regarded it, as though it had been one of the oracular seats of his own religion. All the other shrines and capitals of Israel, with the single exception of that on Mount Gerizim, had been swept away. The sanctity of Bethel and Shiloh, the regal dignity of Samaria and Jezreel, had now disappeared for ever. Jerusalem remained the undisputed queen of the whole country in an unprecedented sense. Even those very tribes which before had been her rivals, acknowledged in her misfortunes the supremacy which they had denied to her in her prosperity. Pilgrims from Shechem, Shiloh, and Samaria, immediately after the Babylonian Captivity began, came, with every outward sign of mourning, to wail and weep (like the Jews of our own day) over the still smoking ruins. 3 It was natural, therefore, that the exiles constantly nourished the hope of the rebuilding of Jerusalem, which they had never forgotten in their brightest or their darkest days on the banks of the Euphrates; 2 that the highest reward to which any of them could look forward would be that they should build the old waste places, raise up the foundations of many generations, be called the repairer of the ruins, the restorer of paths to dwell in. It was natural that along the broken walls of the city of David there should have been, as the Return drew nearer, devout Israelites seen standing like sentinels, repeating their constant watchwords, which consisted of an incessant cry day and night, giving the Divine Protector no rest until He establish and make Jerusalem a praise upon the earth. It was natural that the names which had begun to attach to her during her desertion, as though she were the impersonation of Solitude and 1 Jer. xli. 5-8 (Ewald v. 97); see Lecture XL. 2 Psalm cxxxvii. 1,5; see Lecture XLI. 3 Isa. lviii. 12; lxi. 4. 4 Isa. lxii. 6, 7. B.C. 536. Desolation, should give place to the joyful names of the Bride and the Favourite returning to her married home with all the gaiety and hopefulness of an Eastern wedding. It was natural that Ezekiel by the banks of the Chebar should so concentrate his thoughts on the City and Temple of Jerusalem that their dimensions grew in his visions to such a colossal size as to absorb the whole of Palestine by their physical structure, no less than they did actually by their moral significance. The conse Accordingly, the one object which filled the thoughts of cration of the returning exiles, the one object, as it was believed by the new altar. them, for which the Return had been permitted by the Persian king, was 'the building of an house of the Lord God ' of Israel at Jerusalem which is in Judah.' There was a moment, it might have been supposed, when the idea of a more spiritual worship, like that of the Persians, would dispense altogether with outward buildings. The heaven is my throne, the earth is my footstool where is 'the house that ye build unto me? and where is the place of 'my rest?' 2 But this doctrine of the Evangelical Prophet was not yet capable of being put into practice; perhaps in its literal sense never will be. Ezekiel's ideal was, as we have seen, rather the restoration of the Temple on a gigantic scale. It was the chief, the one mission of Zerubbabel, and in a few weeks or months after his arrival the first step was taken towards the erection of the second Temple of Jerusalem, the Temple which was destined to meet the requirements of the national worship, till it gave way to the third Temple of the half-heathen Herod. That first step was precisely on the traces of the older Temple. As the altar which David erected long preceded the completion of the splendid structure of Solomon, so before any attempt was made to erect the walls, or even to lay the foundations of the Temple of the coming era, there was erected on the platform formerly occupied by the threshing-floor of Araunah, then for five centuries by the stately altar of David and his son Solomon, the central hearth of the future Temple; but, as if to vindicate for itself an intrinsic majesty despite of its mean surroundings, it was in its dimensions double the size even of its vast predecessor. The day fixed for the occasion of its consecration was well suited to do it honour. It was the opening of the great autumnal Feast of the Jewish year -the Feast of Tabernacles-the same festival as that chosen by Solomon for the dedication of his Temple, and by Jeroboam for the dedication of the rival sanctuary at Bethel.2 It was the first day of the seventh month, which, according to the Babylonian, now adopted as the Jewish, calendar, henceforth took the Chaldæan name of Tisri, 'the opening' month, the January,' and thus became the first 3 of the year. The settlers from all parts of the country, as well as the aboriginal inhabitants, gathered for the occasion and witnessed the solemnity from the open space in front of the eastern gate of the Temple.1 That day accordingly was fitly the birthday of the new city. Henceforth there were once more seen ascending to the sky the columns of smoke, morning and evening, from the daily sacrifices-the sign at once of human babitation and of religious worship in the long-deserted capital. Now that the central point was secured, the impulse to the work went on. The contributions which the exiles themselves had made-the offerings, as it would appear, from some of the surrounding tribes, under the influence of the 1 Ezra iii. 3. 