Why they cried!

   In the third grade, our teacher, Mrs. Wagner, went through the entire room asking every student what he or she "wanted to be" when he or she grew up. Policemen, firemen, and nurses consisted of a majority of the answers. When Mrs. Wagner got to me, I said that I wanted to be an archaeologist. Mrs. Wagner got a big smile on her face and became excited. She wrote the word archaeologist on the chalkboard, and then she gave a long talk to a surprised class about what an archaeologist did. I was proud that I had sparked such an enthusiastic response. Yet I was disappointed that my teacher had not even mentioned what it was that I was going to do. The reason I was going to be an archaeologist was so that I could dig up dinosaur bones. [In the third grade, I had never heard the title paleontologist, which is what I actually wanted to be, which is a person who study live beings of the past rather than relics of past civilizations.]
   Though I soon moved away from the plan to be an archaeologist, it remained an interest, thus it was a memorable blessing in my life when the highly reputable Biblical Archaeology Review printed a letter to the editor written by me in the January/February issue of 2002. (1)  My letter to the editor was in response to an article by the renowned Egypt scholar, Kenneth Kitchen, and concerned Biblical scholarship, not archaeology. (I add my piece could possibly be interpreted that I think some transcript errors exist in the Israelite lists of kings in the Bible.  I do not, and I am convicted that minor but clear numerical errors in Kings and Chronicles were not in the autographs, the original manuscripts!  I should have made this more clear.)
   Then, on a totally different subject, in the March/April issue of Biblical Archaeology Review a scholar made a statement of how the temple built after the Babylonian exile was poor in comparison to the temple built under Solomon. (2)  This is the common view among Bible scholars, and I have seen that statement in commentaries and even study Bible commentary.  Their basis for this claim is Ezra 3:12, which states: "But many of the older priests and Levites and family heads, who had seen the former temple, wept aloud when they saw the foundation of this temple being laid..." (NIV).
   Some Israelites had seen the temple which was destroyed in 586 B.C. before their exile in Babylon, since the third and final wave of exiles were in exile for fifty years, a long period, yet a period which some people survived.  Do note Israelites who were taken by the Babylonians in the first wave in 605 B.C. would have been there seventy years if they were young and healthy enough to survive the entire exile period.  The bottom line is Scripture records some Israelites who had lived in Jerusalem were still alive when the return to Judea took place, and they wept when they saw the foundation of the second temple.
   The incident is recorded in Ezra 3:11-13; "With praise and thanksgiving they sang to the LORD: 'He is good; his love to Israel endures forever.' And all the people gave a great shout of praise to the LORD, because the foundation of the house of the LORD was laid. But many of the older priests and Levites and family heads, who had seen the former temple, wept aloud when they saw the foundation of this temple being laid, while many others shouted for joy. No one could distinguish the sound of the shouts of joy from the sound of weeping, because the people made so much noise. And the sound was heard far away" (NIV).
   I am in utter disagreement with David Jacobson and the many others who claim the crying by the Israelites was due to their disillusionment with the second temple.  My conviction is that those elders who had seen the first temple were not crying because the second temple foundation was meager.  First, only the foundation was built to that point, and this is the key: the size of the foundation for the first temple was not large!  In fact the temple specifications that David gave to Solomon were not super elaborate.  "The temple that King Solomon built for the LORD was sixty cubits long, twenty wide and thirty high" (I Kings 6:2 NIV).    My conviction is the reason some of the elder Israelites were crying at the celebration of the completion of the foundation of the temple was the same reason why I have cried at the completion of certain great feats.  I cried because I was overwhelmed.  I cried because I thought of all of the hardships that had to be endured in order to realize victory.  I cried because I was humbled.  For those Jewish people who spent from fifty to seventy years in exile in Babylon following the tragic destruction of the temple built for worshiping God, to see the foundation of a new temple was a victory that brought weeping. I can relate.
Hunter Irvine

(1) Hunter Irvine, "Kitchen List Doesn't Match Bible," Biblical Archaeology Review 28 no. 1 (2002): 10-11.

(2) David Jacobson, "Herod's Roman Temple," Biblical Archaeology Review 28 no. 2 (2002).