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Hello, my “Walking with Jesus” friends,
Have you ever been traveling when suddenly an ominous sign appears in the road ahead of you: DETOUR!? Sometimes that sign is followed by another sign of explanation such as a bridge is out, or the road is blocked. Other times there’s no explanation and you have no options. If you’re going to continue your journey you must follow the detour signs and then you are off the map, at the mercy of those planting the detour signs to guide you.
Today in our journey of following the remarkable story of the return of 50,000 Jewish exiles from Babylon to Jerusalem and their initial hard work of clearing away rubble and beginning to rebuild their city and more importantly the Temple of God in Jerusalem, we hit a “detour” sign in the road, can you believe that? A ‘detour’ in the Bible?! Yes!
This is one of the reasons I so much enjoy preparing “Walking with Jesus” for us each day, my friends. If we didn’t know any better, we’d simply keep reading in Ezra 4 where I left you yesterday and we’d blow right by the invisible detour sign. Ezra, the author of this book, was a priest, a scholar and a scribe. He wrote this book, of course, led by the Holy Spirit as all Biblical authors did, but also as he gathered historical records and interviewed people who had been part of this remarkable era of Israel’s history.
Ezra himself came to be part of this prolonged rebuild of Jerusalem, but not until the time of King Artaxerxes, as he reports in Ezra 7:1!! That would have been about 458bc, 80 years after the first wave of those 50,000 Jewish exiles came to Jerusalem! Now let’s dig in to understand this and the detour sign ahead, are you ready?
We ended yesterday looking at this powerful and discouraging statement: “Then the peoples around them set out to discourage the people of Judah and make them afraid to go on building. They bribed officials to work against them and frustrate their plans during the entire reign of King Cyrus and down to the reign of Darius king of Persia.” (Ezra 4:4,5)
Now watch this carefully, my friends: It was in 538bc that Persian King Cyrus issued the miraculous decree giving freedom, to all Jewish captives in exile, to return and rebuild Jerusalem. (Ezra 1:1-4) The returned 50,000 Jewish exiles began work on the Temple two years later, 536bc. (Ezra 3:8) The opposition described in Ezra 4:1-5 began almost immediately. Those Gentiles and Samaritans who had been living in the region had no desire to see the Jews return or Jerusalem rebuilt, at least not as a Jewish city!
The reign of King Cyrus ended in 530bc. Cambyses II followed Cyrus as King over the entire Persian kingdom until King Darius I assumed the throne in 521bc.
Thus, there was 15 years of opposition and very, very slow progress on their mission of rebuilding the Temple. In fact please note Ezra 4:24 says “The work on the house of God in Jerusalem came to a standstill until the second year of the reign of Darius king of Persia.” That means the opposition grew so fierce that Temple construction became too dangerous and actually came to a halt. Weeds grew and the Temple mount sat idle for several years!
Have you ever experienced a season in your life when you felt as though everything in your life was put on hold, nothing was moving forward? Was it financial trouble or health collapse or broken relationships? Maybe it was something entirely out of your control like an economic recession in your country or a military coup which overthrew the government or the death of key people in your life or your project?
Let’s continue looking into the Ezra story today to see what God did during this time when forward progress on the Temple had stopped.
I left you yesterday in Ezra 4:5 and King Darius. Please take special note of this: The very next verse, Ezra 4:6 refers to the reign of King Xerxes, but Xerxes did not become king till 486bc!? That’s 40 years after those returned Jewish exiles began work on the Temple. This Xerxes was the king who went on a search for a new queen and by a miracle of God ESTHER became queen of the Persian kingdom, remember that great story? We’ll look at that story in a few days.
But look at the next verse, Ezra 4:7, which speaks of the days of King Artaxerxes. This was the king who FOLLOWED King Xerxes on the royal throne 20 years later in 465bc!!! Nehemiah was cupbearer to this King Artaxerxes and perhaps you remember it was Nehemiah, sent by this King, who led the miraculous 52 day rebuild of the great wall around the city of Jerusalem. (Nehemiah 3) We’ll also look at that story later in our journey.
But now my friends, do you see why I’m urging us to put a DETOUR sign between Ezra 4:5&6? In fact, Ezra 4:6-23 describes decades of ongoing opposition, from the people who lived in the region, to the Jewish attempts to rebuild Jerusalem, the Temple, the city wall and re-establish Jerusalem as a prominent Jewish city of God in that region! And those specific oppositions in Ezra 4:6-23, which name both King Xerxes and King Artaxerxes, were very significant but occurred AFTER the work on the Temple itself had been completed. Why the timeline detour?
The author Ezra seems to focus here on helping us see the larger scope of year after year, decade after decade opposition of the people who had been living in the region around those Jerusalem ruins for decades even before the destruction of Jerusalem in 586bc!
In fact, may I urge you to see that the CURRENT conflicting claims of rightful ownership of the land of Israel specifically in the West Bank and Gaza and even some parts of the city of Jerusalem, is a continuation, 2500 years later, of the very struggles we see here in Ezra 4!!
So, here’s how I’d like to suggest our journey navigate through this detour in Ezra 4. Let’s continue chronologically and in so doing we can follow the story as if we were walking the journey with these returned exiles. Therefore, let’s detour from Ezra 4:5 to Ezra 4:24, skipping over Ezra 4:6-23 for now, and continue into Ezra 5. We’ll come back and deal with Ezra 4:6-23 at the appropriate time in the timeline, I promise.
So please see the ‘detour’ of Ezra 4:5 with Ezra 4:23 like this “They bribed officials to work against them and frustrate their plans during the entire reign of Cyrus king of Persia down to the reign of Darius king of Persia…Thus the work on the house of God in Jerusalem came to a standstill until the second year of the reign of Darius king of Persia.”
In closing today, look at what God did in response to this opposition which finally halted work on the Temple. You’ll find it in the very next verse: “Now Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the prophet…prophesied to the Jews in Judah and Jerusalem in the name of the God of Israel, who was over them. Then Zerubbabel and Joshua set to work to rebuild the house of God in Jerusalem! And the prophets of God were with them, supporting them!” (Ezra 5:1,2) Oh my that’s exciting, isn’t it?
God raised up two prophets who not only spoke God’s messages of encouragement, but they even put their hands to the work right alongside these discouraged, returned Jewish exiles! And after almost 20 years, the dirt started flying again on the Temple mount as work resumed. Join me tomorrow and we’ll see what happened.
For today, here’s a great worship song and thank God with me that He does NOT ignore His people when we find ourselves facing great opposition or we hit a detour in the road, or we find ourselves stalled in our forward progress. Oh my, you’re going to love this song, and I think you’ll sing along with it my friends, and I’ll see you back here tomorrow….
Today’s Scripture: Ezra 4:4,5,24; 5:1,2.
Choose below to read or listen.
Ezra 4:4,5, 4:24; 5:1-2 Ezra 4
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Ezra 5
Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.
Pastor Doug Anderson
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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