On their arrival at Jerusalem they contributed, ac- cording to their ability, to rebuild the Temple ; Jeshua the priest, and Zerubbabel, reared up an altar to offer burnt-offerings thereon ; and when, in the following year, the foundation was laid of the new house of God,
which he received from the enemies of Israel (Neh. iv, vi), B.C. 446. The city was then capacious and large, but the people in it were few, and many houses still lay in ruins (Neh. vii, 4). At Jerusalem dwelt the rulers of the people and '• certain of the children of Judah and of the children of Benjamin ;" but it was now determined that the rest of the people should cast lots to bring one of ten to the capital (Neh. xi, 1-4), B.C. cir. 440. On Nehemiah's return, after several years' absence to court, all strangers, Samaritans.Ammonites, Moabites, etc., were removed, to keep the chosen jjcople from pollution; min- isters were appointed to the Temple, and the service was performed according to the law of jMoses (Ezra x ; Neh. viii, X, xii, xiii), B.C. cir. 410. Of the Jerusalem thus by such great and long-continued exertions restored, verj-- splendid prophecies were uttered by those pjophets who flourished after the exile; the general juirport of which was to describe the Temple and city as destined to be glorified far beyond the former, by the advent of the long and eagerly-expected Messiah, " the desire of aU nations" (Zech. ix, 9; xii, 10; xiii, 3; Hagg. ii, 6, 7; Mai. iii, 11). See Ezra; Nehemiah.
5. For the subsequent historj' of .Jerusalem (which is closely connected with that of Palestuie in general), down to its destruction by the Romans, we must draw chiefly upon Josephus and the books of the Maccabees.
JERUSALEM
840
JERUSALEM
It is said by Joseplms (Ant. xi, 8) that when the do- minion of this part of the world passed from the Per- sians to the Greeks, Alexander the Great advanced ajrainst Jerusalem to punish it for the fidelity to the Persians which it had manifested while he was engaged in tlic siege of TjTe. His hostile piu'poses, however, were averted by the appearance of the high-priest Jad- dua at the head of a train of priests in their sacred vest- ments. Alexander recognised in him the figure which in a dream had encouraged him to undertake the con- quest of Asia. He therefore treated him with respect and reverence, spared the city against which his wrath had been kindled, and granted to the Jews high and im- l)ortant privileges. The liistorian adds that the high- priest failed not to apprise the conqueror of those proph- ecies in Daniel by which his successes had been predict- ed. The whole of this story is, however, liable to sus- picion, from the absence of any notice of the circum- stance in the histories of this campaign which we pos- sess. See Alexander thk Grkat.
After the death of Alexander at Babj-lon (B.C. 324), Ptolemy surprised Jerusalem on the Sabbath day, when the Jews would not fight, plundered the city, and car- ried away a great number of the inhabitants to Egypt, where, however, from the estimation in which the Jews of this period were lield as citizens, important privileges were bestowed upon them (Joseph. A nt. xii, 1). In the contests which afterwards followed for the possession of Syria (including Palestine), Jerusalem does not appear to liave been directly inj ured, and was even spared when Ptolemy gave up Samaria, Acco, Joppa, and Gaza to pil- lage. The contest was ended by the treaty in B.C. 302, which annexed the whole of Palestine, together with Arabia Petraea and Ccele-Syria to Egypt. Under easy subjection to the Ptolemies, the .Jews remained in much tranquillity for more tlian a hundred years, in which the principal incident, as regards Jerusalem itself, was the visit which wa^ paid to it, in B.C. 245, by Ptolemy Euergctes, on his return from his victories in the East. He oifered many sacrifices, and made magnificent yires- ents to the Temple. In the wars between Antiochus the Great and the kings of Egypt, from B.C. 221 to 197, Judica could not fail to suffer severely ; but we are not acquainted with any incident in which Jerusalem was principally concerned till the alleged visit of Ptolemy Philopator in B.C. 211. He offered sacrifices, and gave rich gifts to the Temple, but, venturing to enter the sanctuary in spite of tlie remonstrances of the high- priest, he was seized with a supernatural dread, and fied in terror from the place. It is said that on his return to Egypt lie vented his rage on the Jews of Alexandria in a very barbarous manner. See Ai.kxandiua. But the whole story of his visit and its results rests upon the sole authority of the third book of Jlaccabees (chaps, i and iii), and is therefore not entitled to implicit credit. To- wards the end of this war the Jews seemed to favor the cause of Antiochus; and after he had subdued the neigh- boring country, they voluntarily tendered their submis- sion, and rendered their assistance in expelling the Egyp- tian garrison from Mount Zion. For this conduct they were rewarded by many important privileges by Anti- ochus. He issued decrees directing, among otherthings, that the outworks of the Temple should be completed, and that all the materials for needful repairs should be exempted from taxes. The peculiar sanctity of the Temple was also to be respected. No foreigner was to pass the sacred walls, and the city itself was to be pro- tected from pollution ; it being strictly forbidden that the fiesh or skins of any beasts which the Jews account- ed unclean shoukl be brought into it (Joseph. A nt. xii, 3, 3). These were very liberal concessions to what the king himself must have regarded as the prejudices of the Jewish people.