Ezra 1.11 says, “All the articles of gold and silver numbered 5,400 (both large and small-2 Chr 36.18). Sheshbazzar (maybe the Chaldean name for Zerubbabel) brought them all up with the exiles who went up from Babylon to Jerusalem. ” Now, one good thing happened as a result of the Babylonian deportations was the Babylonians and later the Persians did not replace the Jews with pagan peoples in the land, like the Assyrians did. Judah was devastated but not defiled with pagan gods like Israel to the north was. Cyrus allowed the Temple treasures to be returned, but, there are some glaring omissions from the list given in Ezra 1.7-11. There is no mention of the Mizbeach Shell Zahav meaning the Golden Altar of Incense; the Shulchan Ha Lechem Ha Pannim or the Table of the Bread of the Faces; the Mizbeach Ha Gadol or Great Altar, and the Menorah. Some say that just because they are not mentioned doesn’t mean that Ezra did not bring them back. There are others who believe that these are lost to history and new ones were made for the second Temple. It is possible that they may be hidden on the Temple Mount in a place prepared by Solomon and were never taken to Babylon. In the case of the Ark of the Covenant, in the Mishnah, Shekalim 6.1-2, we know that the priests made a prostration opposite the wood store in the second Temple. There was belief that came from their forefathers that the Ark was hidden there and never taken to Babylon. The Mishanh in Shekalim 6.1-2 also tells us about a priest who saw a block of pavement there that was different from the others. He told an associate, but before they could return to check it out he died. So they believed that the Ark was truly hidden there. So, the question is asked, “Why wasn’t the Ark brought out in the Second Temple Period?” The Second Temple may have been below the kedusha of the First Temple and that is why the original items were never used, and remained hidden. The First Temple was built for all of Israel. The northern kingdom was carried away into captivity. Even though the southern kingdom was allowed to return, they did not all return. The Temple was a “zekor” (remembrance) of the glory of what had been, and what is promised to be in the future. Many who had seen the glory of Solomon’s Temple wept when they saw the second Temple (Ezra 3.12-13). It is an example of the concept, “Here now, but not yet.” Several times we have mentioned a concept called “kedusha.” When an object, place or a person has a kedusha (holiness), it cannot go “down or backwards” in kedusha. For example, when Antiochus Epiphanes IV was defeated by the Maccabees he had already defiled the altar in the Temple. When they decided to build another altar, they tore down the altar stones but they did not know what to do with them. The leaders were priests and they knew the concept of kedusha, so they knew you couldn’t just throw them away. So, they kept the stones in an area that had the same level of kedusha, and that was in the northwest chamber of the Temple called the Beit Ha Moked (Middot 1.6) meaning “Chamber of the Hearth.” It was the dormitory for the priests when they stayed there for their week of service in the Temple. It’s the same concept with the Ark and these other pieces of furniture. We believe they are hidden on the Temple Mount and they never left the sanctified (holy) area because of kedusha.
In another example, when the bread was exchanged every Sabbath for the Shulchan Lechem ha Pannim (Table of the Bread of the Faces), it was brought to the sanctuary placed on a silver table to the right of the entrance into the Sanctuary. Then it was placed on the Shulchan Lechem ha Pannim (golden table) for one week. The old bread was taken off the Shulchan Lechem ha Pannim and placed on a golden table to the right of the entrance as you were leaving the sanctuary. It was on a golden table and when it was taken off it was placed on a golden table because it cannot diminish in kedusha.
The list of what was given back numbered 5,400 in total, and this is what was taken to Babylon in 2 Chr 36.18. They were brought back by Sheshbazzar, the prince of Judah, who was a trusted leader-Ezra 1.8,11. Some have said he was working with Zerubbabel in Ezra 2.2, 3.2, and others believe that this is the Chaldean name for Zerubbabel, who was chief among the the returning exiles in Ezra 5.14-16 and Hag 1.1. At any rate, these were valuable items and Cyrus was very generous in giving these back. They were very expensive and could have helped in his own administrative finances. Some have said that these items were contaminated by idolatry in Babylon and that the Jewish people had lost all claim to them, but Ezra 1.11 despoils all such claims. The people were coming back to rebuild the Temple before there are walls in Jerusalem (Neh 1.1-3). So we know that the situation was hard and dangerous. Another problem that developed was there were no crops. The people were starving. This is the situation that Ezra is dealing with, along with trying to rebuild the Temple. The Temple will be different than the First Temple in other ways, too. There was no divine fire on the altar, the Shekinah, Ruach Ha Kodesh or Urim v’ Thummim, Aaron’s Rod that budded, and no pot of manna. The Urim v’ Thummim is prophesied to return in Neh 7.61-65.
When Ezra comes back “Judaism” will also change. There is no king and the Temple is different for all of the above reasons. There is no palace for the king near the Temple complex, so that will change how the people approach the inner courts. The nature of the outer courts will change also. Without a king there is no central authority figure. Yes, they had Yehovah but his earthly representative is the king, and we will have another major difference. Until Ezra, everybody was on the same page. Their allegiance to Yehovah depended on how good a king they had, or how bad. But there were no troublesome minorities within the majority. But after Ezra, we will have factions developing leading up to the first century and the destruction of this Temple in 70 AD. We will have the Sadducees, Pharisees, Boethusians, Essenes, Traditional Jews and Hellenistic Jews, and all the various other groups that developed like the Babylonian Jews, Alexandrian Jews, the Asia Minor Jews, the Zealots and the Sicarii to name a few. This is a major change from what existed before, from “Judaism” to “Judaisms.”
The major problem in the First Temple period was idolatry and the people were enticed by it. We won’t have that problem in the Second Temple period. The people that returned learned their lesson and they passed that on to their children, but other problems developed like all the religious factions, sects or “denominations.” They also took measures to protect themselves in keeping the commandments. Ezra will institute certain customs. Whereas the First Temple period disregarded the Torah commands, after Ezra, they went the other way and built a fence of “customs” around the Torah in order to make sure the people didn’t transgress the Torah. The people “perished” in the First Temple Period because of the lack of “the knowledge” or “ha da’at” as stated in the Hebrew of Hos 4.6, and they did not want to make that mistake again. As a result, this attitude will develop into what we encounter in the Gospels and Epistles with all the different groups having contention with one another on how to walk, called halakah, in the Torah. Ezra comes back and he is a priest who will teach his people and fix the problems that caused the destruction of the Temple . The emphasis during the Second Temple period will be in educating the people in the Torah. Modern Jewish emphasis on education in the Tanak is molded after Ezra. But, that is not to say that there was no spiritual life among the exiles. Ezekiel has a “home Bible study” in Ezek 8.1. With no Temple, the emphasis now was on meeting on the Sabbath, prayer, fasting, teaching and study. That is why Ezra is called the “second Moses”.
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