Today, I am reading and commenting on Ezra 9-10.

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Today’s passage begins with some of the officials approaching Ezra with their concern that the returned exiles had not kept themselves separate from the peoples of the land.  If you read this passage in isolation, you can easily get the idea that the returned exiles were xenophobic towards the people of the land.  However, if you read today’s passage in light of what was in yesterday’s passage about those who ate the Passover lamb after the completion of the temple you see that this passage is more nuanced than that.  This passage gives us reason to make that connection.  Those who approached Ezra reported those who “have not separated themselves from the peoples of the land with their abominations,…”  Then in Ezra’s prayer he sums up the problem when he says, “shall we break your commandments again and intermarry with the peoples who practice these abominations?”  There we learn that the problem was not intermarrying with the peoples of the land in general, but only intermarrying with those who practice abominations.

We saw in yesterday’s passage that some of the people of the land had separated themselves from the abominable practices.   Further, it is clear that it was more complicated than just cutting off those who had married people of the land when the passage tells us that it would take more than one day to resolve the matter.  If it was just a matter of men separating themselves from wives whom they had married from among the people, it could have been resolved quickly.  However, the fact that men were appointed to examine the matter and that it took two months to resolve it suggests that they were examining whether the wives in question had abandoned the abominable practices.  All of which shows us the importance of not reaching quick judgements about people.  We also learn from this passage that we need to be careful about allowing ourselves to be caught in practices which God condemns.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Ezra 6-8.

I have a Youtube video of me reading the Scripture passage and my comments. Please check it out and let me know your thoughts.

Also, here is the link for my Patreon page

Please consider supporting the Campbell’s mission trip.  The QR code will take you to a site where you can directly make a donation if you cannot attend the dinner.

In yesterday’s passage when the returned exiles resumed work on rebuilding the temple, those who opposed the rebuilding sent a letter to Darius suggesting that the returned exiles were lying about Cyrus giving an edict for the rebuilding of the temple.  The subtext of their letter was that Darius should issue an edict prohibiting them from rebuilding the temple.  However, Darius discovered that Cyrus had indeed issued an edict supporting the rebuilding of the temple.  As a result, instead of ordering the returned exiles to cease and desist, Darius ordered those who had sent the letter to not just not interfere in the rebuilding of the temple but to provide support for it.

Which brings me to what for me is the most important part of today’s passage (at least for this year).  If you read my post for yesterday you might remember that I questioned whether or not the returned exiles had done the right thing by refusing the offer of the people who had been living in the land to help rebuild the temple.  Well, I think we have the answer to that in the description of the Passover celebration they held after they completed rebuilding the temple.  In verse 21 of chapter 6 it says this about that Passover: “It was eaten by the people of Israel who had returned from exile, and also by every one who had joined them and separated himself from the uncleanness of the peoples of the land to worship the Lord, the God of Israel.”  That reads to me as if the returned exiles handled those who were living in the land exactly as I would have wished them to do.  They welcomed into their fellowship those of the people of the land who separated themselves from the unclean practices of the peoples of the land.

I think we can infer from this that the returned exiles accepted the assistance of those living in the land who wished to separate themselves from the unclean practices of the people and join the returned exiles.  In the same way, we can allow those who wish to join us in the mission which God gave us who wish to join us and separate themselves from the sinful practices around us.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Ezra 3-5.

I have a Youtube video of me reading the Scripture passage and my comments. Please check it out and let me know your thoughts.

Also, here is the link for my Patreon page

Please consider supporting the Campbell’s mission trip.  The QR code will take you to a site where you can directly make a donation if you cannot attend the dinner.

Every time I read this passage and read where the returned exiles rejected the request from the people of the land to build with them I wonder why they did so.  Was it God’s will that they reject working with these people?  Or would things have turned out better if they had accepted the offer?  The passage says that the people of the land were adversaries of Judah and Benjamin and after this they were indeed adversaries, but could that opposition been avoided?  I can imagine reasons why working with the people who had been living in the land might have been a mistake, but the passage does not tell us that any of those reasons were true.  Perhaps if the returned exiles had accepted to offered assistance they could have rebuilt the temple and Jerusalem without further interruption and Israel could have risen to its former glory.  On the other hand, perhaps if they had accepted the offered assistance, the people of the land would have insisted that they incorporate some of their practices into their faith, practices which ran counter to God’s commands.  Neither this passage, nor the others which reference this time period answer this question.  However, the degree to which the people of the land opposed the efforts of the returned exiles suggest the latter to be the case.

