The Temple Finished, and Ezra’s Return

Next came Darius, under whom the temple was restored; at that time he was called Ochus. He had three men of proven loyalty as his bodyguard, and one of these, a Hebrew, had won the king’s admiration by the proof of good sense he had given. Given the choice of asking for anything his heart desired, he, grieving over the ruins of his country, asked leave to restore the city. He obtained an order from the king to the deputies and officials to press on with the building of the holy temple and to provide the money needed for it. So the temple was completed in four years, that is, in the sixth year after Darius began to reign, and for the time that seemed enough to the Jewish people. Since restoring the city was a work of great labor, they distrusted their own resources and did not dare at that time to begin so difficult an undertaking, but were content with having rebuilt the temple. [a]

In the same period, about twenty years after the temple was completed, when Darius had died after holding power for nineteen years, Ezra the scribe, who was learned in the law, set out from Babylon with the permission of Artaxerxes the second. This was not the Artaxerxes who came between the two kings named Xerxes, but the one who succeeded Darius Ochus. Many went with Ezra, and they carried to Jerusalem vessels of various workmanship, along with the gifts the king had sent for the temple of God. With them were only twelve Levites, for it is said that even that number of the tribe was found then only with difficulty. Ezra found that the Jews had married Gentiles. He rebuked them severely for it and ordered them to give up all such unions and to send away the children born of those marriages, and all obeyed his word. Then the people, made holy, performed the rites laid down by the ancient law. But I do not find that Ezra did anything toward restoring the city, because, I suppose, he thought it a more urgent duty to reform the people from the corrupt habits they had fallen into.