The Bible In Paintings, #160: THE JEWS RETURN FROM BABYLON TO ISRAEL, Part 1

Bing Images ^ | c.2200 BC - c.95 AD | by the Father, Son & Holy Spirit

[Hebrews 11:6]

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THE JEWS

RETURN FROM

BABYLON

TO ISRAEL

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E Z R A
1 – 6
New International Version, emphases added
Abrdgd: the complete text is in your Bible


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C L I C K :

To read Ezra 1-6 in full
To hear MAX McLEAN reading it
To hear a DRAMATIZATION of it
To watch an ANIMATION of Ezra

5 3 7
5 2 0
B. C.

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CHAPTER 1

1 In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah, the Lord moved the heart of Cyrus king of Persia to make a proclamation throughout his realm and also to put it in writing:

2 “This is what Cyrus king of Persia says:

“‘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. 3 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.’”

5 Then the family heads of Judah and Benjamin, and the priests and Levites—everyone whose heart God had moved—prepared to go up and build the house of the Lord in Jerusalem. 6 All their neighbors assisted them with articles of silver and gold, with goods and livestock, and with valuable gifts, in addition to all the freewill offerings.

7 Moreover, King Cyrus brought out the articles belonging to the temple of the Lord, which Nebuchadnezzar had carried away from Jerusalem and had placed in the temple of his god.

11 In all, there were 5,400 articles of gold and of silver brought along with the exiles when they came up from Babylon to Jerusalem.

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6 mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm Image Source
by GUSTAVE DORÉ
"Cyrus Restoring the Vessels of the Temple"

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7 mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm Image Source
by FERDINAND BOL, 1660
"King Cyrus Handing over the Treasure Looted
from the Temple of Jerusalem"

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CHAPTER 2

1 Now these are the people of the province who came up from the captivity of the exiles, whom Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had taken captive to Babylon (they returned to Jerusalem and Judah, each to their own town)….

64 The whole company numbered 42,360, 65 besides their 7,337 male and female slaves; and they also had 200 male and female singers. 66 They had 736 horses, 245 mules, 67 435 camels and 6,720 donkeys.

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CHAPTER 3

7 Then they gave money to the masons and carpenters, and gave food and drink and olive oil to the people of Sidon and Tyre, so that they would bring cedar logs by sea from Lebanon to Joppa, as authorized by Cyrus king of Persia.

8 In the second month of the second year after their arrival at the house of God in Jerusalem, Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, Joshua son of Jozadak and the rest of the people began the work.

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10 When the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, the priests in their vestments and with trumpets, and the Levites with cymbals, took their places to praise the Lord, as prescribed by David king of Israel. 11 With praise and thanksgiving they sang to the Lord:

“He is good; his love toward Israel endures forever.”

And all the people gave a great shout of praise to the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid. 12 But many of the older priests and Levites and family heads, who had seen the former temple, wept aloud when they saw the foundation of this temple being laid, while many others shouted for joy. 13 No one could distinguish the sound of the shouts of joy from the sound of weeping, because the people made so much noise. And the sound was heard far away.

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"Inauguration of the Foundations of
the Second Temple of Jerusalem "

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11 mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm Image Source
by JULIUS SCHNORR VON CAROLSFELD
"Reconstruction of the Temple in Jerusalem"

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by GUSTAV DORÉ
"The Rebuilding of the Temple Is Begun"

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CHAPTER 4

1 When the enemies of Judah and Benjamin heard that the exiles were building a temple for the Lord, the God of Israel, 6 at the beginning of the reign of Xerxes, they lodged an accusation against the people of Judah and Jerusalem.

23 As soon as the copy of the letter of King Artaxerxes was read, they went immediately to the Jews in Jerusalem and compelled them by force to stop.

24 Thus the work on the house of God in Jerusalem came to a standstill until the second year of the reign of Darius king of Persia.

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CHAPTER 5

1 Now Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the prophet, a descendant of Iddo, prophesied to the Jews in Judah and Jerusalem in the name of the God of Israel, who was over them. 2 Then Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel and Joshua son of Jozadak set to work to rebuild the house of God in Jerusalem. And the prophets of God were with them, supporting them.

3 At that time Tattenai, governor of Trans-Euphrates, and Shethar-Bozenai and their associates went to them and asked, “Who authorized you to rebuild this temple and to finish it?”

