But they were met with no reciprocal cordiality.
The lesson of religious isolation which the children of the
captivity had learned in Babylon, they did not forget on their
return to their home. Here also they lived as in a strange land.
Not the native of Judaea, but the man who could trace his descent
from the exiles in Babylon, was reckoned as belonging to their
community.
The first decennia after the return of the exiles, during which
they were occupied in adjusting themselves to their new homes,
were passed under a variety of adverse circumstances and by no
means either in joyousness or security. Were these then the
Messianic times which, it had been foretold, were to dawn at the
close of their captivity? They did not at all events answer the
expectations which had been formed. A settlement had been again
obtained, it was true, in the fatherland; but the Persian yoke
pressed now more heavily than ever the Babylonian had done. The
sins of God's people seemed still unforgiven, their period of
bond-service not yet at an end. A slight improvement, as is shown
by the prophecies of Haggai and Zechariah, followed when in the
year 520 the obstacles disappeared which until then had stood in
the way of the rebuilding of the temple; the work then begun was
completed in 516.
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