From 539 to about 425 B.C. A number of Jewish exiles return to Israel

As we have read in previous chapters the great Jewish prophets had foretold exactly how long Israel would be waste and deserted and Isaiah had even mentioned the name of the king who would allow the Jews to return to their country.

In 539 B.C. the prophecies started to be realized. In that year the Medes and the Persians captured Babylon. This made the Medes and the Persians the rulers of the territory between the Euphrates and the Tigris, present day Iraq. The Medes and the Persians themselves lived east of the Assyrians and Babylonians in what is now Iran.

In the spring of 537 B.C. Cyrus proclaimed the famous decree which allowed the Jews to return to their country from their exile. Cyrus acknowledged that the Jewish God JHWH was the true God and JHWH had ordered him to release the Jewish exiles and to see to it that His temple in Jerusalem would be rebuilt.(see Ezra 1:1-4). It seems likely that Daniel showed Cyrus the Bible-book Isaiah in which Cyrus could read both his own name and his own actions.

Finally some 200,000 exiles returned from Babylon to Israel (the Bible itself mentions the number of 42,360 Jews who went back, but this number is exclusive of the women and the children.). Practically all of them were members of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin. The dangerous journey across the desert took them some four months. In the autumn of the year 537 B.C. the Israelites were back on their own sacred soil. Exactly 70 years after the destruction of Jerusalem and the beginning of their exile. The first thing they did after their arrival in destroyed Jerusalem was erecting a simple altar and offering JHWH a simple thank offering. After that the Jews spread over the country.

There is no doubt bout it that in the decades following the year 537 B.C. many more Israelites returned to their original country, among whom there were also many members of the ten tribes of the northern kingdom. In this way the period of exile put an end to the distinction between the Israelites who belonged to the northern kingdom and the Israelites who belonged to the southern kingdom. After 537 B.C. the word Jews is used in the Bible for all people who are descended of the 12 original Israelite tribes.

Even so, the great majority of the Israelites who were carried away in captivity in 740 B.C. and in 607 B.C. never returned to Israel. They settled permanently in all the towns and villages of the Near East in what later came to be called the diaspora (the dispersion). From the sixth century B.C. down to the time of Christ there were Jewish communities in every town and village in the Near East. When around 330 B.C. Greece became the dominant power in the region many Israelites settled in Alexandria in Egypt. In this town a large Jewish community developed. When in the course of time the knowledge of Hebrew in this community became so poor that the Jews could no longer read their own sacred Hebrew Scriptures they started to translate the entire Hebrew Bible into Greek: the famous Septuagint translation.

In 536 B.C. the Jewish exiles who had returned started laying the foundations for a new temple. They were confronted with heavy resistance from all neighboring nations who hated the newcomers and did everything they could to make the rebuilding of Jerusalem and its temple impossible.

In 522 B.C. these adversaries managed to put a complete end to the work on the temple on judicial grounds.

But when Darius became the new king of Medo-Persia the building could be resumed and in 515 B.C. the new temple was finished. The building of it had taken some 20 years.

The inauguration of the new temple, which was much less glorious than the first one, involved great festivities.

In 468 B.C. a very pious Jewish man in Babylon, who had a tremendous zeal for JHWH and His people, asked the then king of Medo-Persia, Artaxerxes, to allow him to go to Jerusalem to raise the religious services and the temple-services there to a higher level. The king allowed him this and in the year mentioned he undertook the long journey with a large number of priests and Bible-scholars. After their arrival these people did a lot to organize the people and particularly the religious services better.

That was certainly necessary: about 60, 70 years after their return to the Promised Land many Jews, among them also Levites and priests, had married Canaanite women. A mixture had developed of Jewish and pagan ideas and practices and many families not only worshipped JHWH but also pagan gods. Ezra forced all men who were married to non-Jewish women to send their wives away.

In 456 B.C. there was another very pious Jewish man in Babylon who was worried about the way the descendents of the returned Jewish exiles behaved: Nehemiah. He heard that things were not going well at all in Jerusalem. The walls were still in ruins. And throughout the region people despised the Jews. He also asked King Artaxerxes to allow him to go to Jerusalem to organize the worship of JHWH better and to improve social life in general.

