Bible Reading Challenge Blog

A notice  has come out that those who have been given permission to leave Babylon and make their way back to Jerusalem, some of them have intermarried with those who worship other gods.  This mortifies Ezra to the point where he tears his robes and fasts until the evening service.  At this service he approaches the altar of the Lord and asks for forgiveness.

So, what is our current thinking in regards to marrying outside of the faith?  And what do we think in regards to marrying outside of our denominations, or our own Protestant faith communities?  Is  there a litmus test that we should use for our sons and our daughters to see if they are marrying within the faith or not?

Not too long ago I called around looking for a rabbi to do a “mixed marriage” with me.  I didn’t get any positive response.  I got some flack from some people close to me because they felt that it was not right to perform a marriage  as a Christian pastor with someone who did not believe in the same god that we worship.  In the past I have written about the understanding that yes, there is only one God, but that does not mean that we all worship the same god.  This would be a case where those close to me felt, and I agree,  that this marriage is not glorifying to God because we are commanded in passages such as this one in Ezra, not to marry outside of the faith.  The argument goes that I am facilitating that by being a part of the service.

I do understand that argument but I also know that Paul speaks about not being unevenly yoked while at the same time speaks about those couples where one is a believer and one is not, that the believer should stay in that relationship.  I will always counsel against being unequally yoked for if we cannot share the most important thing in our life, our faith in God, then much is missing.

We get an accounting of the people of God who traveled with Ezra.  We find the heads of the families and they are just about to depart when Ezra realizes that they don’t have nearly enough people from the house of Levi, from the priestly families.  So he calls in a favor and he finds himself 12 heads of household from the family of Levi to come with him out of Babylon and into Jerusalem.

We hear from Ezra that he had spoken so highly of the God of Israel that when the king had offered protective soldiers to go along with them, that he had refused referring to the promise that the Lord had made that He would protect them.  It seems almost as if Ezra is second guessing himself  and maybe even sorry that he hadn’t taken the king up on his generous offer.  As a result we see that he declares a time of fasting and prayer in order to ask for the Lord’s protection for their unprotected journey into Jerusalem.  

We read that they fasted and then they traveled for three days to reach Jerusalem and the Lord protected them from any ambushes.  It was considered an answer to prayer and an answer to their fasting.  Much emphasis is also placed on the silver and gold that the people brought from Babylon back to Jerusalem.  Remember, this was the gold and the silver that had originally been plundered from the temple so it was really returning to its proper home.  Amazing how over time whenever there is a war and a people is conquered, plunder takes place.  I think of all the precious art work and all the precious gold that the Nazi’s took as they made their way through Europe.  Once again, much of that was taken from the Jewish community which lost all property under that regime.  The more things change…

All of a sudden now we have a transition from the third person which describes what has happened to people directly related to this story, to Ezra who comes into the picture and takes on the first person direct accounting.

Ezra is now introduced here and we can follow his genealogy all the way back to Aaron who would have been the originator of the Jewish priestly families.  This was crucial because it solidifies his pedigree and removes any doubt as to the right that he has to be the chosen one of the Lord in regards to setting up a theocratic government during this time.  He is compared to Moses in the role that he now plays.  Notice that the ruler of the land, King Artexerxes, sets up Ezra as the one who has the power to establish justice within the region of Jerusalem and beyond.  What happens is that during the times of Haggai and Zechariah there was one return from captivity and now there is another during the time of Ezra.  The first six chapters dealt with the first return, and now the second return is taking place.

So in this chapter through the first 26 verses we have the decree of the King in regards  to Ezra and the people of Israel.  Then starting at vs. 27 we have the input of Ezra himself who gives thanks to God for allowing him to be in the position in  which he is to be able to bring a group of people with him to worship God in the temple.  It almost seems as if the book of Ezra begins now.

You need to understand that for the people of Israel to have a foreign government on their side was pretty unusual.  A decree was actually found that was proclaimed by King Cyrus, just like the people of Israel who had been challenged said.  Surprisingly King Darius honored that treaty and fulfilled it to the end.  In fact, he said to those who were pursuing this on behalf of the overseeing ruler in that local area, that they were  to let the Israelites alone.

Now, by itself this would have been unusual.   But as it is written in this Scripture, he also pronounced a curse on anyone who refused to honor this treaty.  This person would have a beam taken from their own house and they were to be impaled upon it.  Not a normal legislative action taken by the executive branch, but I guess it was effective since in the end the temple did end up being built.  It is so very important to see how the people of the land did allow the building and even contributed to the animal sacrifices which were to be made once the temple was built.  Also, the builders were to be paid with the taxes that were collected in the land.  Yes, the Israelites were foreigners in a land controlled by another power, but they were still treated with respect while they built the temple in Jerusalem.  

The remnant of people who came from captivity and were still  around celebrated Passover in the temple that year.  I am sure that it was a celebration which could have been even imagined a few years earlier.  What are some things that seem so far out of reach that not even God would be able to make it happen in our life?  In this situation God made it happen not through a miraculous power, but through  the collaboration of area nations.  This could be a miracle enough.

Did you notice the overlap of prophets in this chapter?  Ezra speaks about the prophets Haggai and Zechariah who came a long before him.  Now Ezra would have been around 458 and Haggai and Zechariah would have been about 70 years before that.  It is important to see Ezra within the time frame of history, while at the same time understand that the 5th chapter also demands a witness from history.

