Zerubbabel

ZERUBBABEL (Heb. Zerubbābel, a name of Babylonian origin, zir-Babili, "seed" or "scion of Babel"). - Prince of Judah, son of Shealtiel and descendant of King Jehoiachin (v.) imprisoned in Babylon; he is among the ancestors of the Messiah (Mt. 1:13; Lk. 3:27). He directed the return of the Jews from the Babylonian exile and the rebuilding of the Temple of Jerusalem. It is disputed whether or not he should be identified with the prince of Judah Sheshbazzar (v.), whose person and activity have many points of contact with Z.

When Cyrus issued the decree of liberation (Ezr. 1:2-4), Z. organized and led to Jerusalem, together with Joshua son of Jozadak, the first caravan of 42,360 Jews. The episode recounted by the apocryphon III Esd. (3:1-5:6) is legendary: a literary contest among three pages of Darius' court, the third of whom, Z., having emerged victorious, is said to have obtained from the King every facility for bringing his fellow-countrymen the Jews back to their homeland. In the first months he occupied himself with the resettlement of the repatriates, made difficult by the changed conditions of the country and by the hostility of the local people and of other enemies of the Jews. But his principal cares were directed to the House of Yahweh, destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar (v.) in 587 B.C. In the 7th month after his arrival he erected an altar, on the very spot of the ancient one, and there restored divine worship with the offering of numerous holocausts (Ezr. 3:1-5); some have supposed, wrongly, that the Jews who had remained in the homeland had already restored the demolished altar: such an altar would have appeared illegal, or at least suspect, to the Jews returning from exile. The following year work began on the construction of the Temple, and the event was solemnized with rites of religious exultation (ibid. 3:8-13). But after a short time the works had to be suspended, because "the people of the land made the hands of the people of Judah inert, frightening them from building and hiring counselors against them to frustrate their plan: (this lasted) all the days of Cyrus king of Persia, until the reign of Darius" (ibid. 4:4-5). This hostility of the population pagan and mixed (the people of the land) and especially of the Samaritans, together with the connivance of some high state official, prevented the works from being resumed for over 15 years. But it is legitimate to suppose that in the meantime there had been built, beyond the foundations, at least in rough outline, a central part that allowed the performance of the principal acts of worship. The work was resumed in the 2nd year of King Darius (520 B.C.), thanks to the urging of the prophet Haggai (Hag. 1:1 ff.) and then of Zechariah (Zech. 1-8), which served to shake off the inertia and overcome the Jews' sense of distrust. At the head of the repatriates is always Z. (Ezr. 5:2), to whom is now attributed the title of "governor (pehāh) of Judah" (Hag. 1:1). This time the works progressed rapidly; the dismay at the thought of the scantiness of means, which did not allow the raising of a splendid building like that of Solomon, was dispelled by Haggai's second address, which foretold the future fortunes of the new construction, in which the glory of the Lord would be manifested in the triumphal advent of the Messiah (ibid. 2:1-9). The threat of suspension attempted by the Persian satrap Tattenai, certainly incited by the Samaritans, deliberately excluded from the works of the Temple, came to nothing, because King Darius, having learned of the Jews' good right, not only reconfirmed the decree of Cyrus, but ordered that from the royal revenues there be taken the aid for the building of the Temple and for the daily sacrifices to be offered for the life of the King and of his sons. In this way in 515 B.C., after four and a half years, the Temple was rebuilt, and it was solemnly dedicated, with the celebration of Passover, in the month of nīzān (Ezr. 6:14-22). It reproduced in its principal lines that of Solomon, to which, however, it remained far inferior in ornamentation and richness of materials. Once the construction of the Temple was finished, Z., this reviver of Israel, a true signet ring on the hand of Yahweh, deservedly celebrated in the sacred books (cf. Hag. 2:22-24; Eccl. 49:13-14), disappears from history.

Gaetano Stano