Month: May 2020

Week 21 Nehemiah

If someone polled modern Albertans and asked what they thought about the OT a majority would likely say: boring, irrelevant, obnoxious, etc. Historical value? Some. Contemporary pertinence? None.
If someone had polled ancient Israel and asked the what-about-the-OT-question a high percentage would have agreed with boring, irrelevant, and obnoxious. Cultural interest? Maybe. Applicability? Don’t make me laugh.
That’s why chapter eight is kind of shocking. There’s a mass gathering in the public square by the Water Gate. The people: asked Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses which the Lord had given to Israel. Why? To hear it read out loud. So it was read: from early morning to midday.
The audience was men and women: who could listen with understanding.
They were: attentive to the book of the law.
They all: stood up (except for when they: bowed low and worshiped the Lord).
At the tough passages the readers were stopping and: translating to give the sense so that they understood the reading.
And as they listened: all the people were weeping when they heard the words of the law.
So something is going on here that doesn’t fit the popular view of OT religion.
Exodus and Leviticus and Numbers are affecting people.
This chapter is a reminder that I might be missing something when I’m in a what-good-is-the-OT-? frame of mind.

Note: quotes from Nehemiah 8:1 through 9 (NASB version)

Week 21 Nehemiah

The OT doesn’t hesitate to show the flaws of its high-profile people. But there aren’t any skeletons in Nehemiah’s closet.
Like Joseph, Ruth, and Daniel, Nehemiah comes through with a pristine record. One of those character guys who – without even trying – makes me feel a bit inadequate.
Nehemiah wasn’t only a good guy. He was super-competent.
He already had his career-job as cup-bearer-to-Persian-royalty. The king knew him, respected him, was interested in him, and talked with him like a guy, not a serf. So Nehemiah was able to negotiate a leave-of-absence to go to Jerusalem: the city of my fathers’ tombs, that I may rebuild it. He even got state financial backing.
What he did during his Jerusalem leave was impressive:
     he spearheaded the wall-rebuilding project
     faced-down a cartel of strong opponents
     organized a civilian militia
     corrected economic inequities and class conflicts in the city
     manoeuvred around innuendo, false prophets, and mud-slinging
     registered the citizens
     organized mass religious gatherings for teaching and worship
     addressed religious and social abuses
And those weren’t even his real jobs.
He was smart, organized, efficient, a good motivator and project manager, determined, focused, almost devoid of self-interest, deeply committed to the resuscitation of Israel, and heavily dependent on the Lord.
Nehemiah had asked Artaxerxes for a time-out to travel to Jerusalem. By the time he went back to work in Susa he had helped reset priorities in Jerusalem in a big way.

Note: quote from Nehemiah 2:5 (NASB version)

Week 20 Nehemiah

The backstory is that in February I was falling behind in my reading. One fix was to add a psalm to my daily plan. So I’ve been reading the psalms.
Now today while I’m reading Nehemiah’s prayer I notice this: O Lord, please hear my prayer! Listen to the prayers of those of us who delight in honoring you.
This sounds just like psalms I’ve been reading:
     hear-the-voice-of-my-supplications
     hear-my-prayer-O-Lord
     hear-my-cry
     hear-my-voice
Something I notice is that the prayer has a kind of pre-prayer request: please hear this prayer.
It got me thinking about a couple of things:
a) it seems like some people praying in the bible didn’t always instantaneously get what they asked for, and
b) the response-lag was understood as inattentiveness or deafness on the Lord’s part, so
c) that made it necessary to add a please-hear-me reminder to the Lord.
Personally, even though I understand that sentiment I’m pretty sure the Lord hears well enough. I think he has the capacity to manage very large volumes of audio signals simultaneously and to process them at a very high rate of speed.
So I suspect that a please-listen-to-me appeal to him is more a signal of my own anxieties over not getting the reply that I want, or not getting it when I want it.
Do I need to tell the Lord to listen-up? I doubt it.
But he seems to put up with it.

Notes: quote from Nehemiah 1:11 (NLT version); and Psalms 28:2, 39:12, 61:1, 64:1 (NASB version).

