Ezra 1:4

Whosoever remaineth in any place where he sojourneth.

A better translation is: "Whosoever still is left in any place where he has sojourned." Wherever any of these Jewish sojourners are found, let them be helped by others. The king had undertaken the work of their return and the rebuilding of the temple, and hence commands all faithful subjects to help in the work by contributing money, goods and beasts of burden to the Jews who were about to start on the long pilgrimage back to Judea.

Besides the free-will offering.

He proposed to make. free-will offering for the temple out of the public treasury; his servants were commanded to follow his example.

The number that gathered under this proclamation for the first migration amounted to 42,360 men. They were led by Zerubbabel,. descendant of the royal line of David, and an ancestor of Jesus. There was with them Jeshua, the hereditary high priest, but according to the record only four of the twenty-four courses of priests were represented. The greater portion were of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, though there were some of other tribes, especially of Ephraim. The men of Judah so preponderated that from this time the whole nation is called "The Jews." The sacred vessels carried away by Nebuchadnezzar, or such as remained, were restored, and were joyfully carried on the return. We even have an exact enumeration of the number of gold and silver basins, chargers and sacrificial knives, amounting to over 5,000. They arrived in Judea in the early spring and were probably joined by numbers of the common people who had been left there. The first step taken was the restoration of the altar, on the site of Araunah's threshing floor and where for five centuries had stood the altar of the temple. It was one chief object to rebuild the temple and the preparations were at once begun. In October of the second year after the return, the second month of the year, which now began in September after the Babylonian custom, the preparations for laying the foundations of the second temple, the one that was to stand until after Christ came, were completed.