The Lord makes no reference to stones even though they too were needed. But they would have been in plentiful supply from the destruction of Solomon’s temple. It is the wood that is needed to replace the timbers burned by the Babylonians (2 Kings 25:9).1 So the Lord calls the people to again follow the lead of Solomon, who had cedar trees brought from the hills of Lebanon in Phoenicia for the temple originally (1 Kings 5:1–11; 2 Chronicles 2:8–10). Such supplies had already been imported when the Jews returned from Babylon (Ezra 3:7), and other timber could be retrieved from the wooded hills of Judah (Nehemiah 8:15).2
8 Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house, that I may take pleasure in it and that I may be glorified, says the LORD.