Overview of Ezra, Adult Discipleship Class

Amen. All right, welcome back, everybody. Some papers have been passed out. Thank you to my helpers about what we covered last week. It was very quick, and my markers started to die out. I found the Expo markers that we just recently bought. They were better, and they were also hidden, so I apologize for being late. They weren’t intentionally hidden.

But today we’re gonna be in the book of Ezra. So if you have your Bibles with you, please turn there. And today we’re going to be learning about the God who restores. Now, can anyone tell me who the main character of the Old Testament is? Is it Moses? Is it Adam? No. Is it Abraham? No. Who is it? God, right? God is the main character of the entire Bible. And we approach the Old Testament with what’s known as a theocentric view, a perspective that God is at the center of everything. in that man has the privilege of being involved.

And so we come to the book of Ezra after a long break and formerly being in the book of 2 Chronicles. We talked briefly last week about the difference between the king accounts and 1 and 2 Kings. and 1st and 2nd Chronicles and particularly the tone. The tone is different in both of them. One is more optimistic and one is a little bit more pessimistic.

1 and 2 Kings is a little bit more pessimistic because it is written from the perspective of those in exile for why they, the people of God, went into exile. They went into exile because they disobeyed the Mosaic Covenant, which they had promised to obey, and God had promised them in turn that if they disobeyed Him, and worshipped after false gods, adopted the practices of the nations, forfeited their role as a holy nation in the present. Temporarily, God would put them under His discipline, and by doing so would bring them into exile, which He did. That’s 1 and 2 Kings, in sort of tracing the decline of Israel from a spiritual perspective.

1st and 2nd Chronicles does the same to some degree, but primarily is more optimistic. It’s more optimistic because it’s coming from the perspective of the post-exilic community. And it is very likely that Ezra, the book that we’re studying today, the author of the book of Ezra, Ezra himself, was the one who compiled the books of 1st and 2nd Chronicles. There’s more of an emphasis on the importance of the priesthood in 1 and 2 Chronicles, of which Ezra is part, rather than more on the role of the prophet in 1 and 2 Kings. And the ending of 2 Chronicles leaves on a hopeful note. So if actually you’ll flip a page to 2 Chronicles 36, we see in verses 22 and 23 that Cyrus the king of Persia permits the people to return back to the land. And what’s fascinating about this is there is a close parallel but more developed in Ezra chapter one.

So a pretty smooth transition there. Now for the book of Ezra there’s five kings that you need to know in order to have the right understanding of where we are at in the history of the post-exilic community. The first king is the King Cyrus. We were just introduced to him. He is the one who first permits the Jews to come back into the land.

The second one, and I’m going to struggle with the pronunciation of this one, is Cambyses. We aren’t told of him explicitly in the text of Ezra, but he is between the lines implied, certainly. The third one is Darius I, and the reason why I’m writing these out is because it can be very confusing, because this is not the Darius from the book of Daniel. Darius from the book of Daniel was Darius the Mede, and serving very likely under the reign of Cyrus, Darius I is a different king following Cyrus. The next one that we have on our list is King Xerxes, which does anyone know which book of the Bible Xerxes features most prominently in?

Anyone? Esther, yes. Good job, Esther. And Xerxes has another name. In Hebrew, it’s Ahasuerus. OK, that one’s not all caps. I’m sorry for those who this probably bugs you. But Ahasuerus, Xerxes, and contemporaries in his time were Esther and Mordecai. And the final one, where Ezra himself is primarily concerned in the chronology, is Artaxerxes. Artaxerxes. And his contemporaries will be Ezra, Nehemiah, and Malachi. So we come to the book of Ezra, beginning with Cyrus.

We’re going to skip over Cambyses. We’re going to get to Darius, and then eventually jump up to Arctic Xerxes, and then come back to Darius, and there’s a brief reference to Xerxes. That’s why all of these are up here, and so hopefully we’re not too confused. I’ll just point to that list when we go through there.

As mentioned, the theme of this book is the God who restores. The Jews get to come back to their land, and following the book of 2 Kings, which was the God who exiles, and the book of 2 Chronicles, the God who chastens, God, in His grace, has brought His people back, as He promised that He would. If we were to divide this book into two sections, it should be on those papers that were passed out. The first section is the restoration of the temple in chapters 1 through 6. And the second section is the reformation of the people, chapters 7 through 10.

And again, I put a footnote on there. These come from my professors in the books that I read. They are not unique to me. We see a sub-theme in this book about the Lord’s decree. Several kings give their certain decrees, but the one that stands in the end is the Lord’s, which brings us to chapter 1, verse 1. Let’s read.

