ZOROBABEL (Heb. Zērubbābhel, a Babylonian name, zīr-Babilī, “seed” or “sprout of Babel”). – A prince of Judah, son of Salathiel and descendant of King Jehoiachin (v.) who had been taken captive to Babylon; he is numbered 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 in Jerusalem. It is disputed whether he should be identified with the Judean prince Sheshbazzar (v.), whose person and activity have many points of contact with Zorobabel.
After Cyrus issued the decree of liberation (Ezr 1:2-4), Z. organized and led to Jerusalem, together with Joshua son of Jehozadak, the first caravan of 42,360 Jews. Legendary is the episode reported in the apocryphal 3 Esdras (3:1-5:6) of a literary contest among three courtiers of Darius, the third of whom, Z., having won, is said to have obtained from the king every facility for bringing back his fellow-countrymen to their homeland. In the first months he attended to the settlement of the returnees, a task made difficult by the changed conditions of the land and by the hostility of the local inhabitants and other enemies of the Jews. His chief concern, however, was for the House of Jahweh, destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar (v.) in 587 BC. In the seventh month after their arrival he erected an altar on the same spot as the ancient one and restored divine worship there with numerous burnt offerings (Ezr 3:1-5); some have mistakenly supposed that the Jews who had remained in the land had already restored the ruined altar, but such an altar would have appeared unlawful or at least suspect to the Jews returning from exile. The following year work began on the Temple, and the event was solemnized with rites of religious rejoicing (ibid. 3:8-13). Yet after a short time the work had to be suspended, because “the people of the land made the hands of the people of Judah feeble, and troubled them in building, and hired counsellors against them to frustrate their purpose: so they did until the reign of Darius king of Persia” (ibid. 4:4-5). This hostility of the mixed pagan population—especially the Samaritans, with the connivance of some high state officials—prevented the resumption of work for more than fifteen years. Yet it is reasonable to suppose that in the meantime, beyond the foundations, at least the rudimentary outlines of a central structure had been laid that would permit the principal acts of worship to be carried on. The work was resumed in the second year of King Darius (520 BC), thanks to the exhortations of the prophet Haggai (Hag 1:1 ff.) and later of Zechariah (Zech 1–8), who succeeded in rousing the Jews from their inertia and overcoming their sense of discouragement. Zorobabel is still at the head of the returnees (Ezr 5:2), and to him is now attributed the title of “governor (pēhāh) of Judah” (Hag 1:1). This time the work advanced rapidly; the fear that the scant resources would not allow a building as splendid as Solomon’s was dispelled by Haggai’s second oracle, which foretold the future glory of the new structure, in which the glory of the Lord would be manifested in the triumphant advent of the Messiah (ibid. 2:1-9). The threat of suspension brought by the Persian satrap Tattenai—certainly instigated by the Samaritans, who had been deliberately excluded from the Temple work—came to nothing, for King Darius, having ascertained the justice of the Jews’ cause, not only confirmed Cyrus’s decree but ordered that funds be drawn from the royal treasury to aid the construction of the Temple and for the daily sacrifices to be offered for the life of the king and his sons. Thus in 515 BC, after four and a half years, the Temple was completed and solemnly dedicated, with the celebration of the Passover in the month of Nisan (Ezr 6:14-22). It reproduced the main lines of Solomon’s Temple, though falling far short of it in ornamentation and richness of materials. Once the Temple was finished, Zorobabel—this reviver of Israel, the very signet ring in the hand of Jahweh—rightly celebrated in the sacred books (cf. Hag 2:22-24; Sir 49:13-14), disappears from history.