2 See Lecture XXVII. 3 September (see Kalisch's Com mentary, ii. 269). B.C. 536, Founda tion of the second Temple. B.C. 535. Persian Government, added to the resources. The artisan population which had been left in Palestine were eagerly pressed forward to the work; the cedars of Lebanon were again, under Royal command, hewn down and brought, on receiving payment in kind, by Phoenician vessels to Joppa. The High Priest, with the various members of the sacerdotal caste, superintended the work. At last, in the seventh month of the second year from their return --that is, within a year from the erection of the altar-the foundation of the new Temple was laid. So important seemed to be the step thus gained that the day was celebrated with the first display of the old pomp on which they had yet ventured. The priests, in the rich dresses that Zerubbabel out of his princely munificence had furnished, blew once more their silver trumpets; the sons of Asaph once more clashed their brazen cymbals. Many of the Psalms which fill the Psalter with joyous strains were doubtless sung or composed on this occasion. One strain especially rang above all—that which runs through the 106th, 107th, 118th, and the 136th Psalm : 'O give thanks unto the Eternal; for He is good, and His 'mercy endureth for ever.' Through all the national vicissitudes of weal and woe it was felt that the Divine goodness had remained firm. If, in spite of some appearances to the contrary, the 118th Psalm was originally appropriated to this occasion, it is easy to see with what force the two choral companies must have replied, in strophe and antistrophe: Open to me the gates of righteousness,' 'This is the gate through which the righteous shall enter;' or must have welcomed the foundation-stone which, after all difficulty and opposition, had at last been raised on the angle of the rocky platform; or have uttered the formula which afterwards became 3 Ezra iii. 3-8. 2 Ezra iii. 10-13. 3 Ps. cxviii. 8-12 would refer more naturally to a battle; verses 18, 19 might imply that the walls were finished. 4 Matt. xxi. 9 (Reuss on Psalm cxviii. 26). proverbial for all such popular celebrations: Hosanna! Save us'-'Blessed be whosoever cometh in the name of the Eternal,'-or the culminating cry with which the sturdy sacrificers were called to drag the struggling victim and bind him fast to the horns of the newly-consecrated altar.1 Loud and long were these Jewish Te Deums re-echoed by the shouts of the multitude. It was not, indeed, a day of unmingled joy, for amongst the crowd there stood some aged men, who had lived through the great catastrophe of the Captivity; who, in their youth, had seen the magnificent structure of Solomon standing in its unbroken stateliness; and when they compared with that vanished splendour these scanty beginnings they could not refrain from bursting forth. into a loud wail of sorrow at the sad contrast. The two strains of feeling from the older and younger generation mingled together in a rivalry of emotion, but the evil omen of the lamentation was drowned in the cry of exultation; and those who stood on the outskirts of the solemnity caught only the impression of the mighty shout that rang afar off-far off, as it seemed, even to the valleys of Samaria.2 That mixed expression, however overborne for the moment, well coincided with the actual condition of the Jewish community. It is one of the instructive and pathetic characteristics of this period that we have come down from the great days of the primitive triumph of grand ideas, or the exploits of single heroes, to the complex, pedestrian, motley struggles (if one may so speak) of modern life. The country was unsettled-robber hordes roved through it-the harvest and the vintage were uncertain. And, yet further, now began the first renewal of that jealousy between the north and south of Palestine, which for a time had been subdued in the common sense of misfortune; and Zech. viii. 10. 1 Ps. cxviii. 27. Ezra iii. 12, 13 (Ewald v. 102). |