Here is my thinking on this type of situation.  We should accept the assistance of anyone who wants to help us do the work of the Lord.  However, we should only allow those who share our understanding of who God is and what He expects of us to have any say in how the work is done.  For example, in this situation the returned exiles could have allowed the people of the land to join in building the temple as long as they understood that they would have no say in how worship would be conducted in the completed temple.  Nothing we have read tells us that such an option was available to the returned exiles. We also do not know that the dynamics of the situation at that time would have allowed the returned exiles to enforce that condition if they had accepted the offered assistance.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Ezra 1-2.

I have a Youtube video of me reading the Scripture passage and my comments. Please check it out and let me know your thoughts.

Also, here is the link for my Patreon page

Please consider supporting the Campbell’s mission trip.  The QR code will take you to a site where you can directly make a donation if you cannot attend the dinner.

This is another challenging read.  There are archeological discoveries which suggest that Cyrus sought to ingratiate himself with any god which might exist by supporting the restoration of religious practices which had been suppressed by the Babylonians.  This lends support to the idea that Cyrus issued the proclamation listed here (or, one which could be legitimately paraphrased in this way).  Those archeological finds, along with other finds regarding the way in which the Persian Empire looked upon religious practices within the empire, also support the idea that Cyrus may have donated to the re-establishment of the temple in Jerusalem.  All of that shows that God intervened to bring His people back to the land which He had promised them.

The account of those who returned gives us an idea about how carefully they kept their genealogical records.  However, I want to focus on the ones who are listed in verses 59-63 of chapter 2.  The passage tells us that they had oral histories of being descended from priests, but were not in any of the written records which were available at the time.  As a result of that, they were ruled to not be eligible to partake of the priestly portion of the sacrifices until their priestly decent could be verified.  However, the ruling was not that some written record needed to be found.  Rather, they were ineligible until the opportunity arose that a priest could consult God in the matter.  It reminds me of how God confirmed in Acts 10 that Cornelius’ household should be baptized and welcomed into the Body of Christ.  We should always be open to God revealing that people should be welcomed among us.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Ezra 6-8.

The first thing which I realized when I began working out what to write today is that I get confused about the length of time involved in the first part of this book, which also leads to me sometimes misreading portions of it.  Fortunately, the parts which are confusing are primarily included to set the stage so that we understand the background for what comes starting in today’s passage.  The first part of today’s passage shows us how God will help us overcome obstacles when we act according to His will.  Then we get to the meat of the Book, Ezra leading a group of Israelites to return to Jerusalem and Judah.  After telling us that Ezra was a knowledgeable teacher of the Law who had found favor with Artaxerxes, King of Persia, it quotes the letter which Artaxerxes had given to Ezra.  As part of introducing us to Ezra it tells us that God’s gracious hand was on Ezra because he was devoted to studying, observing, and teaching the Law of the Lord.  I was going to go somewhere else with this until I typed that last sentence.  As I typed that sentence about Ezra I realized that was the lesson I wanted for today.  The passage lays out an important progression which is closely linked together.  God’s grace was not upon Ezra because he studied God’s Law, nor just because he observed it.  God’s grace was on Ezra because he taught God’s Law.  However, before Ezra could teach God’s Law, he had to study it.  And while he could have taught it without following it, that would not have led to God placing His grace upon Ezra.  I am really reminded of what Jesus told His disciples in Matthew 28:19-29. “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”   We cannot make disciples of Christ unless we first obey His teachings, and we cannot obey His teachings if we do not study them.  So, let us do things in the proper order: study, observe, and then teach.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Ezra 1-2.

I was going to write about Cyrus’ proclamation, but I decided to start writing about the list of people who joined Zerubbabel in initially returning to Jerusalem and Judah.  First, you have a group of six hundred fifty-two people who descended from one or more of three people who could not be found in the genealogies which the Exiles had.  Then you have a unspecified number of people whose traditions said they were descended from priests, whose listed ancestors could also not be found in the genealogies.  It appears that the first group was allowed to participate just like any other non-Levitical (or priestly) descendants of Israel, despite being able to clearly establish their descent.  The ones who believed they were descended from priests were told that they could not participate in any priestly function, or eat any of the food from the priests’ share of sacrifices, with a caveat.  The caveat was that when there was a priest ministering with the Urim and Thummim, that priest could inquire of God as to whether they were true priests.  This led me to do some searching to see what they knew about the Urim and Thummim, since when I last looked for information about them I could find only speculation about how they worked.  I found that Talmudic scholars disagree with when the Urim and Thummim were last seen.  Some claimed they were around until the Maccabees, but had not worked since the destruction of Solomon’s temple.  Others said that they disappeared sometime between the death of King David and the fall of Jerusalem.  Considering that Jerusalem was sacked several times before the Babylonians destroyed it and that several of those occasions were during the reign of kings who did not worship God, that seems likely.  I find it interesting that they chose to relegate determining if these people could serve as priests to the recovery of the Urim and Thummim, rather than using another way to determine God’s will concerning them.  And I  wonder if it was appropriate for them to do so.  Perhaps this was a case of them really saying, “you cannot serve as priests unless God presents us with incontrovertible proof He desires otherwise.”  When is it appropriate to do something like that?

