Zerubbabel began the rebuilding of the Temple in 536 B. C. The old men “that had seen the first house, when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes wept with a loud voice, and many shouted for joy.” Haggai the prophet, who urged on this work, says, “Who is left among you that saw this house in her first glory, and how do ye see it now? is it not in your eyes in comparison to it as nothing?”[152] We may conclude that it was but an humble edifice, without any of the adornment with precious metals and carvings that had existed in Solomon’s Temple. But it stood on the old site, and probably followed the old dimensions. The building was suspended in the time of Cambyses, and resumed in 520 B. C., after the accession of Darius I., being completed four years later. Ezra arrived in 459 B. C.--the seventh year of Artaxerxes I.--and brought with him vessels and treasures granted by the king. But it appears that the city walls still remained in ruins, till Nehemiah was made governor of Jerusalem fifteen years later. On his departure, in 433 B. C., the enemies of the Jews renewed their activity.[153] They had already obstructed the building of the Temple in the time of Xerxes, and had given much trouble to the patriotic Nehemiah. Rehum the “master of edicts” and Shimshai the scribe complain to Artaxerxes I. that the Jews have come to Jerusalem, “building the rebellious and bad city, and have set up the walls and joined the foundations.” They obtained a decree “that this city be not builded,” which remained in force for nine years. All work on the Temple was also suspended for the same period, or to the second year of Darius II., which was 423 B. C. This monarch was apparently a degenerate descendant of his great ancestors, and his reign was troubled by many intrigues, assassinations, and rebellions. But the Persians had by this time intermarried with the Babylonians and other Semitic races,[154] and he appears to have been regarded as a friend by the Jews in Palestine and in Egypt alike. The great satraps of the western provinces were, however, almost independent rulers, and the letter of Yedonya--the Jewish priest in Egypt above noticed--was addressed to “my Lord Bagohi of Judah,” the Persian governor of Judea a generation later than Sanballat, the Babylonian “governor of Samaria.” Darius II. may have desired to control the power of such Persian satraps by his protection of Semitic subjects, and the power of the Semitic race in his age is witnessed by the coins of the satraps in Asia Minor inscribed in Aramaic.[155] [Sidenote: NEHEMIAH’S RIDE]