The First Exile in Babylon." "Well, the Babylonians got him good. He was only King for a couple of years. That's just after he killed Nabonidus, his brother-in-law, while he was drunk. It's true that he lost his empire too, but at least it wasn't the Babylonians who got him." "What happened?" "He was on the throne, and Babylon was in bad shape. They'd lost a war in the South. So Nehemiah moved in, and he just took over. He made the streets clean, and he made the walls strong, and he organized the city. He was quite a man, Nehemiah. I think he was probably the greatest of all the Jewish kings." Ezra leaned forward. "Did he bring them home?" "He didn't have to. The rest of the Jews were very happy when he came back with the wall rebuilt. It was the same wall that his father had begun. It was the same wall that King David had repaired. We were all very proud of him." "Well, I don't think he ever came back," Ezra said, with a look of suspicion. "He never did, did he?" Jacob laughed. "Well, maybe he was afraid the Babylonians would come after him again." "Were they still in the same city?" "Not so far as we know, Jacob. They may have been in Babylon somewhere. At least some of them were; but most of them were already in Babylon, I guess." "The Temple didn't ever come back, did it?" Ezra asked. "No, that never happened. After the Exile, there was never much of a Temple in Jerusalem." "But wasn't there a temple somewhere in the desert?" "I believe so. One of the early kings, Jotham, wanted to put up a golden statue of himself in the Temple. But his mother said that wasn't a proper thing for a temple. The books I saw told me that some of the greatest of the Jewish kings ruled in Jerusalem, but the Temple never really was in Jerusalem." "What became of the king?" "He got to be known as Jehoiachin. He was always a terrible king, apparently. He would have been an idiot to go back to Babylon. They wouldn't have had anything for him, either. There wasn't any real army. But his mother was really against him coming back. It seems that people wanted another return to Jerusalem, and the king didn't want that. He left his wife behind. She was the one that the Babylonians captured, if I'm not mistaken. But no one was so important as to make a problem for the king. But Jotham's widow was important enough." "What did she do, just live in Babylon?" "It would be more important if she was in Jerusalem, wouldn't it? She was the queen, and she would be looked after in Jerusalem, in the Temple. And she had four sons. They were all very important. They became High Priests." Ezra leaned back in his chair. "I can see where the king would be a little suspicious about any of his sons returning from exile." Jacob nodded. "And the Jews wouldn't like it either. The family would be all right if it was some low-class person that had no connection with Jerusalem, but a family of high priests and a Jewish king, that would be different. It would be almost like having a native son, who hadn't changed his loyalty. The other cities wouldn't like it at all." Ezra leaned forward. "So there's nothing to do here?" "Well, there's the library, and there's the king." "Which king?" "The last king. I don't know his name, though. The people here used to think that there was still an heir, and they'd have to wait for him to come back. But it turns out that was all nonsense. The priests tell me that the king died over four hundred years ago." "Over four hundred years ago!" Ezra muttered. "We can't even say what year it is! What's the king's name?" "David. He was known as David." "Is he a descendant of David?" "Yes. He was a very young king then, of course. That's all they remember about him." "What year is it now?" Ezra asked. "I need a date to know what this all means." "There's no calendar here. I told you, no one knows when the months begin and end. It's a matter of the priests or prophets saying that a king has died. When they do that, then they say it's a new year. So for the past couple of years, I've been keeping track of it and telling everyone at Jerusalem when they have to stay in Beth Huzaye for a couple of months." "How far is Beth Huzaye from here?" "A few hours." "Why don't you go back? Isn't there any point?" "No. Once you're there, you can't leave. You can't go back home. The priests say that if I go back, it will break the tradition. They won't have anything in place before another king comes, who has to inherit the king's throne." "But that could be fifty years from now." "Or longer. Anyway, all we know is that we'll be able to stay here for as long as the kings are dead, until there is no more king." "How old are you, anyway?" "About thirty. Not much over thirty." "I've got plenty of time," Ezra said. "It's just a matter of a few years." Jacob thought about the question. "When I came here, I was an old man of seventy. But I lived longer than that. The priests wouldn't allow me to enter my son's house until he was dead, and he died when he was just about twenty-five. So I'm probably a year older than him now." Ezra shook his head. "It's easy to believe the priests. They're very interested in the king's business, aren't they? Even before any king has come, they can tell you what he'll do." "Why shouldn't they? The priests are the ones who made the king what he is. They know all about him." "There's a big difference between making a king and knowing what he'll do." "Well, it seems you can't argue with the priests, and I can't go back. My wife and children are still there. When the priests were talking about it, she was the one who first mentioned that they'd be willing to do it. They had to say it was her idea, so she wasn't the one who made the king. But as long as they had their ways, she decided to play along. And then she made the suggestion, anyway. It just seemed that it couldn't hurt anything to be able to tell the priests something." "So what happens now? Are you a prisoner here?" "I guess you could say that." "How long have you been here?" "It was six years last time I came, I think. Why don't you call me by my name? You don't need to call me 'the man.' And you're a scholar, I suppose, so you could call me Mosheh." "That sounds like a Jewish name," Ezra said. "I'm from Ezra. Do you think the people here will like me?" "I don't think they care if you have a name like Moses. You don't look very Jewish. Your beard looks strange to me. Your wife's white." "She wasn't born in Babylon." "You have good hair, too. I've never seen it this dark. Have you just gotten it this color?" Ezra laughed. "If you want to talk about hair, we could do that another time. What are we going to do here?" "I have an idea," Jacob said. "You've been here before. You know the place better than I do. If there is anything to do, I'll be able to figure it out." "And what am I going to do? Let me put my clothes on first." "I'd appreciate it. Come on. I'll show you around." In the back of Jacob's house, there were two sets of rooms for guests. Jacob had a separate room, and there were two more for Jacob's sons. Jacob's sons were all older than Ezra. They would have been his students, because Ezra's family was not well off. Ezra's father, Zev, worked for the Persian king, but they could not afford to live at the Persian court, so they had to live in the country, where Ezra's mother, Naomi, helped her husband's business partner raise a large family. Ezra and the boys shared a living space with three other boys. There was always a shortage of boys when he was growing up in Babylon, and they shared a bedroom with two other