Week 22 Ezra 1-6
The first six chapters of Ezra – apart from the list in chapter two – is a pretty interesting story. The seventy-year captivity in Babylon is finished. Cyrus of Persia frees-up captive Israel. And a smallish group of Jews in Babylon decide to return to Israel.
The impetus for this release from captivity is spelled out at the start: the Lord fulfilled Jeremiah’s prophecy by stirring up the heart of Cyrus to let
the people of Israel return to the land. The Lord also stirred the hearts of the…tribes of Judah and Benjamin to return to Jerusalem. The Lord prompted the Releaser and the Releasees.
But after the Lord’s initial prompt the story is mostly about what people did. It’s about Jeshua & Zerubbabel & the temple-building project & Rehum and Shimshai (two opponents) & Tattenai and Shetharbozenai (two more adversaries) & the letters going back-and-forth from Israel to Babylon & bureaucratic tie-ups. Ezra 1-6 is mostly about people.
But not totally. Toward the end of the story the writer added that things moved forward as they did because their God was watching over Israel.
It’s a subtle reminder. 99% of the section is people doing the things they’re doing. Meanwhile God was watching over them.
It’d be easy to think that in Ezra 1-6 the Lord was just lying in the weeds. But I get this reminder that no matter how low a profile he keeps it’d be a mistake to say he’s not engaged.
Note: quotes from Ezra 1:1 5 5:5 (NLT)