Zerubbabel won the riddle contest, but when King Darius offered him any reward up to half the kingdom, he asked for something no treasure could buy. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle translated by Moses Gaster in 1899, Zerubbabel reminded the king of the vow he and Cyrus had made to the God of heaven: to rebuild the Temple, restore its sacred vessels, and allow the captive Jews to return home.
Darius and Cyrus issued a joint decree to every governor and prince beyond the river, commanding them to supply the builders with silver, gold, brass, wood, stones, wheat, oil, wine, and livestock for sacrifices. Even the Edomites were ordered to contribute five talents of gold yearly, because they had helped the Chaldeans destroy the first Temple.
When Darius died, Cyrus united the kingdoms of Media and Persia and renewed the decree. Ezra the scribe, Nehemiah, and the chiefs of the captivity went up to Jerusalem, built the altar, and arranged the wood for sacrifice. Then they wept. The holy fire that had burned on the original altar was gone, hidden by Jeremiah the prophet before the exile.
At that moment, an ancient priest about one hundred years old, exiled as a child in Nebuchadnezzar's time, asked his six sons to carry him near the altar. When he heard the priests crying for the lost fire, he told them he knew where Jeremiah had hidden it. They carried him across the Brook of Kedron, through the Valley of Hinnom, and over the Mount of Olives. He pointed to a large stone sunk in the earth. Beneath it the young priests found something like thick oil and mud. They brought it to the altar and placed it on the burnt-offering. Instantly a great fire erupted, so fierce that everyone fled. It licked the sacrifice, swept through the Temple to cleanse it, then settled on the altar where it burned continuously until the second captivity.
But the Ark of the Covenant was not there. Jeremiah had carried it with the tabernacle curtains to a cave on Mount Nebo. When the priests pursued him, he swore they would never find it until he and Elijah returned to restore the Tabernacle and enter the Holy of Holies.