Coming Home: The Return from Exile

A great crowd stands among the ruins of Jerusalem. Trumpets blare. Cymbals crash. Young people are shouting for joy. Old people are weeping out loud. And the noise is so great that no one can tell which is which.

Decades earlier, the armies of Babylon had destroyed Jerusalem. They burned the temple Solomon built, carried off its gold and silver, and marched the people of Judah away into exile. In Babylon, a whole generation grew up far from home. But the prophet Jeremiah had made a promise from God. After seventy years, God would bring his people back. Now Babylon itself has fallen. A new king rules the world. His name is Cyrus of Persia.

In the first year of his reign, the book of Ezra says, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus. So Cyrus sends out a proclamation, in writing, across his whole kingdom. The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and has told me to build him a house in Jerusalem. Any of his people among you may go up and build it. And everyone else, help them with silver and gold, goods and animals, and gifts for the house of God. Imagine hearing that announced in the marketplace. After all those years. You can go home.

Not everyone goes. Some have built lives in Babylon. But many do, everyone whose spirit God has stirred. Their neighbours load them with gifts. And then something remarkable happens. Cyrus brings out the treasures Nebuchadnezzar had carried off from the temple long ago. Gold dishes, silver bowls, knives, basins. A treasurer counts them out to Sheshbazzar, the leader of Judah. Five thousand four hundred pieces in all. Ezra lists the families who make the long journey, more than forty-two thousand people, with their servants and singers, their horses, mules, camels and donkeys. It is a whole nation on the road home.

They settle in their towns. Then, in the seventh month, the people gather in Jerusalem as one. There is no temple yet, only rubble. But the priest Jeshua and the leader Zerubbabel do not wait. They build the altar of God on its old foundations. They are afraid of the peoples living around them, the Bible says, but they build it anyway. And morning and evening, the smoke of offerings rises again in Jerusalem. They keep the Feast of Tabernacles, just as the law of Moses says. They hire stonemasons and carpenters, and order cedar wood from Lebanon, floated down the coast to Joppa, just as it was for Solomon's temple.

In the second year, the work begins. When the builders lay the foundation of the temple, the priests stand in their robes with trumpets. The Levites stand with cymbals. And they sing, one side answering the other. He is good. His love endures forever. The whole crowd raises a great shout. But some of the old priests and leaders had seen the first temple with their own eyes, before it burned. As they look at this new foundation, they weep aloud. Joy and grief, side by side. The sound carries far into the distance.

In 1879 a clay cylinder was dug up in the ruins of Babylon, covered in cuneiform writing. It is now in the British Museum, and it is known as the Cyrus Cylinder. In it, Cyrus describes his capture of Babylon and says he returned gods and peoples to their homelands and restored their sanctuaries. It never mentions the Jews. But historians note that it shows the same kind of policy the book of Ezra describes.

Coming Home. You'll find it in the book of Ezra, chapters 1 to 3. God had promised his people they would return, and the most powerful king in the world became part of keeping that promise. The new beginning was small, and some wept for what was lost. But they started anyway. So here's the question to carry with you. What small new beginning could you thank God for this week?