Today in our journey along Route 66 we are paying a visit to the book of Ezra...
Author
Although the caption to Nehemiah 1:1 indicates that Ezra and Nehemiah were originally two separate compositions, they were combined as one in the earliest Hebrew manuscripts and in the Septuagint. Josephus (AD 37-100) and the Jewish Talmud do not refer to a separate book of Nehemiah. Origen (AD 185-253) is the first writer known to distinguish between the two books. Jerome (AD 390), Wycliffe (AD 1382) and Coverdale (AD 1535) all followed this precedent set by Origen.
Certain materials in the book of Ezra appear to be first-person extracts from his memoirs. Other sections are written in the third person. Linguistic analysis shows that these different extracts resemble each other, making it likely that the same author wrote both.
In the past, some scholars believed that the author/compiler of Ezra and Nehemiah was also the author of Chronicles, based on characteristics common to all these works. The verses at the end of Chronicles and the beginning of Ezra are virtually identical. Both books exhibit a fondness for lists, for the description of religious festivals and for such phrases as “heads of families” and “the house of God”. The Levites are prominent in these books. The words for “singer, “gatekeeper,” and “temple servants” are used almost exclusively in these books.
My former professor, Richard Elliott Friedman, believes that Ezra was the man who brought the sources of J, E, P, and D together to make the five books of the Torah as we know them today.
Date
The traditional view is that the book of Ezra was written sometime in the fifth century BC by Ezra himself. Modern scholars often date the book later, to the fourth century.
Themes
Ezra was a priest, scribe, and leader. His name means help and his whole life was dedicated to serving God and God’s people.
The narrative of the book of Ezra centers around God and God’s promise that the Jews would return out of exile to their land, as promised by Jeremiah. This message forms the core of the book of Ezra.
The last half of the book gives a personal glimpse of the life of Ezra himself. Artaxerxes appointed Ezra to lead the second emigration to Jerusalem, to teach the people the Scriptures and to act as administrator over the national life of Judah.
Zerubbabel, the leader of the first emigration, was joined by many more Jewish pilgrims. After arriving, they began to build the altar and the temple foundations. Opposition arose from the local inhabitants, and this temporarily halted the project. During this time the prophets, Haggai and Zechariah, encouraged the people. Finally, the Persian emperor Darius decreed that the work should proceed unhindered.
After a 58-year gap, Ezra led a group of Jews from Persia back to the Promised Land. Armed with decrees and authority from Artaxerxes I, Ezra’s task was to administer the affairs of the land.
Structure
- First Return from Exile and Rebuilding of the Temple (chapters 1-6)
- Ezra’s Return and Reforms (chapters 7-10)
Key Concept—The Hand of the Lord
For the rest of our time together, I would like to focus on these words from Ezra 7…
After these things, during the reign of Artaxerxes king of Persia, Ezra son of Seraiah, the son of Azariah, the son of Hilkiah, the son of Shallum, the son of Zadok, the son of Ahitub, the son of Amariah, the son of Azariah, the son of Meraioth, the son of Zerahiah, the son of Uzzi, the son of Bukki, the son of Abishua, the son of Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the chief priest— this Ezra came up from Babylon. He was a teacher well versed in the Law of Moses, which the Lord, the God of Israel, had given. The king had granted him everything he asked, for the hand of the Lord his God was on him. Some of the Israelites, including priests, Levites, musicians, gatekeepers and temple servants, also came up to Jerusalem in the seventh year of King Artaxerxes.
Ezra arrived in Jerusalem in the fifth month of the seventh year of the king. He had begun his journey from Babylon on the first day of the first month, and he arrived in Jerusalem on the first day of the fifth month, for the gracious hand of his God was on him. For Ezra had devoted himself to the study and observance of the Law of the Lord, and to teaching its decrees and laws in Israel.
Descendant of Aaron
I would like to note three characteristics of the man Ezra… First, Ezra was a descendant of the high priest Aaron. I love the way the author or editor of this book says: “this Ezra”. One gets the sense that this guy was a big shot. Here is what Richard Elliott Friedman has to say about him…
In the entire Bible, two men are known as lawgivers: Moses and Ezra. Ezra came from Babylon to Judah eighty years after the first group of exiles returned, in 458 B.C. He was a priest and a scribe. The biblical record states explicitly that he was an Aaronid priest. It also indicates that he was no ordinary scribe. His writing skills were associated with one document in particular: “the torah of Moses.”
Ezra arrived in Jerusalem with two important documents in his hand. One was this “torah of Moses,” and the other was a letter from the Persian emperor, Artaxerxes, giving him authority in Judah. The emperor’s authorization empowered Ezra to teach and to enforce “the law of your God which is in your hand.” The enforcement powers included fines, imprisonment, and the death penalty.
What was this “torah of Moses,” this “law of your God which is in your hand”? References to it in the biblical books of Ezra and Nehemiah include material from JE, D, and P. It is therefore likely that the book that Ezra brought from Babylon to Judah was the full Torah—the Five Books of Moses—as we know it.