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. Now, this prophecy from Jeremiah really are two prophecies in the book of Jeremiah. of Babylonian rule until the Jews would go back into the land.

Now, mind you, it can be a bit confusing, so it’s important to go over key terms that we have studied already. as a nation corporately was named that because of Jacob, right? Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Jacob’s name is changed to Israel. Then his descendants are known from then on to a certain period as the nation of Israel. However, when Solomon’s foolish son Rehoboam comes to power, there’s a division in the kingdom. Because he’s foolish, a lot of the people go with this guy named Jeroboam, and they go up north. And the kingdom up north then is referred to as Israel, whereas the southern kingdom is known as Judah.

And so what we see is that following Judah, the second one going into exile, there would be 70 years, Jeremiah prophesied, until they were able to go back into the land. Israel, the northern kingdom, went into exile earlier, as we had already studied, by the Assyrian Empire. We see as well that in the book of Isaiah, even before Jeremiah, there was a prophecy specifically about Cyrus, which is fascinating. Like 150 years before, he would allow the Jews to come back into the land.

It’s amazing to see how, even in Isaiah, right? The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. That God’s word is always true. In fact, Josephus, said, and this isn’t inspired, but Josephus the Jewish historian said that King Cyrus was shown this prophecy and that the Lord used it to really move him to bring the Jews back into the land. It’s kind of fascinating. And so God’s word is faithful and Cyrus allowing the Jews to come back into the land is huge. The specific references on those Jeremiah prophecies are Jeremiah 25, 11 through 12, Jeremiah 29, 10 through 14, And the Isaiah passage is Isaiah 44, 28 through 45, 7.

And so we read in Cyrus’s decree in verse 2, we see, the Lord, the God of heaven, Cyrus says, 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. Whoever there is among you of all his people, may his God be with him. Let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and rebuild the house of the Lord, the God of Israel. He is the God who is in Jerusalem.

This is amazing for those who have been in exile. God is faithful. He is bringing his people back into the land and using even a wicked king such as Cyrus to do so. Some have thought that Cyrus was a king who had genuine faith. We see in historical evidence that he was very likely sympathetic to multiple religions. It’s amazing how God even used flawed rulers to bring about his amazing purposes.

And so, what Cyrus does, the first thing we see in verses 5 through 11, is he restores the holy vessels. Ezra is noting the significance of right worship and following God’s commands. And so, these holy things are being dealt with in a manner that treats them as holy, since they’re used for the worship of God. Chapter 2 can be a little difficult only because it’s a list of names, but to the Jews originally this would have been an incredible encouragement that God is faithful. You remember this guy? You remember his descendants? Look at all of these peoples, a remnant that God has preserved for himself. A couple things I will draw to your attention.

In verse 2, you’ll see Nehemiah and Mordecai. These are very likely other Nehemiahs and Mordecais than you’re familiar with. Different than Nehemiah from the book of Nehemiah, and different than Mordecai and Esther. That’s part of the reason why I listed these up. It’s hilarious because, you know, Darius I is not the same as Darius the Mede in Daniel’s time that served under Cyrus. But also, Darius the Mede’s father’s name was Ahasuerus. So you can kind of see why it’s important for us to kind of get our ducks in a row studying this, otherwise we will be very confused.

In verse 61, we see the beginning of removal of specific people who are not of full Jewish descent because of the holiness of the priesthood. In chapter 3, we see that the altar and sacrifices are restored in verses 1 through 7 there, and that the temple restoration begins in verses 8 through 13. Now, I really find it interesting that in verse 3, it says that the people that were commissioned under Cyrus, the Jewish people, set up the altar on its foundation, and the text says, for they were terrified because of the peoples of the lands.

The people recognized that in their time of fear, where did they need to go? To God, to worship, right? To offer a sacrifice. Previously, both Israel and Judah had made the mistake of trusting in other nations, or trusting in political might or power, political negotiation with Egypt and Assyria, in order to be safe, rather than to worship God.

And it’s amazing to see here that their response in light of their fear with the nations or not the people specifically around them, their adversaries, which will come up in chapter four, that their approach is instead to go immediately to building the altar in order to worship the Lord.

We see a very different people than that were shown to us before their exile, although they’re not without their problems as we will see in Nehemiah. Verse 12, as the temple restoration has begun, this isn’t the completion of the temple. But it’s the beginning of restoration. We read in verse 12 that many of the priests and Levites and heads of the father’s households, the old men who had seen the first temple, Solomon’s temple, wept with a loud voice when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes. Now, it’s understandable. The temple hasn’t been restored yet, but they remember the old times. They remember how amazing Solomon’s temple was, how rich their economy was, how different things were.

