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

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

We saw in yesterday’s passage how those living in the land who turned from the detestable practices common among their people and adopted true worship of God were welcome among the returned exiles.  In today’s passage we have an account of how many among the returned exiles had married women from among the people living in the land and adopted some of their practices.  While the passage focuses on the fact that they had married women from among those living in the land we can see that it was the fact that these women had not given up the pagan practices which was the problem.  In fact, I suspect that what brought this problem up was that many of the most prominent among the returned exiles had formed marriage alliances with the prominent among those living in the land and were corruptly serving the interests of their new families against the interests of the returned exile community.

When Ezra proposed that the people must separate themselves from the people of the land and the women from among them which many of them had married, the people agreed but said that it was more complicated than could be resolved while they were all gathered in Jerusalem.  So, it was decided that those who had married women who were not part of the returned exiles would meet with the elders of their villages to resolve things.  This tells us that this was not a blanket putting aside of wives from among the locals.  I read this as telling us that some of the women in these marriages had abandoned pagan worship and embraced the worship of God.  I conclude that the problem was not that they married women from outside their community.  Rather the problem was that they married women who did not share their faith, which led them to worship practices unacceptable to God.

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

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

The returned exiles almost immediately began rebuilding the the altar on the Temple Mount so that they could resume sacrifices and the worship which surrounded those.  Their next step was to rebuild the foundation of the Temple.  It has never been clear to me if those who had seen the original Temple were sad because the new foundation did not live up to their expectations, or because of the memories the new foundation brought back.  Nevertheless, all of those who saw the progress they had made praised God.  Perhaps this can provide inspiration for us as we rebuild our worship practices after this long lockdown.

I am using 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 started out intending to focus on Cyrus, but noticed an interesting person I had never noticed before, Sheshbazzar.  He is only mentioned once in the Bible, although there is a Shenazzar listed in 1 Chronicles 3:18.  Shenazzar is a son of King Jehoiachin, who was taken into exile by Nebuchadnezzar.  There are numerous variant spellings of Shenazzar in the manuscripts of 1 Chronicles, making it not unlikely that Sheshbazzar is another variation on that name.  While the New Living Translation translates the passage as saying that Sheshbazzar was the leader of the returning exiles, the literal translation says that he was the prince of Judah.  Sheshbazzar is not mentioned again after we are told that Cyrus gave him the items taken from the Temple by Nebuchadnezzar.  It seems entirely likely to me that Sheshbazzar was the son (or perhaps grandson) of Jehoiachin and thus the prince of Judah, but that he never joined the returning exiles.

Now on to Cyrus: Cyrus was never a worshiper of God, or, at least, if he was he also worshiped many other gods as well.  Nevertheless, God used Cyrus to bring about a restoration of His people.   It was Cyrus who issued the order which led to the rebuilding of the Temple and the reestablishment of God’s worship in Jerusalem.  We can learn a lot about what God views as a good political leader from what the Bible says about Cyrus.  The writers of the Bible viewed Cyrus as a true servant of God, even though they never viewed him as one of them, as one of the Believers.