The Book of Ezra: You Can Go Home Again

The end of the book of  II Chronicles and the beginning of the book of Ezra are exactly the same. After the God's people had been taken into captivity by the Babylonians and held for seventy years, Babylon was overtaken by the Persians. The Persian king, Cyrus, decided that He wanted to build a house for God in Jerusalem. How this king came to even believe in the God of the Israelites is somewhat of a mystery. But God can use even a non-believer to bless His people. When King Nebuchanezzar of Babylon had enslaved God's people, he also took all the gold and silver vessels from Jerusalem. When King Cyrus sent the people of Judah back home to rebuild the Temple, he also sent back the riches that had been previously stolen. In other words, he said, "Here's your freedom and here's your riches."

No sooner had the people received this great favor, along came the "haters" to frustrate their plans. After King Cyrus was gone, the haters wrote a letter to the new king Artaxerxes saying, "stop these people from rebuilding Jerusalem, they will rebel and you, oh king, won't get your proper tax dollars." The king followed their advice and decreed that the work be stopped. However, when the work is God's work, it cannot be stopped. The prophets Haggai and Zechariah prophesied to the people and the people resumed their building. The govenor of the province asked the people why they were still building. In their answer they chronicled how the Temple had been built generations ago by the great king Solomon, and how because of disobedience the people were taken into captivity and the Temple was destroyed. However, in the first year of the reign of Cyrus, a decree was made that the Temple be rebuilt, and this decree was in the royal archives. A search was made and the decree was found and Artaxerxes allowed the people to finish building.

The scribe named Ezra isn't mentioned until Chapter 7. Ezra was sent by King Artaxerxes with an official letter and money to buy the bulls, lambs, rams, and grains for the sacrificial worship. Ezra didn't just depend on the king's permission and the king's contributions for the journey and for the contributions for the items to be used in worship, Ezra depended on The King, our Father in heaven. Ezra counted the families making the trip with him and noticed that there weren't any Levites present. He hastily recruited Levites, knowing that only Levites could serve God as priests. In chapter 8 he proclaimed a fast "that we might humble ourselves before our God, to seek from Him a safe journey for ourselves, our children, and all our goods."

In chapter 9 Ezra realized that many of the officials had married foreign women.Thank God that now we are all God's people, because we believe in Jesus Christ, his death and resurrection, and we have His Spirit in our hearts, so there are no "foreigners" in God's kingdom. This was not the case before the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus. Ezra was a strict follower of God's law and this intermarriage between the Jews and the pagan nations bothered him tremendously. Ezra again fasted and then prayed. His prayer is outlined in verses 6 through 15.


" ⁶ And I said: “O my God, I am too ashamed and humiliated to lift up my face to You, my God; for our iniquities have risen higher than our heads, and our guilt has grown up to the heavens. ⁷ Since the days of our fathers to this day we have been very guilty, and for our iniquities we, our kings, and our priests have been delivered into the hand of the kings of the lands, to the sword, to captivity, to plunder, and to humiliation, as it is this day. ⁸ And now for a little while grace has been shown from the Lord our God, to leave us a remnant to escape, and to give us a peg in His holy place, that our God may enlighten our eyes and give us a measure of revival in our bondage. ⁹ For we were slaves. Yet our God did not forsake us in our bondage; but He extended mercy to us in the sight of the kings of Persia, to revive us, to repair the house of our God, to rebuild its ruins, and to give us a wall in Judah and Jerusalem. ¹⁰ And now, O our God, what shall we say after this? For we have forsaken Your commandments, ¹¹ which You commanded by Your servants the prophets, saying, ‘The land which you are entering to possess is an unclean land, with the uncleanness of the peoples of the lands, with their abominations which have filled it from one end to another with their impurity. ¹² Now therefore, do not give your daughters as wives for their sons, nor take their daughters to your sons; and never seek their peace or prosperity, that you may be strong and eat the good of the land, and leave it as an inheritance to your children forever.’ ¹³ And after all that has come upon us for our evil deeds and for our great guilt, since You our God have punished us less than our iniquities deserve, and have given us such deliverance as this, ¹⁴ should we again break Your commandments, and join in marriage with the people committing these abominations? Would You not be angry with us until You had consumed us, so that there would be no remnant or survivor? ¹⁵ O Lord God of Israel, You are righteous, for we are left as a remnant, as it is this day. Here we are before You, in our guilt, though no one can stand before You because of this!”

After all this, in Chapter 10, the priests and officials agreed to put away their foreign wives  and chapter 10 is the last chapter of the Book of Ezra. However chapter 9 verses 8-9 speak to us down through the generations,  describing the time of grace that we are living in today. We were once slaves to sin, we were in bondage, but God himself gave us a remnant to escape, a peg in His holy place through the sacrifice of His Son.  The Temple (and by extension, Jerusalem) is a place where God dwells. Today, that place is in our hearts.