{N}IN THE TIMES OF THE PERSIANS AND THE MACEDONIANS{/}

{K}THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE TEMPLE{/}
{N}Sheshbazzar{/} had returned with the repatriates, bringing with them the objects of worship that Nebuchadnezzar had previously robbed. Orders were also given to restore the Holy Wall. {C}They gave money to the masons and the carpenters. They also gave food, wine, and oil to the Tyrians to bring cedar lumber...All the people gave thanks to Yahweh, singing and praising for the foundation of the House of Yahweh  was laid{/} [Ezra_3,7] and [Ezra_3,11].

{K}"THE INHABITANTS OF THE COUNTRY"{/}
{C}When the inhabitants of the country learned that those who had returned from exile were rebuilding the sanctuary of Yahweh, God of Israel, they approached {/}{N}Zerubbabel{/}{C}, Joshua, and the heads of the families, and said to them: 'Allow us to help you in the work of reconstruction for we are also concerned about your God. We have offered him sacrifices from the time of Esar haddon, king of Assyria, who brought us here.'
"Zerubbabel, Joshua, and the heads of the Israelite families answered them, 'We cannot let you join us, for we alone must rebuild it, as Cyrus, king of Persia has commanded'{/} [Ezra_4,1] - [Ezra_4,3].
The inhabitants of the country consisted of the various groups that had been conquered and exiled to Palestine over a long period by the Assyrians and the Babylonians. Certainly a large part of them were also Jews who had remained in the country at the time of the exile, and who then gradually mixed with the more recent arrivals. Their desire to share in the restoration of the Temple could be a way to assimilate the new settlers. Dealing with them could be a way of incurring into the danger indicated by the Deuteronomy: {C}Do not make any covenant with them...Do not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons, or taking their daughters for your sons, because they would seduce your children to abandon me and adore strange gods{/} [Dt_7,3] - [Dt_7,4].
During the succeeding years the work on the Temple was repeatedly delayed by the complaints of the {C}inhabitants of the country{/} to the Persian authorities and the ceaseless discussions with the Jews. Nevertheless, under the prompting of the Prophets Haggai and Zechariah the construction was finished and the Temple was consecrated on the first of April 515 BC in the twelfth year of the reign of Darius.

{K}TEMPLE AND PRIESTS{/}
When the Jews returned from captivity following the edict of Cyrus, their country now formed part of the Persian Empire. The only authority that existed was that of the Great King. Under no circumstances was it possible for the Jews to recuperate their former identity and authentic originality based on some independent political power. As a result, the Temple became much more than a symbol of restoration. It became the center and the heart of Jewish life, and the priests who confirmed and guaranteed the worship of the One God began to occupy a prominent place in the nation. The primary priest of the Temple became the principal person of the community and took the title of {N}High Priest{/}. The ritual of the Temple, the celebration of the feasts and the strict observance of the liturgical calendar, for their part, constituted the fundamental framework that would preserve Israel's faithful identity in the midst of the provinces of the empire. With all probability, it was at this time that the final editing of the Book of Leviticus took place. The psalms, that formed the heart of Israel's liturgy, had been collected into five groups each ending with a doxology, undoubtedly in imitation of the five books of the Law (Pentateuch).

{K}THE PRAYER OF THE PSALMS{/}
Religious poems and canticles did not originate with the people of Israel. The literature of the peoples of Egypt, Canaan, and even of Mesopotamia, that dates from the same period as the Old Testament, provides many similar examples of such forms of prayer. There can be no doubt that since the time of Solomon the psalm as a prayer form had a privileged place in the liturgy of the Temple, and Jewish tradition holds that it was King David himself who fixed the rules for the use of psalms in temple worship. Nevertheless, it is certain that the priests working in the reconstructed Temple also influenced the development of this new form of poetry. It is probable that the Levites in charge of singing and music, groups such as "the sons of {N}Asaph{/}," and "the sons of {N}Jeduthun{/}" had much to do with the composition and selection of psalms for worship. As time went on, revisions began adding more personal prayers and communal lamentations which made reference to one or other past event or to trials that the Community of Jerusalem had suffered. The psalms nourished the faith and piety of Israel and had a privileged place in the daily ritual of the Temple and in the celebration of the great annual feasts.