17 Now if it pleases the king, let a search be made in the royal archives of Babylon to see if King Cyrus did in fact issue a decree to rebuild this house of God in Jerusalem. Then let the king send us his decision in this matter.

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CHAPTER 6

1 King Darius then issued an order, and they searched in the archives stored in the treasury at Babylon.

6 Now then, Tattenai, governor of Trans-Euphrates, and Shethar-Bozenai and you other officials of that province, stay away from there. 7 Do not interfere with the work on this temple of God. Let the governor of the Jews and the Jewish elders rebuild this house of God on its site.

8 Moreover, I hereby decree what you are to do for these elders of the Jews in the construction of this house of God:

Their expenses are to be fully paid out of the royal treasury, from the revenues of Trans-Euphrates, so that the work will not stop.

14 So the elders of the Jews continued to build and prosper under the preaching of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah, a descendant of Iddo. They finished building the temple according to the command of the God of Israel and the decrees of Cyrus, Darius and Artaxerxes, kings of Persia.

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16 mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm Image Source
by ARYEH WEISS
"The Second Temple - Jerusalem"

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17 mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm Image Source
by ARYEH WEISS
"The Second Temple - Pilgrims"

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→ a n d…. f i n a l l y ←

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18 mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm Image Source
by ARYEH WEISS
"The Second Temple - Cohen"

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Preview of
COMING
ATTRACTIONS

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SNEAK PEEK: Next time,
EZRA AND
NEHEMIAH

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R E S O U R C E S

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If you'd like to see for yourself the Bing page
which yielded most of the works above, here is the link:

Image Sources are provided for most individual works.
Where no attribution appears below a work,
the source did not provide the artist's name.
Works are numbered to facilitate your commenting.

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Links to three masters who painted Biblical scenes prolifically:

REMBRANDT HARMENSZOON van RIJN

GUSTAV DORÉ
241 wood engravings for
La Grande Bible de Tours

JAMES TISSOT
180 watercolors depicting Bible scenes

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Links to two Bibles with comprehensive illustrations:

The Art Bible (1896)

The Maciejowski-Morgan Bible (c.1245)

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This series keeps moving from one Bible passage to another,
so here is a fascinating and enjoyable link to assist in following along:
BIBLE TIMELINE

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Here are links to the
PREVIOUS 159 POSTS IN THIS SERIES
with descriptive titles to assist you in finding those which interest you

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Finally, what God did to initiate The Bible In Paintings:
HOW GOD STARTED THIS SERIES
BY SHOWING ME JUST ONE PICTURE

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SPECIAL THANKS
to FReeper left that other site,
who allowed God to make her His conduit
for incomparable enthusiasm, encouragement,
education, advice and technical assistance!

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NOTES ON MY SELECTION CRITERIA

A r t Q u a l i t y

The Bible and its Author are my focus, not the art: this is The Bible in Paintings, not "Great Paintings" nor even "Good Paintings." So, works need not be masterpieces to qualify for inclusion here—they don't need to be housed at the Louvre nor auctioned by Sotheby's. They only need to illustrate successfully some aspect of the Biblical text or, frankly, just tickle my fancy, which I'm always asking the Holy Spirit to guide.

Often, artists misrepresent the Scripture, but unless the error is material, licentious or heretical I usually include the artwork, trusting that the Spirit is perfectly capable of defending Himself. So, with such forgiving filters, it means that you're seeing practically everything I'm finding.

T e x t S e q u e n c i n g

The Protestant Canon does not (for several reasons) follow a strictly chronological sequence. There are many examples where, for God's good purposes, stories are told out-of-order. Nevertheless, for the sake of simplicity, clarity, and my sanity, I have chosen to proceed linearly and methodically from Genesis onward, illustrating each Bible passage as we come to it. Where two passages cover the same incident I omit the second telling, excepting the four Gospels which I will treat synoptically. Now, onward!

P a c i n g

The pace here may seem appallingly snail-like to those eager to see their favorite events illustrated. My commission is to search for art on each Bible passage in sequence: if I find enough, then it becomes the next installment, even if undramatic (but where there is little or no art, that Bible passage goes untold here).

Then, there is the human element: this is not actually a daily series, because I can only research, compose, edit and post five or six of these installments weekly. And because I only get to do this series once, I'm taking my time, chiefly by posting everything; if I find lots of art, I don't cherry-pick some and discard the rest. Rather, I line up all of them and then sort them into manageable bunches, often resulting in multiple days' episodes of the same story. Obviously, I like being thorough. Were you in a big hurry?

