Zerubbabel

Holy Righteous Zerubbabel was the leader of the Jews and Persian governor of Judea, under whose leadership the first group of Jewish captives from the Babylonian captivity, forty-⁠two thousand three hundred and sixty people, returned to Judea. The return is usually dated between 538 and 520 BC.

Zerubbabel came of the line of the kings David and Solomon, and so the people regarded him as a prince. Cyrus II the Great appointed him responsible ruler of the people and charged him with arranging the lot of the returned. Two years after arriving in Jerusalem he laid the foundation of the Second Temple of Jerusalem (Ezra 3:8), the first having been destroyed in 586 BC by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar. The historian Josephus relates that Zerubbabel had the honor of being a bodyguard of the Persian king Darius.

He paid special attention to the civil and religious life of Judea and fought fiercely against the Samaritans. His name stands in the Gospel "Book of the generation" as that of one of the ancestors of the Messiah, Jesus Christ, the son of David. He is mentioned in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, in 1 Chronicles (only in the genealogy), in Haggai, Zechariah and in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke (the genealogy of Jesus). Ezra 3:8 and 5:14 mention the governor Sheshbazzar, who then disappears from the text without explanation, Zerubbabel appearing in his place; biblical historians discuss whether he was the same as Zerubbabel or his predecessor, perhaps Zerubbabel's uncle Shenazzar of 1 Chronicles 3:18.

The Righteous is commemorated on 27 December (a movable date, new style), on the Sunday of the Holy Forefathers.