Week 20 Ezra

While I’m reading through an easy tendency is to read the text as a bunch of stand-alone stories – like biblical free-radicals just floating around unattached to anything.
It’s easy to forget that events happen inside the envelope of the material world.
Ezra reminds me about this when he starts naming known historical world rulers. He uses three Persian kings – Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes – to date events.
Which means I’ll have to step outside the bible to find out when things happened. So I do that:
Cyrus (559-530 BC)
Darius (522-486 BC)
Artaxerxes (465-424 BC)
This is useful info because Ezra says: in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia…he sent a proclamation. Ezra doesn’t say Cyrus’ public announcement happened in 559 BC. I have to figure that out for myself.
Ezra says that opposition to the temple-project lasted: even until the reign of Darius king of Persia. So…that’s in the long period of 522-486 BC – which is a bit better than nothing.
Later Ezra says that more exiles left for Jerusalem: in the reign of Artaxerxes. But then a couple of verses later he adds that they left: in the seventh year of King Artaxerxes, which is more helpful. So that looks like about 459 BC.
Mostly I don’t have enough time to go outside. But when I do it can be a help.

Notes: quotes are from Ezra 1:1, 4:5, 7:1 & 7:7 (NASB version). Disclosure: some dates are a bit uncertain; others are not disputed. So that’s part of the mix.

Week 20 Ezra

I don’t know how many verses of name-lists there are in the OT.
And I don’t know how many bible-readers wish there were more.
What I’m pretty sure about is how many of us read the lists carefully (it’s some number close to zero).
But in Ezra 2 there’s a story of a small group of people who were keenly, personally interested in combing through the lists.
The exiles-from-Babylon had returned to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple. Temple-related workers were in demand, and priests were a big part of that mix. Some people claimed that they were priests, claimed they were born in the bloodline of Levi. Because lineage wasn’t on an honour-system these people had to prove their claim. If they had been Albertans they would have gone to the Office of Vital Statistics, but since they weren’t they went to the genealogical name-lists. Unfortunately for them, they: were not able to give evidence of their father’s households, and their descendants, whether they were of Israel…These (people) searched among their ancestral registration, but they could not be located.
They couldn’t be documented, so they couldn’t be priests.
Which meant they had to find other employment.
This story’s a good reminder to me that there are different kinds of materials in the bible, and they have different purposes. Which means I need to ask: if they’re not there just to entertain me, why are they?

Notes: the story is in Ezra 2:59-63; the quote is from Ezra 2:59, 62 (NASB version)

Week 20  Ezra

There are about 280 verses in Ezra (the book). Ezra (the person) doesn’t appear until the 158th – about 56% of the way through.
That’s because a bunch of stuff happens between Cyrus’ original temple-rebuilding-project in chapters one-to-six, and Ezra suddenly appearing in chapter seven.
I read the first six chapters at one time since they’re really their own separate story. Which is this: the Babylonian exiles went back to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple, and what happened was: the project started well, stalled for a bit, then was completed. That’s the condensed version. It turns out that Ezra 1-6 is really the story of a guy named Zerubbabel – not Ezra.
I think the tricky thing is getting lulled to sleep between 6:22 and 7:1. I’m reading along supposing that 6:22 happened and then, maybe the next day, 7:1 happened. That’s completely not the case. 7:1 starts with the phrase: now after these things, in the reign of Artaxerxes king of Persia… That innocent comment – after these things – doesn’t mean the next day. It’s more like six decades later. Ezra didn’t need to go to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple. It was already built. Ezra’s story is a brand new independent chapter in the story.

Note: personally I kind of like the idea of splitting Ezra into two separate books: Zerubbabel (Ezra 1-6), and Ezra (Ezra 7-10). That won’t happen any time soon so I won’t hold my breath waiting. I’ll just have to stay vigilant and avoid goofy assumptions.

Week 20  Ezra

The last two verses of II Chronicles say:
Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia – in order to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah – the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he sent a proclamation throughout his kingdom, and also put in writing, saying, thus says Cyrus king of Persia, the Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and He has appointed me to build Him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah…

An inch below that on the same page the first two verses of Ezra say:
Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he sent a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and also put it in writing, saying, thus says Cyrus king of Persia, the Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and He has appointed me to build Him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah…

Babylon totally obliterated Jerusalem.
Jerusalem had been a ghost-town for seventy years.
During that time Persia had obliterated Babylon.
Then Cyrus the Persian got this idea.
And so Ezra picks up exactly where Chronicles ends.

