If you have worked your way through 2 Kings, you will be aware of the power struggles that had been taking place in what is now known as Iran.
We saw how the Assyrians came to power, and how they had taken the northern tribes of Israel into exile – dispersing and effectively destroying them.
Then Assyria was taken over by the Babylonians – and it was to Babylon that Judah, the last of the tribes of the Jewish nation were taken into exile.
The Medes in the north of Iran had been under the control of Assyria. They joined with the Babylonians to fight against Assyria and then were able to form their own state with Babylon as the superpower.
But power struggles continued within all the neighbouring states until finally Persia became the dominant power, actually one of the largest empires in history – stretching from the Mediterranean to India (generally referred to as the ‘Middle East’) – and it was founded by king Cyrus the Great.
Perhaps before we start in Ezra, we need to look at some prophecies of Isaiah, written more than 100 years before:
Isaiah 41:2 ‘Who has stirred up one from the east, calling him in righteousness to his service?
He hands nations over to him and subdues kings before him.
He turns them to dust with his sword, to wind-blown chaff with his bow.
Isaiah 44:28 and Isaiah 45:1 who says of Cyrus, “He is my shepherd and will accomplish all that I please; he will say of Jerusalem, ‘Let it be rebuilt,’ and of the temple, ‘Let its foundations be laid.’”
‘This is what the Lord says to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I take hold of to subdue nations before him and to strip kings of their armour, to open doors before him so that gates will not be shut:
Isaiah 45:13 I will raise up Cyrus in my righteousness: I will make all his ways straight. He will rebuild my city and set my exiles free, but not for a price or reward, says the Lord Almighty.’
There have been many who don’t like such plain prophecy, and who have postulated different ways that can explain Isaiah’s prophecies. I have to ask then, what is the role of a prophet? Isn’t the whole point of a prophecy to actually describe future events?
So to Ezra – seventy years have passed since the people had been taken into exile, and there is now a new world order. The new king Cyrus, who came to reign over a vast empire, decided that all the groups of foreigners that had been forcefully removed from their own lands, should now be encouraged to return home. Not only that, but their own religious practices should be encouraged and their temples rebuilt.
Let’s read Ezra 1:1-9
1 In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfil the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah, the Lord moved the heart of Cyrus king of Persia to make a proclamation throughout his realm and also to put it in writing:
2 ‘This is what Cyrus king of Persia says:
‘“The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and he has appointed me to build a temple for him at Jerusalem in Judah. 3 Any of his people among you may go up to Jerusalem in Judah and build the temple of the Lord, the God of Israel, the God who is in Jerusalem, and may their God be with them. 4 And in any locality where survivors may now be living, the people are to provide them with silver and gold, with goods and livestock, and with freewill offerings for the temple of God in Jerusalem.”’
5 Then the family heads of Judah and Benjamin, and the priests and Levites – everyone whose heart God had moved – prepared to go up and build the house of the Lord in Jerusalem. 6 All their neighbours assisted them with articles of silver and gold, with goods and livestock, and with valuable gifts, in addition to all the freewill offerings.
7 Moreover, King Cyrus brought out the articles belonging to the temple of the Lord, which Nebuchadnezzar had carried away from Jerusalem and had placed in the temple of his god. 8 Cyrus king of Persia had them brought by Mithredath the treasurer, who counted them out to Sheshbazzar the prince of Judah.
Jeremiah had prophesied: This whole country will become a desolate wasteland, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon for seventy years . (Jeremiah 25:11) Little is known of what happened to the people of Israel during the Exile, but by now most of the old generation would have died.
(It would be another 200 years before the next part of part of Jeremiah’s prophecy came true, (Jeremiah 25:12-14) with the coming of Alexander the Great, of Greece.)
Read Ezra 1:1
1 In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfil the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah, the Lord moved the heart of Cyrus king of Persia to make a proclamation throughout his realm and also to put it in writing:
As far as Ezra was concerned, Cyrus himself had no option – the Lord moved his heart!
And what was his priority?
Read Ezra 1:2
2 ‘This is what Cyrus king of Persia says:
‘“The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and he has appointed me to build a temple for him at Jerusalem in Judah.
I was struck by that – not to simply allow all the displaced people groups to return to their own lands (which he did), but specifically to build a temple for God, and to do it in Jerusalem.
He continued:
Ezra 1:3
3 Any of his people among you may go up to Jerusalem in Judah and build the temple of the Lord, the God of Israel, the God who is in Jerusalem, and may their God be with them.
