So that the people could not discern the noise of the shout of joy from the noise of the weeping of the people: for the people shouted with a loud shout, and the noise was heard afar off.
Read Chapter 3
Bede
AD 735
Of those who had seen the first temple, some were uttering cries of weeping, others of joy when the foundation of this temple too was laid before their eyes—of joy, indeed, because the temple of the Lord that had been destroyed had now begun to be restored; of weeping because they were distressed when they realized what a difference there was between the poverty of the undertaking of that time and the former most magnificent power of Solomon, whereby the original temple was founded. They rejoiced greatly because they had been freed from captivity and had received the authority to restore the temple, but they wept loudly because they knew that the first temple, whose size and beauty they could in no way equal, had been destroyed on account of their wickedness. For the prophet’s words, “The glory of this new house will be greater than that of the first,” pertain not to the greatness or decoration of the house but to the act of building itself, because the fact that the few surviving captives were able to accomplish such a great undertaking even as their enemies were opposing them was a greater and more obvious miracle of divine power than that a very rich king who had no adversaries at all but rather the very powerful and wealthy king of Tyre as a collaborator, did this with most accomplished craftsmen, just as he desired. So too, the glory of that most recent house will be greater than the first because the worshipers in the first house preached to the peoples the writings of the Old Testament, namely, the Law and the Prophets, whereas in the second house Christ and the apostles spread the good news of the grace of the New Testament and coming of the kingdom of heaven.
