"Do not despise these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin, to see the plumb line in Zerubbabel’s hand."  Zechariah 4:10.

 

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Zerubbabel was the grandson of King Jeconiah of Judah, a descendant of David and ancestor of Jesus. Born in Babylon during the exile (between 587 and 539 BC), Zerubbabel travelled to Judah after King Cyrus II allowed the Judean captives to return to their homeland to rebuild the Temple. The prophet Haggai identifies Zerubbabel as the governor of Judah after the exile.

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Zerubbabel is a Babylonian name meaning “offspring of Babylon.” As governor of Judah, Zerubbabel was appointed as one of the initial leaders who supervised the reconstruction of the Jerusalem Temple with the help of Joshua, the high priest. About fourteen months after their return from Babylon, the Jewish people began to rebuild in earnest. However, a petition from Samaritan adversaries whose offer to assist in building the temple had been rejected by Zerubbabel, persuaded the Persian authorities, under King Artaxerxes, to bring the work to a standstill. Only the foundation of the temple had been completed.

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After a seventeen-year delay, Darius, who had succeeded Artaxerxes as King of Persia, granted the Jews permission to continue the building work. This turn-around by the Persian monarchy was brought about as the result of a letter, sent by Tatenai, the senior Persian governor over both Judah and Samaria, reporting to the King that work on the Temple had re-started. The letter explained that, on questioning the Jewish leaders, they had claimed justification on the grounds that the work had originally been authorised by a decree of King Cyrus. Tatenai asked the King to ascertain if this claim was true. Darius was apparently unaware of Cyrus’s edict, but the original documents relating to it were found after a search of the Persian archives, after which he generously supported the endeavour and provided supplies for the workmen and troops to protect the Jews from their adversaries. Within three and a half years after the second effort began, the temple was completed in 516 BC.

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Zerubbabel makes an appearance in other Masonic degrees. He is a major character in the Red Cross of Babylon (one of the Allied Masonic Degrees), in which he is depicted as personally travelling to the Persian court to seek Darius’s permission to resume the building of the Temple. A major episode in the degree is a version of a story related in the Apocryphal book of 1 Esdras, chapters 3:1-5:3. A brief reference to the story is also made in the ritual of The Royal Order of Scotland. In the story, the young Zerubbabel and two other guardsmen-courtiers of King Darius agree to engage in a public dispute over the question of what is the strongest thing in the kingdom. The king approves of this contest and declares that the winner of the debate will receive great honour and royal favours.

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The first contestant holds that wine is the strongest thing in the kingdom, because "it leads astray the minds of all who drink it. It makes equal the mind of the king and the orphan, of the slave and the free, of the poor and the rich." The second debater declares that men are the strongest, ruling over both land and sea; but he flatteringly adds that the king is even stronger, because "he is their lord and master, and whatever he says to them they obey." Zerubbabel then ironically argues that it is women who are strongest, since they give birth to men and kings alike, and men leave their mothers and fathers to serve women. He then adds that truth is even stronger than women: "The whole earth calls upon truth, and heaven blesses her…. Truth endures and is strong for ever, and lives and prevails for ever and ever."

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The king concurs with Zerubbabel and, at the young Jew's request, appoints him to lead a wave of Jewish exiles from Babylon to Jerusalem to complete the restoration of the Temple. Zerubbabel is also given sanction to return the sacred vessels from Solomon’s Temple that the king had preserved.

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