Completion and dedication of the temple
Then, because of the decree King Darius had sent, Tattenai, governor of Trans-Euphrates, and Shethar-Bozenai and their associates carried it out with diligence. 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. 15 The temple was completed on the third day of the month Adar, in the sixth year of the reign of King Darius.
16 Then the people of Israel—the priests, the Levites and the rest of the exiles—celebrated the dedication of the house of God with joy. 17 For the dedication of this house of God they offered a hundred bulls, two hundred rams, four hundred male lambs and, as a sin offering for all Israel, twelve male goats, one for each of the tribes of Israel. 18 And they installed the priests in their divisions and the Levites in their groups for the service of God at Jerusalem, according to what is written in the Book of Moses.
The people of Judah successfully completed the temple four years after the beginning of the ministry of Haggai and Zechariah. Ezra’s account includes both the spiritual truth that the temple was rebuilt because of the command of God and the political means that God used, namely, the benevolence of the Persian kings. The name of Artaxerxes appears even though the temple was finished well before the beginning of Artaxerxes’ rule. Apparently, Ezra did this to compliment his own king and to remind Artaxerxes that he was continuing a policy of benevolence that had ample precedent among his predecessors.
The people dedicated the temple with rejoicing. They were happy to reestablish the way of worship commanded in the Law of Moses. Although most of the returnees were from the tribe of Judah, they offered sacrifices for each tribe to signify the unity of the people of Israel in accordance with such passages as Ezekiel 37:22: “I will make them one nation in the land, . . . and they will never again be two nations or be divided into two kingdoms.”
The sacrifices at this dedication are in striking contrast to the magnificent dedication of Solomon’s temple. Back then “Solomon offered a sacrifice of fellowship offerings to the LORD: twenty-two thousand cattle and a hundred and twenty thousand sheep and goats” (1 Kings 8:63).