The work resumes and is completed    By Joyce Voysey

Chapter 5, and, it seems, 15 or 16 years later, we find the prophets Haggai and Zechariah on the job urging resumption of the building.  Builders Zerubbabel and Jeshua were blessed with having the prophets working with them on the side of Truth.  They took their case directly to King Darius for authentication of the mission approved by Cyrus, when questioned by the opposition of their time. 

(It seems the timber and stones had been sitting on the site all those years.)

In Chapter 6 we find the value of

that record-keeping again.  All that Cyrus had decreed was there in the records.  Darius commands that the objectors “let the work of this house of God alone.”  He even decreed that the people be provided with sacrificial offerings to their God.  Oh!  I see he expected that the prayers at the sacrifices should include prayer for the life the king and his sons.  He provided for treatment of the opposition too – not pleasant to say the least.

So, we are told the house was finished in the sixth year of the reign of Darius, and there was a great sacrifice of many animals.  The last verses of chapter 6 have the people back to worshipping their God after the manner taught by Moses.