The next visit paid to Jerusalem was that of Nebuchadnezzar. It is doubtful at what time, but probably after the victory which he in his turn obtained over Pharaoh Necho at Carchemish (B. c. 6o5), in the fourth year of Jehoiakim. He obliged Jehoiakim to acknowledge himself his subject, and took some treasure and captives to Babylon, among the rest Daniel and the three Hebrew children.' But Jehoiakim rebelling three years afterwards, Jerusalem was beset by the tributaries of Nebu chadnezzar, who carried on a harassing warfare against it until his death, in the eleventh year of his reign. His son Jehoiakim succeeded him, and Jerusalem being now besieged by Nebuchadnezzar in person, he came out with his mother, servants, princes, and officers, and delivered himself into his hands. Then it was that Nebuchadnezzar took possession of all the treasures of the king's house and of the Temple, and carried away from Jeru salem all the princes and chief men, as well as all the ingenious craftsmen and artificers, and all that were strong and apt for war, leaving only the poorest of the people ; and over these he set an uncle of Jehoiachin to whom he gave the name of Zedekiah, and ` made him swear by God' that he would remain his subject (Ezek. xvii. 14). This oath Zedekiah (2 Chron. XXXVi. 13) broke, trusting in tbe help of Pharaoh Hophra, king of Egypt ; and thereby not only provoked the vengeance of Nebuchadnezzar but incurred the anger of God. Nebuchadnezzar invested Jerusalem on the tenth day of the tenth month (B.c. 588), in the ninth y-ear of Zedekiah. Engines of war raised on heights about the walls hurled weighty missiles into the zity, the walls were battered with rams, and famine and pestilence prevailed within them. There was a temporary lull in the siege, during which the Chaldean army went to meet the Egyptians who were coming to the relief of Jerusalem, but the Egyptians returned back without an encounter, and the siege was resumed. The wall was broken 011 the ninth day of the fourth month of the second year of the siege, and Zedekiah secretly took flight, passing over the Mount of Olives towards the Jor dan ; but he was taken near Jericho and conveyed to Riblah in Ccele-Syria, on the extreme north of Palestine, where Nebuchadnezzar was watching from afar the siege of Tyre. There his two sons were slain before his eyes, and he was deprived of sight and carried to Babylon. There also were slain Seraiah the chief priest and Zephaniah the second priest, three doorkeepers of the Temple, five officers of the court, two of the army, and sixty persons of note who were found in Jerusalem. The rest of the people, with the remaining treasure of the Temple—some of it broken in pieces for facility of removal, including the great brazen sea and the two pillars Jachin and Boaz—were carried away. This was the third great deportation of captives and treasure from Jerusalem to Babylon. It was effected by Nebuzaradan about a month after the siege. He completed his work by burning the Temple and the city, and razing the walls to the ground. From this time the land enjoyed her sabbaths' till the end of the seventy years.
Sacred and profane history agree with the general tradition of the East, and the testimony of ancient inscriptions, in asserting the fact that in the latter part of the 6th century before Christ a prince named Cyrus, of the hitherto unimportant state of Persia, conquered the greater pat t of Asia. This prince, whom the Lord by the mouth of the pro phet Isaiah had named as his shepherd ' and his anointed one ' zoo years before, wrested Babylon out of the hands of Belshazzar (538 B.c.) at the very moment when he was profaning the vessels of the Lord's house by using them at his impious revels. The successes of this conqueror had been
foretold in the ancient writings of a people whom he found in captivity within its walls, and he was glad to co-operate with the Divine Being who had thus singled him out as his instrument in restoring that people to their own land and enabling them to raise again the Temple and the city on which their hearts still dwelt with such tender recollec tion.
From a comparison of Ezra i. with Daniel ii. we may infer that after the capture of Babylon Cyrus set Darius the Mede ' upon the throne, ! perhaps conjointly with himself, giving him the dignity of the position while he undertook its toils I and responsibilities. Certain it is, that in the first year of his own reign he invited any among the Jews who might feel so disposed to go up to Jeru salem and build the house of the Lord God of Israel, and directed all those that remained to assist them liberally with treasure, while he restored to them all the sacred vessels which Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the Temple. Joshua and Zerub. babel were the leaders of the noble band of 42,36o, comprising within it members of the royal family. priests, Levites, servants of the Temple, and private persons, which set out from Babylon to re-colonise the country of their forefathers.
Seven months were spent in the necessary work of settling themselves in the different cities of the holy land to which their families belonged, after which they all collected together at the ruins ot Jerusalem. Their first work on arriving there was to set up an altar to the Lord, their next to lay the foundation of the Temple. They were soon hindered by the officious zeal of some of their neighbours, who first proposed to assist them in their work and afterwards represented it as a source of danger to the Persian empire. Other casualties, incident to all new settletnents, delayed their operations, and at length the representations of their enemies led to a stoppag,e of the works by order of Artaxerxes (the pseudo-Smerdis who succeeded Cambyses, B.c. 522%; but, urged by the exhortations of Haggai and Zechariah, who reproached the people with living in ceiled houses' while the Temple lay waste, Zerubbabel and Joshua began the work again in the second year of Darius Hystaspes ; and on a report of their preceedings being sent to that prince by Tatnai, the Persian governor of the province, he caused a search to be made, and the original decree of Cyrus for the building of the Temple being discovered, he not only ordered it to proceed, but directed Tatnai and his subordinate officers to co operate heartily in the work ; which went on so prosperously that it was completed, and the feast oi its dedication kept, in the sixth year of his reign (n.c. 515).
An interval of fifty-eight years follows, of which we have no account, but, on the first day of the seventh year of Artaxerxes Longimanus (457 B.c.), Ezra, a priest of the line of Eleazar, with a small party of seventeen or eighteen hundred men of all classes, left Babylon furnished with a commission from Artaxerxes to collect money for the temple service, and inquire into the state of the Jews at Jerusalem. His journey occupied four months, and on his arrival he found it necessary to cffect an important and very difficult reform among the people who were already settled in the land; for priests, Levites, and persons of all classes had broken the Mosaic law by connecting themselves with women of heathen parentage. The matter was solemnly brought before the L, I'd and the assembled people with prayers, humiliations, and confessions of sin. A plan of examination into the several cases was agreed upon, and the evil was put an end to by the voluntary submission of those who had transgressed.