As had been foretold by the prophets, and particularly by Isaiah, the
exiled Jews were permitted to return home during the reign of Cyrus.
As soon as they reached the Holy Land, we find them uniting their
efforts to re-establish the religious rites of their fathers, aided by
the noble leaders, Zerubbabel, Joshua, Ezra and Nehemiah. They erect
an altar of burnt offering and rebuild the destroyed temple. Then the
city wall is built, and various officers appointed as circumstances
required. For further particulars the reader is referred to the books
of Ezra and Nehemiah.
It may be well to state here--although the remark may, to {367}
some extent, deviate from the subject under consideration--that the
restoration of the Jewish nation at this time was very far from being
that complete restoration to more than former privileges, liberty and
glory, of which all the prophets had spoken in such glorious terms. The
promise was that the whole remnant should be delivered, even if they
were as numerous as the sand on the sea shore. But from Babylon only
comparatively few ever returned. The company of Zernbbabel consisted of
fifty thousand persons, and Ezra led six thousand more home. The great
bulk of people that had been born in the foreign land never returned.
(See Book of Esther).
Again, the promise was that a kingdom should be established, with
the Holy City as the capital, an everlasting kingdom governed by God
himself through Messiah. This promise has never yet been fulfilled. In
fact, the Jews have never since their overthrow by Nebuchadnezzar been
an independent nation, governed by rulers of their own, except during
the very short rule of the Maccabees. After their return they continued
to be tributary to the Persian king for about one hundred years,
as a province of Syria. When Alexander had conquered Persia (Syria
and Palestine with it), they fell into his hands. When the Grecian
empire was divided, Palestine fell into the hands of Ptolemy Lagus
as a part of the Egyptian monarchy, and it remained so for about one
hundred years, when it was transferred to the kings of Syria, in which
situation it greatly suffered during the frequent wars between Egypt
and Syria. Antiochus Epiphanes, one of the Syrian kings, plundered the
city and the temple and enslaved the people. For about three years and
a half they were reduced to worse than Egyptian thraldom. Their sacred
manuscripts were burnt, and the people were compelled to sacrifice to
idols. The temple itself was dedicated to Jupiter, a statue of which
was erected on the altar of God. Compare Daniel's prediction of "the
little horn" (chapter viii, 9-12). Through the noble enthusiasm and
patriotism of Mattathias and his sons, a struggle against the oppressor
now took place which secured to the Jews a few years of dearly bought
liberty and independence, but they were soon conquered by the Romans.
Pompey marched his army into Judea, conquered Jerusalem and made the
country tributary to Rome. Herod the Great deposed the last of the
Maccabean family from his office, and Palestine has never since been an
independent state. Ever since the Babylonian captivity the great bulk
of the Jewish nation has been scattered abroad, without home, without
temple, {368} without an altar, and strangers have been masters in the
land of promise. It is therefore clear that all the prophecies that
relate to the glorious restoration of the Jews must be understood of
a great restoration yet future, a very important fact for the right
understanding of those prophecies.