But what’s fascinating is the prophet Haggai is prophesying during this time. Haggai and Zechariah are both prophesying, trying to encourage the people to continue building. And Haggai says that the glory of this second temple will be greater than the first. And so that’s just kind of important to keep in mind as we continue looking through here.

Chapter 4, as mentioned, there are adversaries that seek to oppose the rebuilding of the temple as well as the city of Jerusalem. We read in verse 1, Now when the enemies of Judah and Benjamin heard that the people of the exile were building a temple to the Lord God of Israel, they approached Zerubbabel and the heads of the father’s households and said to them, Let us build with you, for we, like you, seek your God. And we have been sacrificing to Him since the days of Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, who brought us up here. Now, quick side note, Zerubbabel is a descendant of David and that is significant, but the other thing that I’d also like you to take a look at as well is that the people are against this, against these people helping them build the temple. If you see in the end of verse three, it says that these enemies or adversaries are identified as those or sorry, at the end of verse two, those who had been there since the days of Esarhaddon, king of Assyria. And what essentially happened was that after the northern kingdom, this isn’t to scale or anything, but like if we’re gonna use these two boxes, it’s like the north and southern kingdom. The northern kingdom, Israel, oh goodness, Israel. Is anyone spiritual gift handwriting? If so, could you like impart it to me? Yeah, for sure, yeah. Oh, 100%.

Israel is swept away into exile first by Assyria, right? Judah is later by, goodness, by Babylon. And so what ends up happening is after Assyria takes Israel into exile, they place people in the land just north of Judah. And what’s problematic about this is did the Assyrians worship the same God as the Jews?

Not a trick question. No, absolutely not. And so these people brought in foreign religious practices to the Northern Kingdom, and they began to intermix with the Jews themselves, and as a result, it wasn’t their ethnicity that was the problem. It was a sort of syncretistic worship, trying to bring two different religions together, the worship of the true God with the worship of idols, that got them in trouble. The capital of the northern kingdom of Israel before they went into exile was what? Anyone know? Geography wasn’t my strongest class, so I don’t blame you. It’s Samaria. Samaria was the capital of the Northern Kingdom.

And so when you eventually get to the New Testament and the sort of strife that the Jews had with Samaritans, it was because originally they weren’t fully Jewish, but it wasn’t so much their ethnicity, so much as their syncretistic worship. They weren’t worshiping in Jerusalem. They had brought in pagan idolatrous practices, and eventually it led to a form of racism, as we saw that Jesus sought to correct in his day, but initially it was for a good reason, and it was because up here, those of Assyrian descent that also were of some Jewish descent were involved in a mixing of the worship of false gods with the true God. And so what we see here in verse 4, in chapter 4, is that the people of the land discouraged the people of Judah and frightened them from building, and hired counselors against them to frustrate their counsel all the days of Cyrus king of Persia, even until the reign of Darius king of Persia.

Now, really quickly, Ezra lives himself during this time. He’s writing about these times before. What he is saying here is that these people have been against them from Cyrus to Darius. But watch what he does next. What he does next is he says in verse six, now in the reign of Ahasuerus, in the beginning of his reign, they wrote an accusation against the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem. Xerxes, during his time, these adversaries wrote against those who sought to rebuild the temple and Jerusalem.

But then in verse seven, we see in the days of Artaxerxes, the rest of his colleagues wrote to Artaxerxes, king of Persia. So we’re skipping around a bunch, but what he’s trying to do is he’s going to the past, talking through these guys. verse 6, but then in verse 7 talks about this time with Artaxerxes, which is in the future, where he’s presently at, but then eventually he comes back to Darius I. I’m trying to help you out to understand what’s going on. It’s easier when you see it happening, but his purpose with doing this and jumping around in history is to say every single time there was a new king, the people sought to discourage us in our work, to write to the kings to stop us, but look, No, God is the God who restores. God is faithful, even through all of this opposition. So, in the future, he’s talking about how they wrote to Artaxerxes. We see in verses 8 through verse 16, this letter that’s written to him. And as a result, in verses 17 through 24, the work stops. Now, we get to chapter five, verse one. It speaks of Haggai and Zechariah encouraging the people to begin building again.

But mind you, we’re going back up to the reign of Darius I. So we just were talking about Artaxerxes in the future so that he could show, you know, we’ve had opposition through every king’s reign, but God is the God who restores. But now we’re back to Darius I. We see that…

Zerubbabel, the son of Sheltiel, and Jeshua, the son of Josedach, arose and began to rebuild the house of God, which is in Jerusalem. And the prophets of God were with them, supporting them. So if you read Haggai and Zechariah, that’s what’s happening. Those books are taking place at the same time as this narrative in Ezra, even though they’re later in your Old Testament.

