the Jerusalem temple appears to have been of immediate significance
chiefly to the Jews of Palestine. The Jews of Egypt, or at least those of
Elephantine, had their own temple. From Zechariah 6:9-11 it is evident
that the Jewish exiles in Babylon sent certain gifts to the Jerusalem
temple; but the hundreds of miles of desert that intervened made
communication exceedingly difficult, so that except at rare intervals
there was apparently little interchange between Babylonia and Palestine.
For all Jews, however, the rebuilding of the temple meant that at last
they had a common rallying-place, and that Jehovah was again being
worshipped by his own people at his traditional place of abode. In a sense
it bridged the seventy years that had intervened since the destruction of
the pre-exilic Hebrew state, and made it possible to revive the ancient
religious customs. In time it attracted from the lands of the dispersion
patriotic Jews whose interest was fixed upon the ceremonial side of their
religious life. It also furnished a centre about which gradually grew up a
hierarchy with an increasingly elaborate ritual, and a body of laws which
ultimately became the characteristic features of Judaism.



Section XCV. ZECHARIAH'S VISIONS AND ENCOURAGING ADDRESSES

[Sidenote: Zech. 1:7-11]
In the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month [February], in the second
year of Darius [519 B.C.], this word of Jehovah came to the prophet
Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo: I saw in the night and
there was a man standing among the myrtle trees that were in the
valley-bottom, and behind him there were horses, red, sorrel, and white.
Then said I, O my Lord, what are these? And the angel who talked with me
said to me, I will show you what these are. And the man who was standing