Although Cyrus encouraged all displaced peoples to return to their lands and rebuild the temples for their gods, I like to think the Lord was working specifically through Cyrus to ensure that there was no possibility of the Jews returning to their old practices of worshipping other gods.
But more than that:
Ezra 1:4
4 And in any locality where survivors may now be living, the people are to provide them with silver and gold, with goods and livestock, and with freewill offerings for the temple of God in Jerusalem.”’
What does that remind you of? To me it is a reminder of the Exodus from Egypt Exodus 3:21-22
Now read Ezra 1:5-6
5 Then the family heads of Judah and Benjamin, and the priests and Levites – everyone whose heart God had moved – prepared to go up and build the house of the Lord in Jerusalem. 6 All their neighbours assisted them with articles of silver and gold, with goods and livestock, and with valuable gifts, in addition to all the freewill offerings.
It is sad to remember that only the tribes of Judah, Benjamin, and Levi remained. What happened to the northern tribes? Following their exile under the Assyrians and their dispersal throughout the Middle East nothing is known with any certainty – although theories abound.
Also there were many who having been born and brought up in Babylon, preferred to stay with the life they knew, rather than step out into the unknown.
But at the same time, it is encouraging to read verse 6.
Now read Ezra 1:7-11
7 Moreover, King Cyrus brought out the articles belonging to the temple of the Lord, which Nebuchadnezzar had carried away from Jerusalem and had placed in the temple of his god. 8 Cyrus king of Persia had them brought by Mithredath the treasurer, who counted them out to Sheshbazzar the prince of Judah.
9 This was the inventory:
| gold dishes |
30 |
| silver dishes |
1,000 |
| silver pans |
29 |
| gold bowls |
30 |
| matching silver bowls |
410 |
| other articles |
1,000 |
11 In all, there were 5,400 articles of gold and of silver. Sheshbazzar brought all these along with the exiles when they came up from Babylon to Jerusalem.
Who was Shezbazzar? No-one knows – Babylonians often renamed their captives – It seems he must have shown himself to be an influential Jew, and someone to be trusted. He was last mentioned in Ezra 5:14 in a letter to King Darius. Darius then appointed Zerubbabel (a descendant of King David) as the new governor of Israel (Yehud province) – or possibly they could have been the same person.
Now I’m going to be selective as we move into chapter 2 (but you can read it all here: Ezra 2:1-70). It carefully lists the tribal families that returned, starting with the appointed leaders.
Read Ezra 2:1-2
1 Now these are the people of the province who came up from the captivity of the exiles, whom Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had taken captive to Babylon (they returned to Jerusalem and Judah, each to their own town, 2 in company with Zerubbabel, Joshua, Nehemiah, Seraiah, Reelaiah, Mordecai, Bilshan, Mispar, Bigvai, Rehum and Baanah):
We should perhaps point out that this Nehemiah was not the prophet (Nehemiah 1:1, 2:1) and this Mordecai was not the uncle of Esther (Esther 1:1).
It had always been important that each family kept records of their ancestors: now it would confirm which town they could return to. More importantly, it also confirmed if their family had held important roles.
Read Ezra 2:2, 21, 36, 40-42, 43, 55, 58
2(b) The list of the men of the people of Israel:
21 The men of Bethlehem
36 The priests:
40 The Levites:
41 The musicians:
42 The gatekeepers of the temple:
43 The temple servants:
55 The descendants of the servants of Solomon:
58 The temple servants and the descendants of the servants of Solomon
But in some cases, the family records would have been lost.
Read Ezra 2:59
59 The following came up from the towns of Tel Melah, Tel Harsha, Kerub, Addon and Immer, but they could not show that their families were descended from Israel:
Possibly the people who had been settled in these towns were from an earlier wave of deportations (2 Kings 24:14) when they had no opportunity to take any belongings with them (but obviously provision would be made for them too).
But it was worse for some families of priests:
Read Ezra 2:61(a)-63
61 And from among the priests:
62 These searched for their family records, but they could not find them and so were excluded from the priesthood as unclean. 63 The governor ordered them not to eat any of the most sacred food until there was a priest ministering with the Urim and Thummim.
Urim and Thummim (Exodus 28:30) was the recognised way for a priest to ascertain the Lord’s will. But until people had settled and organised themselves, that would have to wait.
Now read Ezra 2:64-70
64 The whole company numbered 42,360, besides their 7,337 male and female slaves; and they also had 200 male and female singers. 66 They had 736 horses, 245 mules, 435 camels and 6,720 donkeys.
