Darius, on receiving the report ordered that a search be made in the records of Babylon and indeed, a scroll was found at Achmetha, in the province of Media. This was truly the work of God that a diligent search was made (v1,2).
The contents of the record is outlined in verses 3-5 – “In the first year of King Cyrus, King Cyrus issued a decree concerning the house of God at Jerusalem: “Let the house be rebuilt, the place where they offered sacrifices; and let the foundations of it be firmly laid, its height sixty cubits and its width sixty cubits, with three rows of heavy stones and one row of new timber. Let the expenses be paid from the king’s treasury. Also let the gold and silver articles of the house of God, which Nebuchadnezzar took from the temple, which is in Jerusalem and brought to Babylon, be restored and taken back to the temple which is in Jerusalem, each to its place; and deposit them in the house of God;”
Not only did Cyrus give the decree for permission but he funded it too. He even mentioned heavy stones or large stones. The use of heavy stones and rows of timber seems to have been a precaution against earthquakes. Architects have discovered visible remains of the building in the form of large stones and timber joints. Cyrus also ordered that the gold and silver articles, taken by Nebuchadnezzar, should be returned.
Darius sent an order to Tattenai and Shethar-Boznai and companions to allow the work to proceed and not to interfere and whatever they needed to complete the work, to provide it without fail (v6-12). In fact, the work was to be furthered rather than hindered.
Darius included in his reply that they should pray for the life of the king and his sons and that anyone who disobeyed should be put to death and their houses made a rubbish dump. Darius had a reputation as being ruthless.
I’m sure you can imagine that Tattenai and his other officers, did what the king ordered. The elders of the Jews built and finished it in accordance with God’s command and edicts which came from the kings of Babylon and Persia. It was finished on the third day of Adar in the sixth year of Darius. It is clear that the words of the prophets Haggai and Zechariah played an important part (v13-15) by giving them the Word of God. The mention of Artaxerxes takes us forward to the time of rebuilding the walls by Nehemiah.
In verses 16-18 we have a celebration of the dedication of this temple. There was joy and sacrifices and they assigned priests and Levites to their divisions as written in the book of Moses. I believe the word for dedication is Hanukkah and it became the name of a festival in memory of the re-consecration in 165BC after Antiochus. Epiphanies had profaned it. Compared to the dedication of Solomons temple the number of sacrifices was small but that was really unimportant. It was acceptable to God.
They celebrated the Passover on the fourteenth day of the first month. They celebrated what The LORD had done for them with joy and rejoicing even to turning the king’s heart toward them. The Passover commemorated the leaving of slavery in Egypt in the book of Exodus. It was important that they remembered that The Lord had told them to kill a lamb and paint its blood on the lintel and doorposts so that the angel of death would not strike their firstborn as they were sheltered under the blood. The firstborn of those not under the blood would die. They also celebrated the Feast of Unleavened Bread which indicated the purity of God’s redeemed people.
We remember our Passover Lamb, our Lord Jesus Christ who shed His blood for us and we are sheltered un His blood. Believers do this every time we celebrate the Communion service in memory of His shed blood and broken body. We declare our faith in The Lord Jesus Christ who died for us and was raised again and lives to intercede for us and has promised that He will come back to take us to be with Himself for ever. We have so much to be joyful and rejoice in for what God has done for us. We are made clean by the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus. Anyone who has not repented of their sin and received Him as Lord and Saviour are under condemnation, still in their sin and bound for hell to face the punishment for sin. When we receive Communion, the Apostle Paul reminds us that we must do it worthily and examine ourselves if we are worthy, because if we take it unworthily, we eat and drink damnation to ourselves (see 1 Corinthians 11).
