Sheshbazzar

Sheshbazzar is a prince of Judah in the first year of Cyrus, identified across the Ezra material as "the prince of Judah" and as the governor under whom the temple foundations are laid. The umbrella also flags the name as one apparently given to Zerubbabel.

The Prince of Judah and the Returning Vessels

When Cyrus releases the temple vessels Nebuchadnezzar had carried to Babylon, they pass into Sheshbazzar's hands by inventory: "even those Cyrus king of Persia brought forth by the hand of Mithredath the treasurer, and numbered them to Sheshbazzar, the prince of Judah" (Ezra 1:8). The summary of the inventory closes with the same name: "All the vessels of gold and of silver were five thousand and four hundred. All these Sheshbazzar had brought up, when those of the captivity were brought up from Babylon to Jerusalem" (Ezra 1:11).

Governor and Founder of the Temple

When the local opposition writes back to Darius and the Jewish elders' reply is recorded, the same figure reappears as Cyrus' appointed governor: "And the gold and silver vessels also of the house of God, which Nebuchadnezzar took out of the temple that was in Jerusalem, and brought into the temple of Babylon, those Cyrus the king took out of the temple of Babylon, and they were delivered to one whose name was Sheshbazzar, whom he had made governor;" (Ezra 5:14). The same passage credits him with laying the temple foundations: "Then the same Sheshbazzar came, and laid the foundations of the house of God which is in Jerusalem: and since that time even until now it has been in building, and yet it is not completed" (Ezra 5:16).

Connection with Zerubbabel

The umbrella flags the name as one given, apparently, to Zerubbabel. Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel is the one who two years into the return begins the work on the house at Jerusalem (Ezra 3:8), is addressed by Haggai as "governor of Judah" alongside the high priest (Hag 2:2), and stands as the one to whom the word of Yahweh comes — "Not by might, nor by power, but by [my Speech], says Yahweh of hosts" (Zech 4:6). The post-exilic memory still magnifies him: "How shall we magnify Zerubbabel, He, indeed, was a signet on the right hand;" (Sir 49:11). And the regular service of the second temple is dated to his days: "And all Israel in the days of Zerubbabel, and in the days of Nehemiah, gave the portions of the singers and the porters, as every day required" (Neh 12:47).