Medicine Hat Joe

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).

Week 19 II Chronicles

I looked at a bible map. It was a nice, tidy map showing the northern kingdom coloured baby-blue and the south imperial-red. The two colours seemed about equal in size, which is deceptive because there wasn’t a 50:50 division by tribes. Israel-North had: Dan, Ephraim, Manasseh, Issachar, Zebulun, Asher, Naphtali, Gad, Reuben, and some of Simeon. The south had Judah and Benjamin. A 10:2 split.
The armies weren’t equal either. The numbers show a 2:1 advantage for the north.
So the north was no weakling.
But the bible isn’t that concerned about material advantage. And after chapter ten its interest is: what’s happening to the life-of-faith-and-belief now?
It’s a timely question because Jeroboam decided to set up a new religion in the north. New religious centres, shiny new idols, new practices, a new religious calendar. Some of Moses’ ideas were thrown in to flavour the stew, but there were enough novelties that northerners had a decision to make: do-I-stay-or-go?
Quite a few northern Levites decided to emigrate, and the chronicler says that when priests started leaving: those from all the tribes of Israel who set their hearts on seeking the Lord God of Israel, followed them to Jerusalem. Which means that when members of the ten renegade tribes filtered south they were actually re-constituting Jerusalem as a kind of unofficially reunited-kingdom, but based on faith. So… still red, but tinged with ten shades of blue.

Notes: quote from II Chronicles 11:16; see also 15:9 (NASB version). See military census in 13:3.

Week 19 II Chronicles

Solomon was a smart, dynamic, ambitious and determined autocrat. So he had enemies.
As soon as he died a delegation of non-Judah-tribes wanted to renegotiate the oppressive labour policy. 
King Rehoboam had two advisory groups to help him decide. One advised that he lighten the load. The other said: work ’em harder. Crazily, Rehoboam chose suggestion #2.
What was he thinking? As the head of state he could have just publicly agreed with popular opinion, and then disregarded it.
Anyway, the interesting twist and explanation the chronicler adds is that Rehoboam’s decision: was a turn of events from the Lord.
A bible reader’s advantage is getting reminded that there’s not just one input. Rehoboam is making his own independent decision about state policy. And the Lord is directing the affairs of Israel. The Lord’s action is not unilateral because both he and the king are making decisions and taking action. It’s a bilateral process.
If Rehoboam had been conciliatory and chosen suggestion #1 it would have changed things quite a bit because then his decision is a different decision with different effects. I’m guessing that he’d still end up with only half a kingdom, and Jeroboam would win his rebellion and get the lion’s share. But all that comes at the end of a different set of events.
It’d be easier to understand outcomes if the Lord simply acted dictatorially. It complicates things that he doesn’t.

Note: quote from II Chronicles 10:15 (NASB version)

Week 19 II Chronicles

A couple of days ago I said I wanted to see how Solomon’s story ended.
The reason was because The David Story in I Chronicles had some pretty obvious, I would say glaringly obvious omissions that made the story a sunny one.
Today I see the chronicler doing the same thing with Solomon. The dark and gloomy I Kings ending of The Solomon Story is collapsed into three informational verses: Solomon was king for forty years; he died; and – if you want more info – go and read Nathan, Ahijah, or Iddo. Nothing about the Solomon who turned his back on the Lord.
There’s two things I plan to do this week:
First, I’m going to see how the chronicler deals with the other kings of Judah. Will he highlight them, too?
My second goal is to answer a question (it’s a bit complicated so I doubt I’ll figure it out): why did the chronicler omit this material? What was he doing? Why the exclusions?
Afterthought: As I finish reading I realize I’m more bothered by what the writer didn’t say than what he did so I ask myself: what do chapters one-to-nine actually say about Solomon? One thing I see: at least 135 verses out of 201 are about the temple – prepping, building, dedicating. So, 67% of the chronicler’s Life of Solomon is about the temple. That’s surprising enough to keep in mind.

Note: see the contrasting accounts of Solomon’s end-of-life in II Chronicles 9:29-31 and I Kings 11.

Week 18 II Chronicles

Earlier this week I didn’t need to have ears like a bat to detect an echo when I started reading the stories of David in I Chronicles because I remembered most of them from II Samuel.
Of course, there’s also a bunch of stuff missing. The chronicler says nothing about Goliath, Jonathan, Abigail, David’s escape from Saul, Bathsheba, Uriah, the Absalom rebellion. But he’s interested in David the King, and he ends up painting a pretty complimentary picture of a pretty ideal king.
I’m a modern-day Albertan so my first thought is cover-up – the chronicler’s tying-off loose ends. But even though that’s a kind of appealing default I have doubts about it right away. For a couple of reasons. First, my guess is that those downside stories were pretty well-known events – I’d be surprised if people in the ancient near east didn’t have an ear for scandal. The other thing I noticed is that the chronicler actually tells readers to check other accounts of the events: now the acts of King David, from first to last, are written in the chronicles of Samuel the seer, in the chronicles of Nathan the seer, and in the chronicles of Gad the seer.
Anyway, the reason I’m mentioning this now is that I’m seeing the same pattern in Solomon’s story in II Chronicles – repetition and, so far, the sound of lots of clapping. So I’ll wait & see how Solomon’s story ends.

Note: quote is from I Chronicles 29:29 (NASB version).

April 30, 2020

2020 is now one-third finished so I know I should’ve read 33.33333% of the bible by today (in my bible one-third is 571 pages).
I add up the numbers for Genesis – I Chronicles + Proverbs + Song of Solomon + the Psalms that I’ve read so far. 726 pages. I run that number and see that 726 pages is 41.96% of the bible. So that’s a relief.
There were a couple of things in play for me this month. For one, I decided on March 31 to try reading one book per calendar week so that forced me over the 100 chapters / month mark. Being quarantined might have helped a bit, too.
I’m looking ahead now, doing a quick count. The II-Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah-Esther-Job block is 111 chapters. Close enough to 100 chapters for the month. I think I’ll aim for that.

Note: in my April 27 post I wondered why two tribes – Levi and Judah – dominated the tribal verse-count in I Chronicles 1-9. The inequity was pretty surprising and I wondered: is the chronicler intentionally highlighting the David-Judah-kingly tribe and the Levi-priestly-religious line? And I wondered: what will the rest of the book show? What I found was that the last nineteen chapters of the book are the life of David, and sandwiched into that section dagwood-style there are about eleven chapters on the ark, the temple, and the work of the Levites. So…the mhj Unscientific Conclusion is: the chronicler was interested most of all in Judah and Levi.