Ezra’s political authority was somehow shared with a governor, Nehemiah, who also was appointed by the emperor. With the backing of the emperor, who was perhaps the most powerful man in the world, Ezra and Nehemiah wielded considerable authority. They rebuilt the city walls of Jerusalem that the Babylonians had torn down. They enforced the observance of the Sabbath. They forced intermarriages between Jews and others to be dissolved. In the absence of any Judean kings, these two men were the leaders of the people. Judah was not an independent country. It was now a province of the Persian empire. And Ezra and Nehemiah were the emperor’s designated authorities.
So, Ezra was a descendant of Aaron, and he was a very powerful authority in post-exilic Jerusalem.
Determined to Return
A second thing we see about Ezra is that he was determined to return to Jerusalem. We read that Ezra “had begun his journey from Babylon on the first day of the first month, and he arrived in Jerusalem on the first day of the fifth month…” That means it took him four months to make the journey. Imagine that!
The ceremonial capitol of Artaxerxes’ empire was Persepolis in the region which is now modern-day Iran. The distance from there to Jerusalem is 2100 kilometers. Google Maps tells me the same journey today would take 24 hours by car. Today, on our modern roads, it would take 18 days walking. But I don’t know if anyone has walked this route in modern times, purposely trying to go from the location of ancient Persepolis to Jerusalem.
The bottom line is that it took Ezra a long time to make this journey. I am sure it was not easy. He had to cross the desert, either on foot, or by camel, or in some sort of ancient caravan. I don’t know. It’s not a journey I would want to make today, even with all our modern conveniences of transportation. But Ezra made it without any of those conveniences some 2500 years ago. That took determination. That took grit. And it also took grace.
The author of the book of Ezra tells us that Ezra was able to make this difficult journey “for the gracious hand of his God was on him.” I think we can say that who Ezra was and all that he accomplished was made possible because “the gracious hand of his God was on him.”
The same is true for us. Everything we are and everything good we are able to accomplish in this life is because of the gracious hand of God upon us. As someone once said, “Who you are is God’s gift to you. Who you become is your gift to God and to the world.”
Devoted to Study, Observance & Teaching
Finally, the third thing I see about Ezra is that he was devoted. The book of Ezra says that the man Ezra was devoted to three things:
- The study of the Law of the Lord.
- The observance of the Law and
- Teaching its decrees and laws in Israel.
A more literal translation of Ezra 7:10 would go like this: “For Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the Law of Yahweh and to do it and to teach in Israel the statutes and ordinances.”
That preparing of the heart to seek God is the all-essential component of a godly life. What prepares our heart to seek God? Worship does. It conditions us.
I remember when Becky and I used to attend a Pentecostal church in Southern California many years ago. They met in a former bowling alley. The worship team would spend an hour practicing before worship. They were revved up from the beginning. And then there were these tambourine ladies in the congregation. If the worship team didn’t get people revved up, then the tambourine ladies would. But even at that I remember it would always take me twenty minutes or so just to get warmed up. I feel the same way about preaching. It takes time to get warmed up. Perhaps that’s why my sermons are so long. But my point is that regular worship is one of those things that prepares our hearts to seek the Lord. I imagine that this whole life, our whole life of worship, is but a preparation for the day when we meet the Lord face to face. Will our hearts be prepared?
Swiss psychologist, Paul Tournier, once said, “Most people spend their entire lives indefinitely preparing to live.” In a sense, we don’t want to do that, do we? We all, I think, what to begin living now. We want to discover the fullness of life possible in Christ, right now. It is good to prepare our hearts for eternity, for the day we will meet Christ face to face. But we don’t have to wait until heaven to begin really living.
Ezra did not indefinitely prepare to live. He did it. He seized the day. And the book of Ezra tells us about three specific things he did that enabled him to really live life in its fulness in the here and now.
So, let us look at each of the three things that Ezra devoted himself to. One of them was teaching. I know that we are not all teachers. But we can all, by the grace of God, devote ourselves to the study of Scripture and to the observance of it.
The book of James in the New Testament says…
Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do. (James 1:22-25)
Ezra was a man like that. He diligently studied the law of the Lord, and he sought to obey that law in his everyday life.
I am sure that Ezra was not perfect at it. After all, there is only one person who ever perfectly kept the law and that is Jesus. He fulfilled the law for us, and then he died on the cross in the place of lawbreakers like you and me. Those two facts mean that if we come to Jesus in faith, we can give him all our sin, and he is able to cleanse and forgive us. And he is able to give us his perfect righteousness.
And then a third thing that Ezra devoted himself to doing was teaching the law to others. Nehemiah 8 shows us an example of Ezra doing just that. Ezra became a model for the later Rabbis. And his practice of teaching the people also set the model for the synagogue movement that developed during the period of the Second Temple and continued after the destruction of the Second Temple. Even the fact that Ezra stood on a high wooden platform, even that became a model for future generations. Down to this day, rabbis and pastors stand on a platform or in a pulpit raised above the people. That calls our attention, not to the exalted nature of the preacher or teacher, but to the exalted nature of the Scriptures that are preached and taught.
Paul wrote to his disciple, Timothy, “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.” (2 Timothy 2:15) Paul also gave this charge to Timothy,
In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry. (2 Timothy 4:1-5)
I have sought to obey both of those Scriptures throughout my ministry. I am sure that I have done it imperfectly. But that is why I am so grateful for the grace of God and your prayers.
Please pray for me that the gracious hand of the Lord would be upon me, and I will pray the same for you and for our church.
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