Establishing Worship

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Chapter 3 records their first efforts in establishing religion. Their cities were in ruin and the ground was desolate, but they knew what had to come first.

1. They set up an altar.
2. They offered sacrifices.
3. They kept the feasts.
4. They began work on the Temple.

During the month of September, everyone who had returned to Judah went to Jerusalem. There Jeshua and his fellow Priests rebuilt the Altar of the Lord and burnt offerings upon it. They also instructed the people in the Laws of Moses. The altar was rebuilt on its old site. Then they celebrated the Feast of Tabernacles.

They then hired masons and carpenters and brought cedar logs from Tyre and Sidon for the purpose of rebuilding the Temple. The actual construction began in June of the second year of their return. The work force under the supervision of Zerubbabel, was made up of those who had returned from Babylon. Levites who were 20 years and older, were also used in the supervision of its construction. When the builders had completed the foundation of the Temple, the Priests put on their ceremonial robes and the descendants of Asaph supplied the music and the people sang songs of phrase, phrasing God for the foundation of the Temple had been laid.

Many of the old men who remembered Solomon's Temple wept aloud but others cried with joy and between them, the noise could be heard for miles away.

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