Year 2, Week 25, Day 1 Bible Reading Observations

Year 2, Week 25, Day 1

I have a brief observation for today’s reading of Ezra 4-6.

Today’s reading continues the Book of Ezra. The Book of Ezra is set in the first year of Cyrus’ reign, which would have been about 538 BC. Cyrus permits the Jewish people to return from their captivity even as they are allowed to rebuild the Temple at Jerusalem. While the Temple foundation has been completed, Ezra 4 introduces the opposition that delays further work: “Therefore make a decree that these men be made to cease, and that this city be not rebuilt, until a decree is made by me. And take care not to be slack in this matter. Why should damage grow to the hurt of the king?”…they went in haste to the Jews at Jerusalem and by force and power made them cease. Then the work on the house of God that is in Jerusalem stopped, and it ceased until the second year of the reign of Darius king of Persia” (Ezra 4:21-24). Ezra 5 records events that unfolded around 520 BC as the LORD sends His prophets to stir the returnees to attempt a resumption of their work on the Temple: “Now the prophets, Haggai and Zechariah the son of Iddo, prophesied to the Jews who were in Judah and Jerusalem, in the name of the God of Israel who was over them. Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel and Jeshua the son of Jozadak arose and began to rebuild the house of God that is in Jerusalem, and the prophets of God were with them, supporting them” (Ezra 5:1-2). Ezra 6 records the decree from Darius granting the returnees the right to resume work on the Temple: “Let the work on this house of God alone. Let the governor of the Jews and the elders of the Jews rebuild this house of God on its site” (Ezra 6:7). By about 516 BC the Temple was completed: “and this house was finished on the third day of the month of Adar, in the sixth year of the reign of Darius the king” (Ezra 6:15).

One of the things that struck me from today’s reading was why the opposition to the Temple project only delayed and did not prevent the Temple from being completed: “They finished their building by decree of the God of Israel and by decree of Cyrus and Darius and Artaxerxes king of Persia” (Ezra 6:14b). Yes, the decree of the Persian kings was a part of the explanation for the Temple being completed, but ultimately, the Temple was completed because of the LORD’s decree. In fact the Persian Kings’ decree was rooted in the decree of God. Also rooted in the the LORD’s decree was the raising up of the prophets Haggai and Zechariah, who started the returnees to get about the finishing of the Temple: “And the elders of the Jews built and prospered through the prophesying of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Iddo” (Ezra 6:14a). While it had been over twenty years since the Temple foundation was laid, the Temple’s completion enabled Temple worship to resume: “And the people of Israel, the priests and the Levites, and the rest of the returned exiles, celebrated the dedication of this house of God with joy” (Ezra 6:16).

Fierce opposition stopped the Temple construction project: “Then the people of the land discouraged the people of Judah and made them afraid to build and bribed counselors against them to frustrate their purpose, all the days of Cyrus king of Persia, even until the reign of Darius king of Persia” (Ezra 4:4-5). This opposition from the non-Jews living in the region ironically began shortly after Zerubbabel rejected their offer to help with the rebuilding: “But Zerubbabel, Jeshua, and the rest of the heads of fathers’ houses in Israel said to them, “You have nothing to do with us in building a house to our God; but we alone will build to the LORD, the God of Israel, as King Cyrus the king of Persia has commanded us” (Ezra 4:3). It was not the ethnicity of these people that led Zerubbabel to reject their offer, it was their false worship that compelled him to want them to have nothing to do with the Temple construction. These people were planted in the Land during the days of Assyrian supremacy: “Let us build with you, for we worship your God as you do, and we have been sacrificing to him ever since the days of Esarhaddon king of Assyria who brought us here” (Ezra 4:2). But there never really embraced the LORD, even after faithful priests were sent to teach them: "So the king of Assyria was told, “The nations that you have carried away and placed in the cities of Samaria do not know the law of the god of the land…Then the king of Assyria commanded, “Send there one of the priests whom you carried away from there, and let him go and dwell there and teach them the law of the god of the land…But every nation still made gods of its own and put them in the shrines of the high places that the Samaritans had made, every nation in the cities in which they lived” (2 Kings 17:26-27,29). Their ungodly opposition threatened the Temple’s completion.

But the ungodly opposition was up against God’s will for the Temple to be rebuilt. While the opposition put the returnees on their heels, the LORD was with His people: “But the eye of their God was on the elders of the Jews, and they did not stop them until the report should reach Darius and then an answer be returned by letter concerning it” (Ezra 5:5). The misinformation that is going out to suspend the completion of the Temple would not succeed, for the LORD was working on behalf of His people. This reality empowered the returnees to be clear when they were asked why their assumed they could build the Temple in the first place: “And this was their reply to us: ‘We are the servants of the God of heaven and earth, and we are rebuilding the house that was built many years ago, which a great king of Israel built and finished. But because our fathers had angered the God of heaven, he gave them into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, the Chaldean, who destroyed this house and carried away the people to Babylonia. However, in the first year of Cyrus king of Babylon, Cyrus the king made a decree that this house of God should be rebuilt” (Ezra 5:11-13). The returnees acknowledged how their sin had provoked the LORD, but also how the LORD was powerfully gracious to grant the task of rebuilding.

What struck you in today’s reading? What questions were prompted from today’s reading?

Pastor Joe