The adversaries ultimately write to Darius as well. We see that. in verses six through, we see in the second half of chapter five here, but then Darius ultimately finds the decree of Cyrus in chapter six. And God uses that. to informed areas so that he responds to the adversaries of Israel in verse 7.

He says to leave the work alone. He says in verse 8 that the full cost is to be paid to those people from the royal treasury and that without delay at the very end there. in that whatever they need in their day-to-day offering, in verse 9, it’s to be given to them daily without fail. And that ultimately, in verse 11, that anyone who violates this edict, a timber shall be drawn from his house, and he shall be impaled on it, and his house shall be made a refuse heap on account of this. In other words, don’t mess with their work.

Eventually, the temple is completed in verses 13 through 18. and we see them praising the Lord. But what’s so fascinating about this account is that unlike the building of the tabernacle, as well as the building of the first temple, there is no Shekinah glory cloud that comes, at least is recorded in the text, to represent God’s presence in the temple. Now I think this is significant. We’re reading a little bit between the lines.

But remember, Haggai has said that the glory of the second temple will be better than the first, which they might cause, you know, make them wonder why would that be better if God’s visible manifestation of his presence did not enter on the second time. But what we end up seeing in the book of Malachi is that in that second temple, which would later be developed more by Herod and would become one of the ancient wonders of the world, that a messenger would go and that after that the Lord would enter soon into his temple. And so the reason why the second temple was greater than the first one was because Jesus walked into it. Formerly it had been the glory cloud that represented God’s presence, but God actually went in in the incarnation. And it really brings a lot of weight to Jesus’ time in the temple in the New Testament when we’re reading it, when we realize how much better and more incredible it is and how crazy it is that they rejected him still. So we get done with chapter six, get done with the first section about the restoration of the temple. And chapters seven through 10 is all about the reformation of the people.

This is where we start getting to down here where Ezra is involved. And we see Ezra’s example in verse 10, chapter seven, verse 10, that he had set his heart to study the law of the Lord and to practice it and to teach his statutes and ordinances in Israel. Ezra cares tremendously about the worship of Israel because that’s how they obey God. They can obey God and have the opportunity to do so by following his commands in the Mosaic law. as well as to follow their normal religious practices of observing the Passover, etc. We see in verse 11 that Ezra himself was a scribe, which seems to indicate that would go towards the idea that he was the author of 1 and 2 Chronicles. And that even though he’s a scribe, he’s also of the priestly line as well. And we see that at the beginning of chapter 7. And so, Ezra praises the Lord in verses 27 and 28.

He says, Blessed be the Lord, the God of our fathers, who has put such a thing as this in the king’s heart, to adorn the house of the Lord, which is in Jerusalem, and has extended lovingkindness to me before the king and his counselors, and before all the king’s mighty princes. Thus I was strengthened according to the hand of the Lord my God upon me, and I gathered leading men from Israel to go up with me. Again, these guys give decrees, the enemies write letters to them, but in the end, God is the God who restores. Regardless of whatever happens, the Lord is the one who’s behind this, and his promises certainly won’t fail.

Now there’s some people that went up with Ezra that are listed in chapter eight, verses one through 14. Ezra cares much about the worship of God and the right worship of God, so he sends for Levites in verses 15 through 20. And then as they’re traveling and they’re seeking to rebuild the temple or conduct proper worship in the temple, he proclaims a fast in verse 21 because he doesn’t want to rely completely on these kings and to show the kings that the Lord is the one who genuinely is providing for them.

Now, at the end here, we come to a very interesting section in chapters nine through 10, and it’s worth noting and talking about because it’s one that’s often raised as a question mark, as an issue, something that needs careful interpretation. And it’s the putting away of foreign wives, the mixed marriages that had been found in chapter nine, verses one through four. We read, Now when these things had been completed, the princes approached me, saying, The people of Israel and the priests and the Levites have not separated themselves from the peoples of the lands according to their abominations, those of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites. for they have taken some of their daughters as wives for themselves and for their sons, so that the holy race has intermingled with the peoples of the lands. Indeed the hands of the princes and the rulers have been foremost in this unfaithfulness.”

And then Ezra is distraught by this. And we see that the people sort of have a mass putting away, a mass divorce of their foreign wives and seeking to be obedient to the Lord. Now, the problem with this is this is not a one for one application. We don’t just directly apply this to our New Testament context because of passages such as 1 Corinthians 7, being married to an unbeliever. But in this specific instance, it’s different because this is Old Testament Israel. If you recall back in our study of Exodus, in Exodus 19 when the Hebrews were brought to Sinai, they were given one role that they were supposed to be in sort of two different titles.

