The death of a cruel monarch is always in the East an occasion for the revival of shattered hopes, and the events which accompanied the suicide of Cambyses in 522 were particularly fraught with the possibilities of political change. Cambyses’ throne had been usurped by one Gaumata, who pretended to be Smerdis or Barada, a son of Cyrus. In a few months Gaumata was slain by a conspiracy of seven Persian nobles, of whom Darius, the son of Hystaspes, both by virtue of his royal descent and by his own great ability, was raised to the throne in 521. The empire had been too profoundly shocked by the revolt of Gaumata to settle at once under the new king, and Darius found himself engaged by insurrections in all his provinces except Syria and Asia Minor.[613] The colonists in Jerusalem, like all their Syrian neighbours, remained loyal to the new king; so loyal that their Peḥah or Satrap was allowed to be one of themselves—Zerubbabel, son of She’altî’el,[614] a son of their royal house. Yet though they were quiet, the nations were rising against each other and the world was shaken. It was just such a crisis as had often before in Israel rewakened prophecy. Nor did it fail now; and when prophecy was roused what duty lay more clamant for its inspiration than the duty of building the Temple?
We are in touch with the first of our post-exilic prophets, Haggai and Zechariah.
[546] 42,360, _besides their servants_, is the total sum given in Ezra ii. 64; but the detailed figures in Ezra amount only to 29,818, those in Nehemiah to 31,089, and those in 1 Esdras to 30,143 (other MSS. 30,678). See Ryle on Ezra ii. 64.
[547] Ezra i. 8.
[548] Ezra v. 14.
[549] _Ib._ 16.
[550] Ezra ii. 63.
[551] יֵשׁוּעַ בֶּן־יוֹצָדק: Ezra iii. 2, like Ezra i. 1-8, from the Compiler of Ezra-Nehemiah.
[552] זְרֻבָּבֶל בֶּן־שְׁאַלְתִּיאֵל.
[553] Ezra ii. 2.
[554] Hag. i. 14, ii. 2, 21, and perhaps by Nehemiah (vii. 65-70). Nehemiah himself is styled both Peḥah (xiv. 20) and Tirshatha (viii. 9, x. 1).
[555] As Daniel and his three friends had also Babylonian names.
[556] Ezra ii. 63.
[557] Cf. Ryle, xxxi ff.; and on Ezra i. 8, ii. 63.
[558] Stade, _Gesch. des Volkes Israel_, II. 98 ff.: cf. Kuenen, _Gesammelte Abhandl._, 220.
[559] Ezra i. 8.
[560] Ezra i. compared with ii. 1.
[561] Some think to find this in 1 Esdras v. 1-6, where it is said that Darius, a name they take to be an error for that of Cyrus, brought up the exiles with an escort of a thousand cavalry, starting in the first month of the second year of the king’s reign. This passage, however, is not beyond suspicion as a gloss (see Ryle on Ezra i. 11), and even if genuine may be intended to describe a second contingent of exiles despatched by Darius I. in his second year, 520. The names given include that of Jesua, son of Josedec, and instead of Zerubbabel’s, that of his son Joacim.
[562] Ezra iii. 3-7.
[563] _Ib._ 8-13.
[564] Ezra iv. 7.
[565] See above, p. 193.
[566] iv. 24.
[567] Ezra iv. 24—vi. 15.
[568] There are in the main two classes of such attempts. (_a_) Some have suggested that the Ahasuerus (Xerxes) and Artaxerxes mentioned in Ezra iv. 6 and 7 ff. are not the successors of Darius I. who bore these names, but titles of his predecessors Cambyses and the Pseudo-Smerdis (see above, p. 190). This view has been disposed of by Kuenen, _Ges. Abhandl._, pp. 224 ff., and by Ryle, pp. 65 ff. (_b_) The attempt to prove that the Darius under whom the Temple was built was not Darius I. (521—485), the predecessor of Xerxes I. and Artaxerxes I. (485—424), but their successor once removed, Darius II., Nothus (423—404). So, in defence of the Book of Ezra, Imbert. For his theory and the answer to it see above, pp. 191 f.