요세푸스(Flavius Josephus)를 통해 보는 바빌론과 페르시아 왕국 (3편) 영문

In the first year of King Cyrus (536 BC), a royal decree proclaimed the return of the Jews. "Thus declares King Cyrus. Almighty God has made me the king of the human world, and I believe that God is the God whom the Israelites serve. This is very clear when we see that God prophesied My Name through the prophet (Isaiah). Therefore I want to build a house for God in Jerusalem, in the land of Judea." Following the decree of Cyrus, the leaders and priests of the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin hastened to Jerusalem. This was the first return of the Jews. But many Jews did not have the heart to leave their possessions behind, so they simply remained in Babylon.   When the Jews arrived in Jerusalem, King Cyrus' friends came to their aid, bringing gold and silver for the building of the temple, as well as many other animals and horses. Cyrus returned the pieces of God that King Nebuchadnezzar had plundered the temple and taken to Babylon. Cyrus also sent a letter to the governor of Syria. "I Cyrus, greet Sisines and Sarabasanes. I have permitted all the Jews in my country who want to return to their own country, rebuild the cities, and build the temple of God on its former site. I have also sent Mithredath, the treasurer, and Zerubbabel, the Jewish, to lay the foundations of the temple, and instructed them to build a temple of hewn stone and wood, 60 cubits in height and breadth. And I'll pay for all the expenses. I also appointed Mitredad and Zerubbabel to be in charge of the things that King Nebuchadnezzar had plundered from the temple and brought back to Jerusalem to the house of God. I also permitted them to enjoy the honors which they had enjoyed from their forefathers, and I ordered that 205,500 drachma be paid for livestock and oil, and 20,500 artabe for flour to be paid for by taxes from Samaria. The priests gave permission to offer sacrifices in Jerusalem according to the law of Moses. I asked them to pray to God for the Persian kingdom and the king of the royal family when they offered sacrifices. It is my will that whoever disobeys this command of mine should be crucified, and all his property should be confiscated, and that it should be vested in the king's property." However, Ezra in the Bible does not distinguish between the Jews who returned during the reign of King Cyrus and the Jews who returned during the reign of King Darius, and describes them all as returning during the reign of King Cyrus. It is explained that the 42,360 people who returned at that time began the foundation work of the temple. Thus, the passage in Ezra 3 describes the foundation of the temple as if the Jews who returned during the reign of King Cyrus began the foundation of the temple, but in fact it is a reference to the construction of the temple by the Jews who returned during the reign of King Darius. In the first year of King Cyrus (536BC), the returning Jews laid the foundation stone for the temple, but Samaritans took the lead in sending a petition to Cambyses through the governor of Syria to stop the Jews from building the temple. Cambyses was the son of King Cyrus, and when Cyrus left the wars of conquest, he became regent and ruled Persia. Later, King Cyrus died on the battlefield, Cambyses became king, Cambyses died at Damascus in Syria on his way back from an expedition to Egypt, and seven months later Darius, a nobleman, became king after a court affair. Zerubbabel, who had returned to Jerusalem in the first year of Cyrus' reign, returned to his friend Darius when he became king of Persia and became the king's bodyguard. Then Zerubbabel received the favor of King Darius, became governor of Judea, and led many Jews on the second return. Therefore, the Bible from Ezra chapter 3 onwards takes the content of the second return and explained it as if it were the first return. However, when the foundations of the temple were laid and the Jews were very zealous in building the temple, the Kuda, a people who had been forcibly migrated to Samaria during the time of the Assyrian king Shalmaneser and who were later despised as Samaritans, went to the governors of the area and asked them to stop the Jews from rebuilding the city and the temple. The governors, who accepted their bribes, took advantage of King Cyrus' absence due to wars of conquest to halt the construction of the Jewish temple. The governors then sent a letter to Cambyses, who was in the regency position on behalf of his father, who was waging a war of conquest in a foreign land, with the following contents: "To King Cambyses, our lord, all your servants, Rathumus the historian, Semellius the scribe, and the princes of Syria and Phoenicia, all of us greet the king. O King! There is one thing you must know. The Jews who were taken captive to Babylon are coming back into our nation, rebuilding Jerusalem, a city known for its rebellion and wickedness, building a market, building walls, and building a temple. When this is done, the Jews will not be willing to pay tribute, they will resist the king's orders instead of obeying them, and they will seek to dominate others rather than be ruled by others. If you look through the books of the good kings, you will see that the Jews in Jerusalem were enemies and traitors to the good kings. For this reason, it is necessary to turn this Jerusalem into ruins. Bear in mind that if Jerusalem were inhabited and fortified with walls, the king would be cut off from the roads to Coelesyria and Phoenicia."   When the drunkard Cambyses read this letter, he became angry and restless, and then sent the following reply: "I have ordered you to read your letters and examine the books of the previous kings. As a result, they learned that Jerusalem had always been hostile to its predecessors, and that its inhabitants did not hesitate to rebel and go on a rampage. In addition, we learned that the kings of Judea had once been so powerful and powerful that they had received tribute from Coelesuria and Phoenicia. Therefore, let the building of Jerusalem be stopped, lest they plot the rebellion that they did against the kings." Thus the edict of Cyrus was effectively revoked. Coincidentally, a message came that King Cyrus (536~528 BC) had died in the conquered Scythian region. Cambyses ascended the throne (527~522 BC), but died in Damascus on his way back from conquering Egypt. After his death, Bardia, the magi (priest) who ruled the Persian Empire for seven months, was murdered. The seven families of the Persians joined forces to kill Bardia and appointed Darius, the son of Hystaspes, as king. Darius, on the other hand, had sworn to God that if he became king, he would return all of God's belongings in Babylon to the temple in Jerusalem. And his wish turned out to be true. At this time, in the first year of Cyrus, he went to Jerusalem Zerubbabel, a returning Jew, returned to Babylon to meet King Darius (521~486 BC). They had been friends for a long time, and Zerubbabel was the grandson of King Jegoniah, so he would have been friends with Darius. Zerubbabel, along with two others. was assigned to guard the king's personal safety. "The End"