1 When the seventh month came and the Israelites had settled in their towns, the people assembled together as one in Jerusalem.
About three months after the Jews returned to Jerusalem, in the year 537 BC, the seventh month of the Jewish calendar came around. The seventh month is a very important month for the Jewish people. It is generally September to October and combines a few of the mandated festivals they were to observe: The Feast of the Tabernacles, The Feast of Trumpets and the Day of Atonement.
The Feast of The Tabernacles commemorates the 40- year journey of the Israelites to the Promised Land.
The Feast of Trumpets is Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year
The Day of Atonement, or Yom Kippur, is the most important holiday in the Jewish calendar. It is considered the day that God decides the fate of each man, so it is wise for Jewish people to make amends to those they have wronged on that day. It is the commemoration of the day the priests of the old testament would enter the holy of holies and offer a blood sacrifice for atonement of the Jewish people’s sins.
2 Then Joshua son of Jozadak and his fellow priests and Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel and his associates began to build the altar of the God of Israel to sacrifice burnt offerings on it, in accordance with what is written in the Law of Moses the man of God. 3 Despite their fear of the peoples around them, they built the altar on its foundation and sacrificed burnt offerings on it to the Lord, both the morning and evening sacrifices. 4 Then in accordance with what is written, they celebrated the Festival of Tabernacles with the required number of burnt offerings prescribed for each day. 5 After that, they presented the regular burnt offerings, the New Moon sacrifices and the sacrifices for all the appointed sacred festivals of the Lord, as well as those brought as freewill offerings to the Lord. 6 On the first day of the seventh month they began to offer burnt offerings to the Lord, though the foundation of the Lord’s temple had not yet been laid.
The first step the returning Jews took was to rebuild the altar of the temple. Remember, Jerusalem was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar. The temple was gone, the walls of the city destroyed. Over the 70 years they spent in Babylon, other people moved into the area and established themselves as the owners of that barren land. It is dangerous all around them. But in this is a great lesson. Zerubbabel and his associates first attended to the very reason they were there: to build God’s house. Despite their own comfort and safety they chose to set the altar, on its former foundations, first. Why? Because it would be the place that the Jewish people could offer burnt offerings for sin. Back in Solomon’s day, when the first temple was built, it gave the Israelites a proper place to worship God in the proper way. Zerubbabel is assuring that above all, proper worship is being restored in Jerusalem first.
7 Then they gave money to the masons and carpenters, and gave food and drink and olive oil to the people of Sidon and Tyre, so that they would bring cedar logs by sea from Lebanon to Joppa, as authorized by Cyrus king of Persia.
When Solomon built the first temple, he went to Sidon and Tyre, for they were renowned for their timber and craftsmanship. Although these nations are pagan, the Jewish people, taking a note from Solomon, are eager to reproduce the grander of the temple, even through their limited resources. This action had the backing of the Persian government. Remember, Cyrus was not only moved by God but culturally was bound by pleasing the regional gods of the people he conquered.
8 In the second month of the second year after their arrival at the house of God in Jerusalem, Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, Joshua son of Jozadak and the rest of the people (the priests and the Levites and all who had returned from the captivity to Jerusalem) began the work. They appointed Levites twenty years old and older to supervise the building of the house of the Lord. 9 Joshua and his sons and brothers and Kadmiel and his sons (descendants of Hodaviah) and the sons of Henadad and their sons and brothers—all Levites—joined together in supervising those working on the house of God. 10 When the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, the priests in their vestments and with trumpets, and the Levites (the sons of Asaph) with cymbals, took their places to praise the Lord, as prescribed by David king of Israel. 11 With praise and thanksgiving they sang to the Lord: “He is good; his love toward Israel endures forever.” And all the people gave a great shout of praise to the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid.
Another 19 months passed before the work began at the temple. They appointed the Levites as supervisors to the project. At age 20, as prescribed by David, Levitical service began (1 Chronicles 23:24). It is important to note that the supervision of work was directed by those in devotion to God. The laying of the foundation was important. It was met with priests in ceremonial vestments, musicians and singing. There is praise here, a great joy at the work ahead of restoring God’s house for Jerusalem and the world.
12 But many of the older priests and Levites and family heads, who had seen the former temple, wept aloud when they saw the foundation of this temple being laid, while many others shouted for joy. 13 No one could distinguish the sound of the shouts of joy from the sound of weeping, because the people made so much noise. And the sound was heard far away.
Some of the older crowd had made the journey back to Jerusalem. They remembered Solomon’s temple and its glory. They certainly remembered the destruction of the temple. These memories, embedded in them, were detrimental to the joy of the new temple. They realized the temple was much smaller and would never match the grandiose scale of Solomon’s. But the younger people, who knew nothing of the old temple, saw this as great joy. The younger set was thinking forward while the older was thinking backward. The truth is this: the temple was being rebuilt and that was a joyous occasion. It was God’s plan to rebuild, and the splendor of it is inconsequential. The fact that after 70 years of recalibration the Jews should have been in a place that was about praising God and doing his work, not looking back at what could have been.