Bible Stories: The Journey to Jerusalem

The Jews were still captives in Babylon though many years had gone by. Many of the people who believed God’s Word still wept when they thought of Jerusalem. When their masters said to them, “Sing for us, sing us one of the songs of your homeland,” they said, “We cannot. How can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?” Psalm 137:1-4

Seventy years had gone by. Daniel must have been at least eighty five years old. As he studied God’s Word, he knew that the time had come for the peopled to go back to their own land. God had promised that they should go back after seventy years, through His prophet Isaiah almost two hundred years before this. He told them that there should be a king named Cyrus who would help the people to rebuild the temple and the city.

After King Darius died, Cyrus came to be king in Babylon. God put it into his heart to let the Jews go back to their own land. Perhaps Daniel showed King Cyrus what God had written about him long before he was born. One say Cyrus called his scribe and had him write out a long proclamation.

In it he said, “The Lord God of Heaven has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and He has charged me to build Him a house in Jerusalem. All the Jews who wish to return may do so and build the house of their God. Those who do not want to return are to help them with money or whatever they need.”

When the people read this, they danced and shouted for joy. They knew God had not forgotten them, though they may not have realized why they were to go back. God was getting ready for the coming of the Lord Jesus into the world. Jerusalem and the temple had to be rebuilt because it was there He was to come.

Many of the Jewish people began to get ready for the trip. Some did not want to go, but they helped others. They knew that when they got back there would be no houses to live in, since everything had been destroyed seventy years before. It would be too hard a trip for old people and little children, so only those who were strong went back.

King Cyrus helped them by giving back to them the gold and silver vessels that King Nebuchadnezzar had taken form the temple seventy years before this. It took a long tome to get packed. They had to take things for housekeeping when they got there, as well as food and clothing and tents for the trip.

Finally they started, a great group of 50,000 people. There were hundreds of horse and mules and camels loaded with luggage. They had a great choir of two hundred men and women who led them in singing the beautiful psalms of David which they could not sing in Babylon. They sang these as they marched and as they rested.

At night they pitched their tents and built little fires to cook their supper. It took them many weeks. As they marched, they “sang in the ways of the Lord” and praised God for His goodness and His protection.