{K}NEHEMIAH CONSTRUCTS THE WALLS OF JERUSALEM{/}
The reconstruction of the Temple would not have been possible without the help of those Jews who had held high positions in the royal administration of Babylonia. Once the Temple was completed, much work remained to be done. The community of repatriates lived in great misery. Moreover, the great enthusiasm awakened by {N}Haggai{/} and {N}Zechariah{/} was being extinguished by the multitude of daily difficulties, the hostility of the "inhabitants of the country" toward the recent arrivals who appeared to want to dominate all positions of importance in Judea, as well as the feeling by the repatriates that they had been abandoned by those who preferred to remain in Babylonia. The Book of  {N}Malachi{/} is a good example of the general disenchantment that had settled upon the country.
Faced with this calamitous situation, Nehemiah, cup bearer in the court of Artaxerxes I, began to act. When he arrived in Jerusalem he decided to reconstruct the walls of the Holy City, despite the ridicule of his opponents. The work on the walls was completed in 52 days, but restoring the spirits of the people was a different story. Nehemiah, as leader, gave the example of dedication in the exercise of his responsibilities without personal gain. He urged the rich to forgive the debts which the poor had incurred against them, and to return whatever the poor had deposited as security. Finally, he warned that severe action would be taken against anyone who acted to the contrary.

{K}PERSIAN SUPPORT FOR EZRA{/}
Nehemiah was supported in his difficult task by a priest named Ezra, who was also a repatriate from Babylonia. The king supported the latter's mission with a formal decree: {C}Artaxerxes, king of kings, to Ezra, priest and teacher instructed in the Law of God of the Heavens...Your mandate is the following: You will go as a delegate of the king and his seven counselors to assure that the Law of God entrusted to you will be observed in Judah and Jerusalem. In accord with the wisdom that you have received from God, name judges and magistrates to administer justice to all of the people beyond the river, to all who know the Law of your God and teach it to all that do not yet know it. Whoever does not promptly fulfill the Law of God and the Law of the king will be severely punished by death, expulsion, fine, or prison{/} [Ezra_7,6] ... [Ezra_7,26].
The difficulties that Persia was encountering at that time explain this extreme benevolence on the part of its central power toward what was merely a poor province. One of the difficulties was the rebellion of the governor of Transeuphrates (the province West of the Euphrates River which included Palestine), another was Egypt's repeated attempts at rebellion. These circumstances forced Persia to count on the unreserved fidelity of Judea which lay strategically between these two points of insurrection.

{K}SOLEMN READING OF THE LAW{/}
Confident of royal support, Ezra tried to organize the life of the Community around observance of the Law of Yahweh. In response to his convocation, the whole people assembled as one person in the plaza in front of the Water Gate. They asked Ezra to bring out the Law of Moses which Yahweh had given to Israel. Ezra brought the Law before the assembly, which was made up of men, women, and all the children capable of understanding what was about to be proclaimed. Ezra read the book to the assembly from morning until midday...They read the book of the Law of God daily, from the first day of the feast until the last day [Ne_8,1] ... [Ne_8,18].

{K}THE CASE OF STRANGERS{/}
In order to reestablish the purity of the "people of God," which found itself immersed in a mosaic of peoples each with its own religious customs and transplanted from different points of the Near East, the ancient legislation was enforced with exactness. This was how their ancestors protected Israel from contamination by the Canaanites: {C}Do not make any covenant with them...giving your sons or daughters in marriage or taking theirs in marriage{/} [Dt_7,3] - [Dt_7,4]. The invasions and the captivity had led to the neglect of this prohibition with the result that intermarriage with strangers had become commonplace at all social levels. Ezra insisted that members of the community dismiss their foreign wives [Ezra_9,1] - [Ezra_10,5].

{K}DOCTORS OF THE LAW{/}
Nehemiah and Ezra fulfilled a decisive role in the Community of the repatriates from Babylonia. They transformed Jerusalem and its surroundings, where the newcomers had collected, into a priestly state centered on the Temple. The Torah of the Jews, our Pentateuch, which was completed little by little through the work of the scribes, was imposed as law. The new circumstances resulting from the political and social turmoil of the past century required adaptation or modification of the laws, but always with due respect to the mosaic tradition. Israel was the people that God had chosen for himself from all other nations, the people whose God Yahweh was the "One and Jealous God." 
At the side of the priests who ruled in the Temple, the scribes who were experts in the Law assumed an ever more important role.  Only the strict observance of the thousand and one religious prescriptions by those who had returned to their land could protect the Israelites now restored in their land against divine punishments. 
By means of this process the Community of Jerusalem, although still subject to Persian authority, was developing institutions and legislation which made it the center and beacon for Israel. These institutions and legislation would assure the cohesion of a people that was spreading out into the four corners of the Persian Empire and beyond because of the trials of history. Consequently, when Alexander the Great radically changed the geopolitical map of the Near East in the span of ten years, this did not bring about any substantial changes for the Jews, at  least not immediately.

