In 458 B.C., the scribe Ezra led the second group of Jewish captives out of Babylon back to Jerusalem. He had been entrusted with a rather large amount of silver and gold that the King of Babylon, Artaxerxes, had donated to the task of rebuilding Jerusalem. Scripture tells us there was almost 28 tons of silver and 7,500 pounds of gold donated by the king. In today’s dollars, that is over half...
