of gold and five thousand of silver. In this way the priests and the Levites and a certain part of the whole people of the Jews who were in Babylon came and settled in Jerusalem; but the rest of the multitude returned each to their own countries. [i]