Ezra 4:6-6:13 | Haggai

The people who had returned to Jerusalem from Babylon had laid the foundations of the temple, but they encountered opposition from the inhabitants of Samaria.  Their enemies wrote a letter to the king of Persia, accusing Jerusalem of being at the center of much rebellion, and the king wrote back commanding that they stop working.  This stop lasted until the reign of king Darius of Persia (not the Babylonian king of the same name).

In the 2nd year of king Darius’ reign, the Lord stirred up the leaders and people in Israel through the prophet Haggai and Zechariah, rebuking them for not finishing the rebuilding of His temple in Jerusalem.  In response to the words of Haggai, work on the temple was restarted, and this caused a letter to be sent from the regional governor to the king, asking him for a response to this activity.  Darius had the archives searched, and they found the decree of Cyrus the Great, declaring freedom for the Jews, permission to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem, and that the work to do so would be funded out of the king’s treasury (from taxes on the people).  So this work in rebuilding the temple was not only approved by Darius, but he instructed the regional governor to provide the Jews with tax money for the costs of doing so.