1When the seventh month had come, and the children of Israel were in the cities, the people gathered themselves together as one man to Jerusalem. 2Then Jeshua the son of Jozadak stood up with his brothers the priests and Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel and his relatives, and built the altar of the God of Israel, to offer burnt offerings on it, as it is written in the law of Moses the man of God. 3In spite of their fear because of the peoples of the surrounding lands, they set the altar on its base; and they offered burnt offerings on it to Yahweh, even burnt offerings morning and evening. 4They kept the feast of booths, as it is written, and offered the daily burnt offerings by number, according to the ordinance, as the duty of every day required; 5and afterward the continual burnt offering, the offerings of the new moons, of all the set feasts of Yahweh that were consecrated, and of everyone who willingly offered a free will offering to Yahweh. 6From the first day of the seventh month, they began to offer burnt offerings to Yahweh; but the foundation of Yahweh’s temple was not yet laid. 7They also gave money to the masons and to the carpenters. They also gave food, drink, and oil to the people of Sidon and Tyre to bring cedar trees from Lebanon to the sea, to Joppa, according to the grant that they had from Cyrus King of Persia.
8Now in the second year of their coming to God’s house at Jerusalem, in the second month, Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, Jeshua the son of Jozadak, and the rest of their brothers the priests and the Levites, and all those who had come out of the captivity to Jerusalem, began the work and appointed the Levites, from twenty years old and upward, to have the oversight of the work of Yahweh’s house. 9Then Jeshua stood with his sons and his brothers, Kadmiel and his sons, the sons of Judah, together to have the oversight of the workmen in God’s house: the sons of Henadad, with their sons and their brothers the Levites.
10When the builders laid the foundation of Yahweh’s temple, they set the priests in their vestments with trumpets, with the Levites the sons of Asaph with cymbals, to praise Yahweh, according to the directions of David king of Israel. 11They sang to one another in praising and giving thanks to Yahweh, “For he is good, for his loving kindness endures forever toward Israel.” All the people shouted with a great shout, when they praised Yahweh, because the foundation of Yahweh’s house had been laid.
12But many of the priests and Levites and heads of fathers’ households, the old men who had seen the first house, when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, wept with a loud voice. Many also shouted aloud for joy, 13so 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 far away.
Joppa is a small port city on the Mediterranean coast of Israel that was allotted to Dan (Josh 19:46) It was known as “the gate of Jaffa” in the Egyptian El-Amarna letters correspondence of the fourteenth century BC in the El-Amarna letters and was Israel's main port until the construction of Herod's artificial port at Caesarea.
Here Solomon imported lumber from Tyre to build the temple (and his palace; see also Ezra 3:7). From Joppa, Jonah set sail for Tarshish, going west instead of east, fleeing the call of God for the Gentiles. Here is where Peter received that same message while on Simon the Tanner’s roof in Joppa: that God cares about the Gentiles and has declared Gentiles as “pure” (Acts 10). Peter had to be reminded that while “menu” had ritually pure and impure distinctions, “man” was created in the image of God and was not to be considered “unclean” (Acts 10:28,34-45; footnote: Chris Miller, "Did Peter's Vision in Acts 10 Pertain to Men or the Menu?" Bibliotheca Sacra 159 [2002]). Apparently, the traditional house of Simon the Tanner was occupied in the late 1990s by a Muslim[1] family and is not open to the public.
Earlier, Judah the Maccabean had taken the city after 200 Jews were drowned (2 Macc 12:3ff) and Peter here raised Dorcas to life (Acts 9:36). Excavations have revealed an ancient Egyptian gate (14th century), as well as domestic architecture from the Hellenistic and Roman period, housed in the underground Jaffa Museum.
[1]There may be a discrepancy since another source indicated that it has been occupied by an Armenian family named Zakaria for generations.