Then rose up Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Jeshua the son of Jozadak, and began to build the house of God which is at Jerusalem: and with them were the prophets of God helping them.
Then rose up Zerubbabel ... and Jeshua ... and began to build the house of God. The strong appeals and animating exhortations of these prophets gave a new impulse to the building of the temple, Darius, one of the seven Persian nobles or chiefs of the great Persian clans, who conspired against the usurper Smerdis, ascended the throne with a royal authority somewhat limited (Herodotus, b. 3:, ch. 77:), and proceeded, among the first acts of his government, to rebuild the Zoroastrian temples which Smerdis had destroyed, and restored the old religious rites which that Magian predecessor had abolished. As a matter of course he sympathized, like Cyrus, with the monotheism of the Jews; and as his zeal for the restoration of the pure and spiritual worship soon became known through the distant provinces of his far-extending empire, the Jews-the Jewish authorities in Jerusalem-availed themselves of the changed temper of the court to resume the works at the temple.
The Behishtun inscriptions contain an autobiography of Darius Hystaspes-the liberal patron of the Jews, and restorer of their fallen nationality after the captivity (see in Rawlinson's 'Herodotus,' 2:, p. 590-616). It was in the second year of the reign of Darius Hystaspes that the work, after a long interruption, was resumed. This recommencement of the building took place "in the four and twentieth day of the sixth month, in the second year of Darius the king" (Haggai 1:14-15) - i:e., in September, B.C. 521, about eight and a half months after Darius' accession (Rawlinson's 'Ancient Monarchies,' 2:, p. 405).