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Ezra 9-10.

I have always been bothered by this passage because, on a surface reading, it seems cold, uncaring, and xenophobic.  However, a closer reading indicates that it is more nuanced than it seems at first glance.  First, I need to summarize what the passage says happened.  Some of the leaders of the returned Exiles came to Ezra and complained about the returned Exiles intermarrying with the pagan peoples who had been living in the land while they were in Exile.  Ezra was distressed by this information and publicly prayed about how terrible such intermarriage was.  The people gathered and demanded that those who had intermarried put aside their foreign wives and the children they had by those wives.  As I said, this seems cold and uncaring.  I first realized that it was a little more complicated than it seems at first when I paid attention to the fact that the people responded to the decision that the men should separate themselves from their foreign wives and children by saying that it could not be done in a day or two.  That was followed up by the appointment of men to investigate each of the cases.  If it was just a matter of, “You married a foreign woman, send her and her children away or be shunned by polite society,” it would not have required any investigation.  Then I looked a little closer at Ezra’s prayer.  In his prayer he said, “Shall we then break your commands again and intermarry with the peoples who commit such detestable practices?” The key here was that the foreign wives were still practicing the worship of idols, and raising their children to do so.  It still feels cold and uncaring, but the fact that it took them three months to resolve all of the issues tells me that it was not the simple, uncaring thing which it reads as.  At least part of what was going on here was that some of these men had married their wives in order to enter into business and economic deals with pagans (in his prayer Ezra mentioned God’s prohibition against the Israelites signing treaties of friendship with the pagan peoples).  I still struggle with how this passage describes how they handled this.  However, I think it is important to realize that they strove to find a way to deal with their disobedience to God’s commands, and they did not use a one size fits all solution.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Ezra 6-8.

Yesterday’s passage described how, after their help in building the temple was rejected, those who had lived in the land while the Jews were in Exile had managed to prevent work on the temple beyond relaying the foundation to come to a halt.  It also described how a new generation under the prodding of Haggai the prophet and of Zechariah resumed work on the temple only to be interrupted by those whose forefather’s help had been rejected.  This new generation attempting to prevent the rebuilding of the temple appealed to Darius, the king of Persia.  However, when Darius had a search of the archives made he discovered that Cyrus had ordered the rebuilding of the temple.  So, Darius ordered those who had attempted to prevent the rebuilding of the temple to provide sufficient resources to the Jews, the returned Exiles, for them to complete the rebuilding.  Thus God proved that Haggai and Zechariah were indeed speaking His word when they prompted the people to resume work on rebuilding the temple.

Sometime after the temple was completed Ezra appealed to Artaxerxes and was granted an edict to go to Jerusalem and offer sacrifices on behalf of the king.  As part of that trip, Ezra and those accompanying him received a large amount of wealth to take with them.  Apparently, the amount of wealth which was given to the pilgrims was more than Ezra had anticipated (or, just as likely, he had given no thought about the wealth they would be transporting until it was gathered).  In any case, having proudly told the king that not only was God able to protect them from any harm but that He would be with them on this journey, Ezra was too embarrassed to ask the king for a military escort to protect them, and the wealth they carried, from bandits.  So, Ezra divided the treasure they were transporting up among several different people, making each person responsible for a portion of the treasure being transported to Jerusalem, and called upon the entire group to fast and pray, asking God to grant them a safe journey, both for themselves and their possessions.  When they arrived in Jerusalem and made an accounting of the treasure, it had all survived the journey.  We learn two important lessons here.  First, Ezra, and those traveling with him, fully put their faith in God for safety because they were embarrassed as to what people would think if they asked for guards to protect them.  Sometimes God uses our fear of what others will think of us in order to motivate us to act in faith.  And, as a corollary to that, sometimes it is good to brag up our faith, so that we will be embarrassed to not fully put our trust in God.  Second, while putting his faith in God, Ezra still took steps to mitigate the risk.   By dividing the treasure they were transporting up among several people, and making those to whom it was given responsible just for the portion they were given, Ezra made it less obvious how much wealth their caravan was transporting.  Just because we trust God to protect us does not mean that we do not take action to reduce the risk.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.