{K}THE HOUR OF THE MACEDONIANS{/}
Greece had not forgotten the two Persian invasions during the reign of Darius in 490 BC and the reign of Xerxes ten years later. The end of the century brought with it a modification in the balance of power. Philip II, King of Macedonia, was able to dominate the other provinces. His scaling machines and the effectiveness of the Macedonian phalanx guaranteed the superiority of his army. The gold mines of Mount Pangaeum assured the financing of the military campaigns. In 337 BC the Greeks decided to declare war on Persia. However, Philip II was assassinated the following year and the confederate cities rebelled against his son, {N}Alexander{/}, who had just celebrated his twentieth birthday. Despite his age, Alexander immediately responded to this threat by punishing the old cities of Athens, Thebes, and Peloponnisos as an example to others.

{K}ALEXANDER'S CAMPAIGNS{/}
After setting everything in order, Alexander crossed the Dardanelles with an army of 30,000 infantry soldiers and 5,000 cavalry and encountered the united Satraps of Asia Minor bent upon impeding his passage. He was victorious over them. He passed by the Gordian in order to cut the famous "Gordian Knot," then went down to the coast by the Cilician ports where he again conquered the army of Darius III Codomannus at Issus. He then overcame Tirus at the end of seven months and arrived at Egypt where he was recognized as the legitimate heir of the Pharaohs and son of the god Zeus-Amon. En route Alexander had left one of his generals, Parmenion, in charge of occupying Palestine. Only Samaria, where the satrap governor of the province resided, put up real resistance.

{K}VICTORY AND DEATH{/}
Alexander pursued Darius relentlessly, crossing the plains of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. He defeated the Persians at Gaugamela (331 BC) and victoriously invaded prestigious Babylonia. He ascended the approaches to the Iranian plateau where he conquered Susa and added Persepolis and Pasargadae to the number of conquered cities. Thereupon his objective became to defeat Bessus, the governor who was attempting to recuperate  the last vestiges of Darius' empire who had been assassinated by his own officers. This new campaign would lead him to the sources of the Indus River.
However, Alexander's soldiers mutinied after so much warfare and obliged him to return to the plains of Mesopotamia. There Alexander began to organize this recently conquered empire in an attempt to form a single nation of the Macedonians and the Persians. At that point he was struck down with a fever in Babylonia and died in June 323 BC. The great conqueror had not even celebrated his thirty third birthday.

{K}SPLINTERED EMPIRE{/}
Hardly had Alexander died when his lifelong companions and fellow soldiers divided the empire among themselves and began to turn on one another. Then followed a series of assassinations: Alexander's mother Olimpias, his wife Roxana and his son, and these deaths were succeeded by endless quarrels and rivalries for more than forty years. When peace was finally restored, three dynasties divided Alexander's original empire among themselves: The Antigonids remained in power in Macedonia; the {N}Seleucids{/} took charge of an empire that extended from Asia Minor to Mesopotamia; and the {N}Lagides{/} ruled Egypt, Palestine, and Phoenicia.
The community of Jerusalem was dependent upon the authority of Egypt. Therefore it is understandable how the Jewish community of Alexandria, which had originally been formed by refugees fleeing from the Chaldean invaders, had grown in numbers and importance in this prosperous city that had become a cultural and political center as regional capital. Many of these Jews no longer knew how to speak Hebrew, since Egypt had gradually adopted the language of their Conqueror Alexander. It was during this period that the Law was translated into Greek, and then other texts of the Old Testament. The final work of these Alexandrian scribes was passed on to posterity under the name of the Translation of the Seventy. With this translation into the daily language at that time, another new reality became evident. The Jews of the {N}diaspora{/} had accepted many things of Hellenistic culture, and these Jews were now having more and more influence upon Judaism in general.

{K}SELEUCIDS AND ROMANS{/}
During this period, {N}Antiochus III{/} in Syria allied himself with Philip V of Macedonia and both began aggressive political campaigns to expand their respective territories. Philip followed up the successful conquest of various cities dependent upon the reign of Pergamum with the domination of Greek cities on the Aegean coast and from there he threatened Athens and Rhodes. 
Antiochus for his part had also expanded his territory considerably in Asia Minor. Their mutual success encouraged the two of them to attempt the conquest of Egypt. The threatened countries appealed for help to Rome who immediately sent help. Titus Quinctius successfully campaigned against Philip V and defeated him at Cynoscephalae in 197 BC. The Seleucids had not yet suffered any loss. Antiochus III was able to capture Palestine from the descendants of Lagos (or Ptolemites) in 198 BC. At first, the new masters acted with tolerance toward the Jewish community and even granted some privileges which is documented in a decree by the king to the new governor of the region of Jerusalem.
The truce that Rome granted the Seleucids was of short duration. Two successive defeats at Thermopylae in 191 and at Magnesia the following year forced Antiochus III to sign a humiliating peace at Apamea. He lost his holdings in Asia Minor and had to make concessions to Rhodes and Pergamum, allies of Rome. This marked Rome's entrance into the Middle East. After having subdued the power of the Seleucids, it proceeded to organize all of Asia Minor for its benefit.
