This week we are continuing our study of the book of Ezra, diving into chapter 5. After the plotting and scheming of Judah’s oppositional neighbors, all work on the temple stopped around 535 BCE, still during the reign of Cyrus. The returnees had laid the temple foundations, an event that attracted negative attention from the people of the land, and for the next fifteen years did nothing to move the temple project forward.
On the surface, opposition from the people of the land and interference by Persian administrators was too much to overcome for the returnees. At least, that was the external reasoning for delaying the temple objective, as narrated in the book of Ezra. Internally, however, more was going on. The prophetic books of Haggai and Zechariah offer a peak behind the scenes, exposing the weakened spiritual condition of the restored community.
