At the commandment of Darius king of Persia, after the Temple was built and dedicated, the children of Israel keep the feast of unleavened bread.

Then king Darius gave commandment, and they made search in the [a]library of the treasures, which were there laid up in Babel.

And there was found in a [b]coffer (in the palace that was in the province of the Medes) a volume, and therein was it thus written, as a memorial,

IN THE FIRST year of King Cyrus, King Cyrus made a decree for the house of God in Jerusalem, Let the house be built, even the place where they offered sacrifices, and let the walls thereof be joined together: let the height thereof be threescore cubits, and the breadth thereof threescore cubits,

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Footnotes

  1. Ezra 6:1 Hebrew, house of books.
  2. Ezra 6:2 Wherein were the acts of the kings of the Medes and Persians.

The Decree of Darius

King Darius then issued an order, and they searched in the archives(A) stored in the treasury at Babylon. A scroll was found in the citadel of Ecbatana in the province of Media, and this was written on it:

Memorandum:

In the first year of King Cyrus, the king issued a decree concerning the temple of God in Jerusalem:

Let the temple be rebuilt as a place to present sacrifices, and let its foundations be laid.(B) It is to be sixty cubits[a] high and sixty cubits wide,

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Footnotes

  1. Ezra 6:3 That is, about 90 feet or about 27 meters