Note: quotes from II Chronicles 36:22-3 and Ezra 1:1-2 (NASB version)

Week 19  II Chronicles

I mark my weekly reading schedule in black marker on a desk calendar.
On May 1 I wrote: Week 19 II Chron.
Then for weeks 20 & 21 I brace-bracketed: Ezra Neh Esth.
One book in one week; three books in two. A rough calculation. 
Today I found out how rough. II Chronicles is 50-pages long, and Ezra-Nehemiah-Esther only 48. 50-pages in one week. 48 in two. So I made a mistake.
Anyway – now that I’ve prematurely finished II Chronicles – I look back at three last things…
First: I like Chronicles more than Kings because the chronicler focuses on Judah. Kings is a kind of unhinged hop-scotch ricocheting from North-to-South, so it’s a tougher-read.
Secondly: on May 3 I wondered about the chronicler’s positive story of David & Solomon, and made a mental note to see if all the kings of Judah got star treatment. Turns out they don’t. Asa, Jehoshaphat, Jehoram, Joash, Amaziah, Uzziah, Ahaz – all of them failed in big or small ways. So it looks to me like only David & Solomon were treated as exemplary kings.
Thirdly, even though civil war had split the tribes ten-to-two the chronicler shows that some Northerners stayed true to the original faith. On May 5 I noticed the chronicler’s interest in the faithful-north. Another example from later in the book is Hezekiah sending couriers north to invite Israel to a big Passover in Jerusalem. So political borders and tribal loyalties were very important, and faith was too.

Note: the Hezekiah story is in II Chronicles 30.

Week 19 II Chronicles

I’m reading through and along the way I’m making something like non-definitive judgment calls. Assessing. It’s pretty hard not to.
For example, when the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed I wondered: was that really necessary?
Same kind of thing is happening now while I’m reading about king Manasseh. I’m reading the text and I’m wondering.
Manasseh was a terrible king. 200-proof in the deliberately-bad class. He devoted himself enthusiastically to a) turning his back on the Lord, and b) hugging the gods of Assyria.
[I don’t have time for a Worst Kings of Judah list so this is a pure guess, but I figure Manasseh is top-three.]
Late in his life Manasseh was defeated by the Assyrians and deported in chains with a hook (or maybe thong) through his nose. But then here’s what happened: while in deep distress, Manasseh sought the Lord his God and cried out to the God of his ancestors. And when he prayed, the Lord listened to him and was moved by his request for help.
This doesn’t seem right to me. Personally.
Personally I think when the Lord forgave Manasseh, Manasseh got what he didn’t deserve.
I remind myself that while I’m reading through I’ll find places where I’m perplexed by the Lord’s actions, and so then I’m pretty much forced to think about my reaction to them.

Note: Sodom and Gomorrah is in Genesis 18-19; quote is from II Chronicles 33:12-13 (NLT version)

Week 19 Psalm 66

Sixty-six is an I-was-in-trouble-and-the-Lord-helped-me psalm.
The writer prayed to the Lord in his time of distress. He promised a desperation promise. Now the trouble is past and he isn’t feeling as panicked. But I’m still going to the temple he says: to fulfil the vows I made to you – yes, the sacred vows you heard me make when I was in deep trouble. A deep-trouble vow.
I remember a very short fiction story about a world-war one soldier who was under fire and was praying a desperation prayer:
While the bombardment was knocking the trench to pieces at Fossalta, he lay very flat and sweated and prayed oh jesus christ get me out of here. Dear jesus please get me out. Christ please please please christ. If you’ll only keep me from getting killed I’ll do anything you say. I believe in you and I’ll tell everyone in the world that you are the only one that matters. Please please dear jesus.
The shelling moved further up the line. We went to work on the trench and in the morning the sun came up and the day was hot and muggy and cheerful and quiet.
The next night back at Mestre he did not tell the girl he went upstairs with at the Villa Rosa about Jesus. And he never told anybody.

Notes: Quotes from Psalm 66:13-14 (NLT version); and “Chapter VII” in Ernest Hemingway The Complete Short Stories (NY: Scribner’s, 1987) 109 (paragraph breaks added).