Dedication of the Second Temple

Overview

The dedication of the rebuilt temple in Jerusalem is recorded in Ezra 6. The temple "was completed on the third day of the month of Adar, in the sixth year of the reign of King Darius" (Ezra 6:15), and "the people of Israel—the priests, the Levites, and the rest of the exiles—celebrated the dedication of the house of God with joy" (Ezra 6:16). The building they dedicated was the Second Temple, rebuilt on the original site (Ezra 6:7) of the temple the Babylonians had burned in 586 BC (2 Kings 25:9). It is a different event from the dedication of Solomon's temple recorded in 1 Kings 8.

Date

Ezra dates the completion by the reign of Darius I of Persia, not by an era. Converted to the modern calendar, the sixth year of Darius is given as 516 BC by some reference works and as 515 BC by others; the difference lies in the conversion, not in the biblical text.

Background

Rebuilding had been authorized by Cyrus, whose decree "concerning the house of God in Jerusalem" was issued in his first year (Ezra 6:3; compare Ezra 1:2). Work began under Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel and Jeshua son of Jozadak (Ezra 3:8), but opposition brought it to a standstill "until the second year of the reign of Darius king of Persia" (Ezra 4:24). In that year the word of the LORD came through Haggai (Haggai 1:1); Haggai and Zechariah prophesied to the Jews in Judah and Jerusalem, and Zerubbabel and Jeshua began again to rebuild the house of God (Ezra 5:1-2).

When Tattenai, the governor of the region west of the Euphrates, asked who had authorized the work (Ezra 5:3), Darius ordered a search of the archives, and a scroll recording Cyrus's decree was found in the fortress of Ecbatana, in the province of Media (Ezra 6:1-3). Darius ordered that the work be left alone and that its cost be paid from the royal treasury out of the taxes of the provinces west of the Euphrates (Ezra 6:7-8). "So the Jewish elders built and prospered through the prophesying of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah son of Iddo" (Ezra 6:14).

The Dedication

For the dedication the returned community "offered a hundred bulls, two hundred rams, four hundred lambs, and a sin offering for all Israel of twelve male goats, one for each tribe of Israel" (Ezra 6:17). The priests were appointed by their divisions and the Levites by their groups to the service of God in Jerusalem, "according to what is written in the Book of Moses" (Ezra 6:18). The Passover followed on the fourteenth day of the first month (Ezra 6:19), and for seven days the people kept the Feast of Unleavened Bread with joy, because the LORD had "turned the heart of the king of Assyria toward them to strengthen their hands in the work on the house of the God of Israel" (Ezra 6:22).

Significance

The offerings were small beside those at Solomon's dedication, when Solomon offered "22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep" (1 Kings 8:63), and the contrast was felt at the time. When the foundation was laid, older priests, Levites, and family heads "who had seen the first temple wept loudly" (Ezra 3:12), and Haggai asked, "Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory?" (Haggai 2:3). Haggai also promised that "the latter glory of this house will be greater than the former" (Haggai 2:9), and Zechariah declared that "the hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house, and his hands will complete it" (Zechariah 4:9). Ezra presents the completion as the outcome of that prophesying (Ezra 6:14): after the exile, sacrifice and the ordered service of the priests and Levites were restored at the temple in Jerusalem.