He was also granted permission. He left and after his arrival he first tackled the reconstruction of the walls. Just as had been the case with the temple this was met with heavy, even armed, resistance from the side of the neighboring countries. The Jewish men who rebuilt the walls and the porches had to be protected, during their working hours, by armed countrymen. In spite of all the resistance the wall was restored in 52 days. In 455 B.C. Jerusalem was again surrounded by a solid wall.

Another problem that Nehemiah came across was that most Jews lived in various places all over the country, outside of Jerusalem, and received little education as regards their Jewish religion and their Jewish law. Therefore he organized on a large scale educational programs and religious meetings. Just like Ezra he violently opposed the many marriages between Jewish men and Canaanite women. He also saw to it that the genealogical records were made up to date as far the period before the exile. He also urged his countrymen to observe the Sabbath and he saw to it that about 10 percent of the population lived permanently in Jerusalem.

When Nehemiah thought that he had organized everything well he returned to Babylon and stayed there for a couple of years. But he had overestimated the durability of his reforms. Before long his reform measures were practically forgotten. The priests no longer received the financial support they were entitled to according to Jewish law. Many people had become materialistic and also worked on the Sabbaths. And again there were many Jewish men who married Canaanite women and sometimes had children who could not even speak decent Hebrew.

When Nehemiah had found out about all this, he returned to Jerusalem and did everything he could to bring the people back to the true worship and the right life.

That he succeeded in this only partially appears from the last Bible book which belongs to the Hebrew Scriptures: Malachi. Malachi lived and worked from about 450 B.C. to about 425 B.C. The Bible book he has written presents the last words which JHWH had recorded in the Bible prior to the coming to the earth of His son.

Between about 425 B.C. and about 40 A.D. no Bible books were written. This means that after Malachi had written the last Hebrew Bible book it took more than 400 years before JHWH added a new book to His Bible. After these 400 years it was Matthew who wrote his well-known gospel in Greek about the year 40 A.D.

What is the last information from the days when the Hebrew Scriptures were written that Malachi wrote down for us between 450 B.C. and 425 B.C.?

In the first two chapters of his book Malachi, just like Nehemiah, paints a gloomy picture of the religious feelings and practices of the people. On a large scale they have again forgotten JHWH and His laws and demands. The temple, which has recently been rebuilt, is hardly used. The people forget or refuse to pay the tithes for the livelihood of the priests. They also forget or refuse to offer God the sacrifices which the law demands. The priests do nothing to uplift the people to a better spiritual condition. On the contrary: they lead the in ignoring God’s commandments and guidelines.

Yet, the last book of the Hebrew Scriptures ends optimistically with references to and visions of the fulfillment of all God’s promises to Israel.

The chapters 3 and 4 contain a lot of prophecies regarding the coming of the Messiah. In the Bible books that immediately follows Malachi, Matthew, we see how these prophecies were fulfilled in Jesus’ life and how they contributed to the identification of Jesus Christ as God’s promised Messiah.

See chapter 3 the verses 1 and 2: See, I send My messenger and He must pave a way for Me. And suddenly to His temple will come the true Lord, whom all of you are looking for, and the messenger of the covenant in whom all of you find pleasure.

In the Greek Scriptures it is clearly demonstrated that this prophecy was fulfilled by the work of John the Baptist who prepared the Jewish people for the coming of the Messiah (see Luke1:67-79).

Also see Malachi 3:12: And all the nations will have to consider you very fortunate because you will become a country of good pleasure.

Finally also the last two sentences of Malachi, which are also the last two sentences of the Hebrew Scriptures as a whole, are very remarkable: See! I send you the prophet Elijah before the great and awe-inspiring day of JHWH.

In the Greek Scriptures this Elijah is clearly identified as John the Baptist. In many places he is referred to as the one who, just before the coming of the Messiah, prepared the people for this coming and saw to it that the people of good will were prepared to accept Jesus Christ as their Messiah. See Matthew 17:10-14; Mark 9:9-13; Luke 1:13-1.

(It is certainly worthwhile to read the adventures of the Jewish people between the fall of Babylon before the Medes and the Persians in 539 B.C. and the last recorded events about 425 B.C. in the Bible itself. These adventures can be found in the Bible books of Ezra and Nehemiah. People who want to read the literal text of the last Messianic prophesies that were recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures and the announcement of the actions of John the Baptist can find them in the Bible Book Malachi.).