The Bible is a thick book, as you know; but we'll get there eventually, Lord willing—this is His project, after all. And always remember:
love, joy, peace, patience kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness & self-control is a fruit of the Spirit!

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Art is merely the Toy Department of Bible study,
so I'm just having fun here—I hope you are, too!
Thank you for your understanding.

Hebrews 11:6
Dan Lewis
DodgerDan
'55 '59 '63 '65 '81 '88 '20

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either reply here or FRmail me.

No contracts, startup charges or monthly fees;
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[Hebrews 11:6]

At the Holy Spirit's prompting, I am surveying "Bible art" to give God glory, as many of these artists have done, and for my own amusement and learning; and I thought others might enjoy it and be blessed by it, too. My plan is to proceed methodically from left-to-right, Genesis to Revelation, as the Lord wills. Back soon with another.

The Bible encourages us to meditate on it (Ps. 1:1-3, 119:11-16, etc.); these artists have done so, and their works can assist us and enrich our own thoughts about biblical characters, incidents and concepts, and increase our faith in He who is behind it all. As you encounter and consider these images and the related Scriptures and the Spirit enlightens your understanding, please share it with us!

But it is not only oil-on-canvas that can so help us; I refer to the astonishing video series The Chosen, which strolls through the four Gospels at the most leisurely pace. The eight episodes of Season 1 are finished, and the second of a planned seven seasons is being filmed right now. I say "leisurely" because after an entire year's viewing Jesus still has only seven of the apostles (although He's preparing to call up Thomas from the minor leagues--but Thomas is skeptical, of course). Anticipating a canvas of fifty-plus hours instead of a movie's paltry two hours, The Chosen turns the characters (especially including Jesus!) into three-dimensional humans and brings the Gospels alive--you have never seen anything even remotely like it! Here is the Official Trailer.

Here is a link for free viewing of The Chosen: "Works with your phone, tablet, and you can cast to your Roku or Chromecast." Last fall I paid $34.98 for DVDs and ongoing internet access—best 35 bucks I've ever spent (I don't recall how much our marriage license cost, but then it was 43 years ago).

[Hebrews 11:6]

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P r e s e n t e d . . F o r . . Y o u r

CONSIDERATION

ENJOYMENT

& BLESSING

[Quentin Quarantino]

Thank you for your labor of Love.

[Hebrews 11:6]

It is that. Hoping it helps you.

[left that other site]

Isaiah 51:11-13
King James Version

11 Therefore the redeemed of the Lord shall return, and come with singing unto Zion; and everlasting joy shall be upon their head: they shall obtain gladness and joy; and sorrow and mourning shall flee away.

[Hebrews 11:6]

My take is that these returning Jews are a type of those saved Jews who indeed will luxuriate in "everlasting joy."

[Maudeen]

May God bless your ministry! The pictures cement the Scriptures as I may have said before.

[Hebrews 11:6]

May God bless your ministry!

"Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain." Psalm 127:1

The pictures cement the Scriptures

Yes, they do have that salutary effect, for those who bother at all with the Scriptures. I'm assuredly not taking a pessimistic view when I wonder how many viewers care only for the art; rather, my hope and expectation is that the art will, sooner or later, lure them into the Scriptures: we are fishers of men!

as I may have said before

Once or twice....

[etabeta]

Not easy to find a favorite among all the illustrations but of note are the wonderful renditions by Aryeh Weiss, so finely detailed. Thank you!

[Hebrews 11:6]

I enjoyed those, too. I guess my reaction is that his works speak loudly of his joy over this Temple: first the distant overview, then closer showing the crowds of pilgrims, and finally the close-up with the Cohen.

[etabeta]

“My hope and expectation is that the art will, sooner or later, lure them into the Scriptures”...

You always send me to read more, it is never just about art!

[Maudeen]

If only some would click on the dramatized version. It is so good!! Listening today makes the events to the temple building fall into place. . .who did what when.

[Hebrews 11:6]

I’m going to add your endorsement of it, to it.

[Hebrews 11:6]

it is never just about art!

God is working His will and grace in every life, in multifaceted ways, and He uses this series as He wills. With His help I provide some loaves and fishes, and then He distributes them. Some, like you, receive them eagerly, while others....