Zerubbabel[a] (/zəˈrʌbəbəl/) was, according to the Hebrew Bible, a governor of the Achaemenid Empire's province of Yehud[3] and the grandson of Jeconiah, penultimate king of Judah.

[5] In the biblical narrative, Zerubbabel led the first group of Jews, numbering 42,360, who returned from the Babylonian captivity in the first year of Cyrus the Great, the king of the Achaemenid Empire.

Zerubabbel means seed of Babylon, showing how quickly the elites integrated into the Babylonian social structure.

[8] In all of the accounts in the Hebrew Bible that mention Zerubbabel, he is always associated with the high priest who returned with him, Joshua, son of Jozadak (Jehozadak).

Either way, he was given the task of rebuilding the Temple in the second year of the reign of Darius I (520 BC), along with the high priest Joshua son of Jehozadak.

[21] John Kessler interprets the idea of the nature of the Signet ring as such that "the real true figure of speech at issue is a personification of which the simile or metaphor is only a part.

[24] Both historians' interpretations of the prophecy of Haggai appear to understand the term of the "signet ring" as being a metaphor for Zerubbabel attaining God's authority on earth.

[26]John Kessler's interpretation agrees with Lemaire's: "The Promise of David…was now functioning in a new form, accommodated to the realities of the Persian period.

On the basis of these observations, I think it is safe to conclude that there is no reason to assume that divine intervention which does not mention autonomous rule or submission of the nations to Zerubbabel (Hag.

Zerubbabel's name is mentioned four times throughout Zechariah 1–8, and all of these instances occur in one short oracle written in chapter 4.

Though conventional wisdom often understood it to be Zerubbabel and Joshua, Boda argues that, because of the important role that prophets were said to play in the reconstruction of the Temple in Zech 8:9, Haggai and Zechariah are the sons of oil.

Then Zechariah is told to fashion a crown out of the silver and gold, set it on the head of Joshua son of Jehozadak, and tell him the following: "Thus says the Lord of hosts: Here is a man whose name is Branch (Hebrew: Zemah): for he shall branch out in his place, and he shall build the temple of the Lord … he shall bear royal honor, and shall sit upon his throne and rule.

There is some evidence for this link, namely that Zerubbabel was the governor of Judah at the time of Zechariah, he was frequently associated with Joshua (Ezra 3:2, 3:8), and he is also described as the Temple builder (Zech 4:9).

[32] Zechariah neither proclaims that Zerubbabel will restore the monarchy, nor does he contradict the previous hopes for a Davidic king (Hag 2:23).

[31] According to the Book of Ezra chapter 2, Zerubbabel returned to Jerusalem in the first wave of liberated exiles under the decree of King Cyrus of Persia in 538 BC.

The mention of Zerubbabel in the book of Ezra primarily serves the purpose of describing the return to Judah following the exile from Babylon and the construction of the Second Temple.

According to the Book of Ezra, Zerubbabel is also under the authority of King Cyrus of Persia to build the Temple (Ezr.

According to a letter from Tattenai (the governor of the province Beyond the River) to King Darius I, Sheshbazzar started the Temple, but it lay under construction for a long time (Ezra 5:16).

[34] According to the Letter written by King Darius I recorded in the Book of Ezra: "the gold and silver vessels of the house of God, which Nebuchadnezzar carried away from the temple in Jerusalem and brought to Babylon, are to be returned; they are all to be taken back to the temple in Jerusalem, and restored each to its place in the house of God".

According to the Book of Ezra, "the house was completed on the third day of the month of Adar, in the sixth year of the reign of King Darius."

Several texts (that are thought to be more or less contemporaneous) explicitly call "Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel" (Ezra 3:2,8;5:2, Nehemiah 12:1, Haggai 1:1,12,14).

He was like a signet ring on the right hand" (Sirach 49:13)Zerubbabel is listed alongside Jeshua (Joshua) son of Jozadak and Nehemiah as a leader of the restoration of the Temple.

This portion of the text of Sirach is a list and brief description of the famous rulers, prophets, and ancestors of the kingdom of Judah (beginning in chapter 44).

1 Esdras 3–4 tells the story of a speech-writing competition between three bodyguards of Darius I known as the Tale of the Three Guardsmen, in which the winner would receive honor and riches from the King.

Cook mentions other views of the Praise of Truth: "may be a specimen of Palestinian wisdom (Zunz),and although Volz (1493) thinks it shows contact with Alexandrian religious philosophy, Torrey (46 seq.)

(1 Esd 4:31–32).This speaker is told (in parentheses) to be Zerubbabel, but this detail was likely tacked onto a secular, Hellenized tale about the power of wine, kings, truth, and women.

The second discrepancy is that the author of 1 Esdras claims that it was "Zerubbabel who spoke wise words before King Darius of Persia" (1 Esd.

Finally 1 Esdras mentions a person called Sanabassar as the Governor of Judah and that it was he who laid the foundation for the first temple (1 Esd.

Collier follows Esdras fairly closely and "ends with a pious expression of the poet's submission to divine will:".

Veldman has located works by Philips Galle, Johannes Wierix, Pieter Perret, Zacharias Dolendo, Nicolaus Knüpfer and Christoffel van Sichem.