What we have happening in this part of the story is that there are those who do not want the temple built and so are asking those who are building it if they have a permit to build it.  Their response is that we have the permit of almighty God.  I’m not sure that would work for the Borough council, and it really didn’t work for the associates of the ruler of that day either.  They demanded that the ruler look back in the annals to make sure that they had a permit from King Cyrus for the rebuilding of the temple.  Otherwise, they should stop  the building.  There was a lot of church politics back then as well.

But the difference is that this was not internal church politics, but rather external.  There were outside forces wanting the temple to be stopped from being built.  We will see what happens as these pressures intensify.  

So as quickly as the building of the temple took place, so that quickly it stops.  It seems like the locals became upset because they wanted to participate in the building of the temple.  We read, and this is surprising, that those who came and asked to join in the building of the temple were also worshipers of the God of Israel.  They give a history that is shocking for the Scripture.  To find other people who have worshiped the God of Israel and who want to join in on the worship by the building of the temple, is simply surprising.

But the people of Israel say no, you cannot join us in the building of the temple.  This is not unusual because we have seen in previous chapters that there was a family that was thought to be a priestly family but since they could not trace their lineage they were stripped of their priestly duties and responsibilities.  Here, this is a similar situation.  There is a group of people which asks to be included, but the people of Israel say no.

As a result they turn on the new immigrants who have just come from Babylonian captivity and tell rumors about them and say that they are trouble makers.  The rulers of the land do a little research and find out that in the past the Israelites were a powerful nation.  As a result the king puts a pause on the construction and says that no one is to go forward with the building.  We continue to distrust those who are strangers and not of us and as a result we may find ourselves in difficulties for no reason at all.

There was a great emotional uprising because of the laying of the foundation stone for the temple.  Once again we are reminded that the house of the Lord had been destroyed, but now it is going to be rebuilt.  You know about the wailing wall.  You can find it below in a picture that John Faltin took four years ago.  

This Scripture describes the dichotomous feelings of those who were weeping with grief because they remembered the temple that used to be and those who were weeping with joy because finally the foundation of the new temple was being set.  There are mixed feelings in the crowd not because people didn’t want the temple built, but because they were inevitably drawn to the reality of their past which was so painful.  It was a past of multiple experiences of slavery: Egypt, Babylon…

As people of God when we approach the throne of grace we are fortunate because we know that wherever we may be, God is present and we can approach Him with humility and confidence.  What we are missing is a sense of what it means to be able to do that in the complete freedom that we have.  We are able to approach the throne because Jesus has died on the cross for us, and as a result we are able to have eternal life.  We don’t always remember the price that was paid for that eternal life.  If we did remember then we just might live our lives as ones of eternal gratitude and our actions would reflect that thanksgiving which permeates every action and every move.

This chapter begins an accounting of all those who headed back to Jerusalem after the Babylonian captivity.  The Persians were meticulous note takers, even to the point of counting how many from each family left the region now under Persian control to head to Jerusalem, also under Persian control.  

I love the detail about those priestly families whose records over time had been lost and so they were no longer considered clean.  They were considered no longer in the priestly class so could no longer serve the priestly duties.  There was nothing about ordination, it was all about in what family you were born.  It just takes us to a place where we do have to recognize that this was a sort of caste system.  This system was one where certain families had certain responsibilities and that could not be changed.  

Of course that is no longer the case in the church.  It is not a family run business, but there are certain responsibilities that certain people need to have.  

As we begin a new book of the Bible it is important to know where we are historically in this book.  A great link which gives you some background can be found here: https://www.esv.org/resources/esv-global-study-bible/introduction-to-ezra/

I find it amazing that the leader of a pagan nation would allow the Israelites to go free after years of captivity.  Granted that the captivity was under the Babylonians and that the Persians had just conquered the Babylonians so this people were not really their people.  But it goes further than that.  The king of Persia, Cyrus, is said to have his spirit stirred by the Lord.  As a  result he not only lets the people go but gives them a particular task which is to rebuild the temple of the Lord.  Now Ezra may have written this book of the Bible but he was not alive when this happened.  According to the timeline on the link above he does not enter Jerusalem until 458 BC and Cyrus gives out his decree in 586.  

The people of Israel were exiles and were brought out of Babylon, which is now Persia in this writing, and sent to Jerusalem not only to inhabit it but actually primarily to rebuild the temple.  The entire book of Ezra is a recounting of this building.  In this portion the king of a foreign nation, a pagan king at that, takes the initiative in ensuring that the work of the Lord be done.

This chapter deals exclusively with those things in our lives which we dedicate and devote to the Lord.  I know, I hope all of you are saying that you thought everything that we have and all that we are should be from the get go dedicated to the Lord.  Actually, that is more than correct.  But back in Moses’ day there were specific things that were actually dedicated to the work of the temple and for the well being of the priests, including people.  So they were actually given over to the Lord.  When we say that Jesus is Lord of our lives we mean that he rules that which we do.  Here in this instance the people would actually hand over certain things so that the religious priests would take ownership of it.  Not just metaphorical ownership, but actual ownership.

This chapter begins by explaining that those people who are dedicated to the Lord are worth a certain amount if you wanted to redeem them, if you wanted to get them back from the work of the temple.  If for some reason you gave back a blessing to the temple and you wanted that blessing back, there was a provision for that.  You could pay a certain amount and redeem, or reclaim that person, that animal, that field, or whatever it may be.  But it did come at a cost.  

This brings Leviticus to a close and it takes us to the end of the book and we are going to dive into the prophets now, Ezra will start us off.  Leviticus can get a bit heavy, but not nearly as repetitive as Numbers which we will not be looking at for this study.  On to the prophets.