The Memorandum, the Finished Temple and the Passover

"Then Darius the king made a decree, and search was made in the house of the rolls, where the treasures were laid up in Babylon. And there was found at Achmetha, in the palace that is in the province of the Medes, a roll, and therein was a record thus written."

"In the first year of Cyrus the king the same Cyrus the king made a decree concerning the house of God at Jerusalem, Let the house be builded, the place where they offered sacrifices, and let the foundations thereof be strongly laid; the height thereof threescore cubits, and the breadth thereof threescore cubits; with three rows of great stones, and a row of new timber: and let the expenses be given out of the king's house." The gold and silver vessels are to be restored, "every one to his place."

Darius writes to Tattenai: "Let the work of this house of God alone." The costs are to be paid "of the king's goods, even of the tribute beyond the river," with bulls, rams, lambs, wheat, salt, wine and oil daily, "that they may offer sacrifices of sweet savours unto the God of heaven, and pray for the life of the king, and of his sons." Whoever alters the decree is to be impaled on a beam pulled from his own house.

"And this house was finished on the third day of the month Adar, which was in the sixth year of the reign of Darius the king." They dedicate it with a hundred bulls, two hundred rams, four hundred lambs, and twelve goats "according to the number of the tribes of Israel," and set the priests in their divisions and the Levites in their courses, "as it is written in the book of Moses."

On the fourteenth day of the first month they keep the Passover. "And the children of Israel, which were come again out of captivity, and all such as had separated themselves unto them from the filthiness of the heathen of the land, to seek the LORD God of Israel, did eat, and kept the feast of unleavened bread seven days with joy: for the LORD had made them joyful, and turned the heart of the king of Assyria unto them."

Ecbatana, not Babylon

The search begins in Babylon, but the scroll (megillah) is found at Achmetha, Ecbatana (modern Hamadan), "in the fortress (birta) in the province of Media." Greek writers say Cyrus spent summers at Ecbatana (Xenophon, Cyropaedia 8.6.22). Persian administration wrote on clay tablets (Elamite, at Persepolis) and on leather and papyrus (Aramaic); a scroll fits the Aramaic chancery. The archive's location within Ecbatana is unknown, and no document from it survives.

Two forms of the decree

Sixty by sixty

Solomon's temple was 60 cubits long, 20 wide and 30 high (1 Kings 6:2). A house 60 cubits high and 60 wide would be far larger. The memorandum gives no length, which suggests something has dropped out or the figures describe a different measure (perhaps the outer limits Persia would fund). All library texts, Hebrew–Aramaic, Greek, Latin and English, read sixty and sixty; 1 Esdras 6:25 also. Haggai's remark that the new house seemed "as nothing" (Haggai 2:3) suggests it was not larger than Solomon's.

Praying for the king

Darius asks the priests to pray "for the life of the king, and of his sons." Jeremiah had told the exiles to "seek the peace of the city" (Jeremiah 29:7). The Elephantine Jews promised to pray for the governor Bagohi if their temple was rebuilt (407 BC). Persian kings funded local cults in return for prayers and loyalty, as the Cyrus Cylinder also asks for prayers for Cyrus and his son Cambyses.

A small dedication

Solomon dedicated his temple with 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep (1 Kings 8:63). The returned community offers 100 bulls, 200 rams and 400 lambs. The twelve goats "for all Israel" claim the whole people, all twelve tribes, though the community was mostly from Judah and Benjamin.

"Cyrus, and Darius, and Artaxerxes" (6:14)

The summary credits the commandment of three kings. But the temple was finished under Darius, decades before Artaxerxes. Explanations: Artaxerxes is added because he later supported the temple with gifts (7:15–24, 27: "to beautify the house"); the verse is a theological summary of all the Persian support Ezra–Nehemiah narrates; or it is a later editorial addition. The site does not take it to mean Artaxerxes funded the building of 515 BC.

The date

The third of Adar in Darius' sixth year corresponds to about March 515 BC on the standard Babylonian calendar tables (some reckonings give 516). 1 Esdras 7:5 (KJV Apocrypha) says the twenty-third of Adar. The library's Hebrew, Greek and Latin of Ezra all say the third.

"The king of Assyria" (6:22)

The verse calls the Persian king "king of Assyria." All library texts agree. Explanations: Persian kings ruled the former Assyrian empire, and "Assyria" (Athura) remained the Persian name of a province including Syria; the phrase recalls that the empire which once destroyed Israel now helps it; or it is a deliberate literary echo. It is not a reference to a separate Assyrian king in 515 BC.

Who ate the Passover

6:21 includes, besides the returned exiles, "all such as had separated themselves unto them from the filthiness of the heathen of the land." These may be Judeans who had never gone into exile, or people of other origin who joined the community. Either way, the verse describes an open door into the community, a counterweight to the separations of chapters 9–10, which the site discusses there.