The Day of the Lord

The Median kingdom did not last long. Cyrus II came to the Persian throne in 559 BC. By 550 he had overthrown the Medians. In 539 he conquered Babylon. He promptly issued a decree:

The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and he has appointed me to build a temple for him at Jerusalem in Judah. Any of his people among you may go up to Jerusalem in Judah and build the temple of the Lord, the God of Israel, the God who is in Jerusalem, and may their God be with them. (Ezra 1:1-3)

42,000 of exiles returned, followed by a second wave under Cyrus’ successor Darius the Great. They rebuilt the temple and the city walls, and celebrated the passover. But where the glory of the Lord had filled the tabernacle, and then Solomon’s temple, no such event was recorded for the second temple. Indeed the prophet Haggai said to the people “Who of you is left who saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Does it not seem to you like nothing?” (Haggai 2:3) Ezra returned from Babylon to restore the reading of the law and to teach the people. Nehemiah came back as governor and dealt with intermarriage and restored the offerings.

But by now, the hope was in a future “Day of the Lord”. The Old Testament ends with Malachi, probably the last of the prophetic books to be written, saying:

Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction. (Malachi 4:5-6)