68 When they arrived at the house of the Lord in Jerusalem, some of the heads of the families gave freewill offerings towards the rebuilding of the house of God on its site. 69 According to their ability they gave to the treasury for this work 61,000 darics (about ½ ton) of gold, 5,000 minas (about 2¾ tons)of silver and 100 priestly garments.
70 The priests, the Levites, the musicians, the gatekeepers and the temple servants settled in their own towns, along with some of the other people, and the rest of the Israelites settled in their towns.
It is obvious that during the last seventy years the exiles had listened to Jeremiah’s prophecy (Jeremiah 29:4-14) and had settled into a prosperous way of life – even organising local choirs! I was also interested to read in verse 64 that they had 7,337 slaves – not what we might expect of modern-day refugees.
But it was also encouraging that they gave generously towards the rebuilding of the Temple.
But what did the returning exiles face? Let’s wind back seventy years:-
Read 2 Kings 25:8-10
8 On the seventh day of the fifth month, in the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, Nebuzaradan commander of the imperial guard, an official of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem. 9 He set fire to the temple of the Lord, the royal palace and all the houses of Jerusalem. Every important building he burned down. 10 The whole Babylonian army under the commander of the imperial guard broke down the walls around Jerusalem.
Today we would describe it as a bomb site. Piles of burnt rubble everywhere with seventy years of nature reclaiming the whole area – weeds, even shrubs and trees sprouting from the ruins. So where would they start? Obviously the Temple site needed to be cleared, but even before that, the area around the altar itself had to be cleared before they could find its original foundations.
Read Ezra 3:1-6
1 When the seventh month came (Roughly Sept. – Oct.) and the Israelites had settled in their towns, the people assembled together as one in Jerusalem. 2 Then Joshua son of Jozadak and his fellow priests and Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel and his associates began to build the altar of the God of Israel to sacrifice burnt offerings on it, in accordance with what is written in the Law of Moses the man of God.
3 Despite their fear of the peoples around them, they built the altar on its foundation and sacrificed burnt offerings on it to the Lord, both the morning and evening sacrifices. 4 Then in accordance with what is written, they celebrated the Festival of Tabernacles with the required number of burnt offerings prescribed for each day.
5 After that, they presented the regular burnt offerings, the New Moon sacrifices and the sacrifices for all the appointed sacred festivals of the Lord, as well as those brought as freewill offerings to the Lord. 6 On the first day of the seventh month they began to offer burnt offerings to the Lord, though the foundation of the Lord’s temple had not yet been laid.
For the last seventy years they had had no opportunity to bring offerings and sacrifices to God – there was a lot of catching up to do.
Read Ezra 3:7-9
7 Then they gave money to the masons and carpenters, and gave food and drink and olive oil to the people of Sidon and Tyre, so that they would bring cedar logs by sea from Lebanon to Joppa, as authorised by Cyrus king of Persia
8 In the second month of the second year after their arrival at the house of God in Jerusalem, Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, Joshua son of Jozadak and the rest of the people (the priests and the Levites and all who had returned from the captivity to Jerusalem) began the work. They appointed Levites twenty years old and older to supervise the building of the house of the Lord. 9 Joshua and his sons and brothers and Kadmiel and his sons (descendants of Hodaviah) and the sons of Henadad and their sons and brothers – all Levites – joined together in supervising those working on the house of God.
Although everyone was keen to see the Temple rebuilt, the volunteers still had their own lands and animals to look after. So there would be a constant changeover of workers. The Priests and Levites however had been set apart for the service of the Temple, and so could organise consistent oversight.
Read Ezra 3:10-11
10 When the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, the priests in their vestments and with trumpets, and the Levites (the sons of Asaph) with cymbals, took their places to praise the Lord, as prescribed by David king of Israel. 11 With praise and thanksgiving they sang to the Lord:
‘He is good; his love towards Israel endures for ever.’
And all the people gave a great shout of praise to the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid.
Many psalms have the refrain ‘Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good. His love endures forever’ (especially Psalm 136:1-26) and we still sing it today! ('Forever' - Chris Tomlin).
Read Ezra 3:12-13
12 But many of the older priests and Levites and family heads, who had seen the former temple, wept aloud when they saw the foundation of this temple being laid, while many others shouted for joy. 13 No one could distinguish the sound of the shouts of joy from the sound of weeping, because the people made so much noise. And the sound was heard far away.
The oldest among them would have played in the Temple courts when they were young children – but they would also have been awed by its size and splendour. What was being built now was never going to match their memories. I wonder if this latest Temple was based on the size of the original Tabernacle (Exodus 26) – exactly half the size of Solomon’s Temple (1 Kings 6:2).
