The year is roughly 536 b.c. Men drag heavy limestone blocks across the ruined bedrock of Jerusalem. The seventh month brings a sharp autumn chill to the high country. Workers keep their weapons close. They watch the surrounding hills with nervous exhaustion. Their shoulders ache from clearing fifty years of rubble. Setting the first altar stones brings a sudden, heavy relief.
Jeshua and Zerubbabel organize the returning exiles in Judah. They hire masons and carpenters to rebuild the main altar. They pay Sidonian and Tyrian loggers with massive quantities of food. The laborers receive continuous shipments of grain, wine, and olive oil. The loggers float heavy cedar timbers down the Mediterranean coast to Joppa. The community needs a central location to butcher daily animal offerings. Building this slaughter site establishes a physical foothold in the territory. It anchors the settlement prior to the pouring of the main temple footings. Men build the altar out of sheer fear of the surrounding populations. They ask the God of Israel to protect them. They offer daily sacrifices to him.
The altar serves as an architectural stake in the ground. It is a crude stone butchery block standing in the middle of a wasteland. The old men weep loudly upon seeing the new foundation. The young men shout for joy. The noise travels for miles across the rocky valleys. Human memory constantly distorts physical reality. The elders compare this modest stone footprint to a massive structure. That older structure no longer exists. The youth celebrate the only building accomplishment of their lives. Grief and triumph sound exactly the same from a distance.
Tears over a ruined foundation will never lay the stones for a new one.
The limestone blocks settled into the Judean dirt to form a functional slaughter site. The combined noise of wailing and cheering faded into the autumn wind.