And what was that role? They were to be a kingdom of? Good, and holy nation, yes, air fist bump. The kingdom of priests and a holy nation. And if we remember the distinction between priest and prophet, the prophet is the one who brings who to who. God to the people right through prophecy through revelation. He brings God to the people. The priest is the one who brings the people to God through appropriate worship and sacrifice. And so Israel was supposed to be a kingdom a nation among the nations as one that brought the peoples to God right. They were supposed to bring the peoples to God.

How did they do that? With the second sort of title that they were given and the same function and role, and that was to be a holy nation. They lived differently. Their practices were different. Their worship was different. They were supposed to not allow the foreigners, as mentioned here in verse 1, Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Jebusites, etc. Those weren’t supposed to be staying in the land with them and they weren’t supposed to be intermarrying with them because of religious reasons. And in living differently, the Lord would bless them through the Mosaic Covenant, blessings for obedience.

And that, in turn, was to make the nation see that they lived differently and were blessed and want to worship the same God, the Holy God. And so here, when they’re prepping for this, and they’re all distraught about, we see in verse two that, I mean, depending on your translation, mine says, the holy race is intermingled with the peoples of the lands. This is not based on like a sort of, I don’t know, a neo-Darwinian eugenics racism perspective. This isn’t primarily of race, if anything to have to do with that or ethnicity. Instead, it’s based on the Mosaic Covenant and them promising to God that they would separate themselves in their unique role and that God would use that to draw the nations to himself. I mean, evidence that this isn’t specifically an issue of race would be Rahab, right? Rahab. Was Rahab an Israelite? Now, where did we find Rahab?

What story? Joshua and the battle of Jericho, right? Yeah, Jericho. She was a Canaanite. Rahab was a Canaanite. She was not an Israelite, and yet, she was brought into the people of God, trusted in the Lord, and as a result, married who? Not Cod, not Tilapia. What’s her husband’s name?

You know from Salmon, or Salmon, I don’t know. I like to call him Salmon. I don’t really know if that’s probably not how it’s really pronounced. I wouldn’t recommend telling your friends that I said that. So Salmon, right? Or Salmon. And they had a son whose name was who? Boaz, right? We talked about this last time. Boaz was their son. And Boaz married who? Ruth. Was Ruth an Israelite? No, she was not an Israelite. She was what? A Moabitess, right? She was a Moabitess of the nations. The problem wasn’t that she was of different ethnicity.

The problem was that the peoples of the other nations worshipped different gods, and they were supposed to separate themselves from them. I mean, if you think about it, too, the way we tend to think of things today is that there’s a distinction between the sacred and secular, though that could even be debated. There is no neutrality. Everything is a sacred issue and something that should be thought of in line with our worldview and God at the center of our worldview. But back then, even though there really is no distinction between the sacred and secular, it was completely intertwined.

The business marketplace is involved with this pagan religions, so they weren’t to allow the people into the land or conduct business or anything because then that would contaminate the proper worship of the Holy God so that they would no longer be a holy people.

We saw that in the book of Judges, that rather than obeying God and driving all the peoples out of the lands, they allowed people in the lands, who then in turn had brought them towards idolatry, and because of that the Lord disciplined them. And so Israel was supposed to separate themselves from the nations, and they realized they had disobeyed in this, and in a desire to obey the Mosaic covenant, had separated themselves from their foreign wives.

But again, coming back to 1 Corinthians 7, I think this is also an important thing to highlight that shows how amazing the new covenant is that we live in. In the Old Covenant, Israel was called, in this specific instance, to separate themselves from their foreign wives that were of unbelieving descent, or they were just unbelievers.

But in the New Testament, in 1 Corinthians 7, if someone finds themselves in a situation where they’re a Christian or saved and they’re married to an unbeliever, are they called to divorce them? No, they’re not. Why? There’s a big difference between the Old Covenant and New Covenant here. In the Old Covenant, Israel was supposed to separate themselves from the nations and the idolaters, in this instance, to divorce themselves from their wives so that they could follow the law of God. But now in the New Covenant, where is the law written? on the hearts. that now with God indwelling us, and the work of regeneration, and all of these amazing things, that now we’re called to faithfully witness in those situations. And so I think that’s an interesting contrast between the Old Covenant example and Ezra here, and them seeking to be faithful, and Paul’s conversation in 1 Corinthians 7, highlighting the difference between the two.

So the rest talks about their desire to reconcile corporately, chapter 10. They end up going and trying to find a list and carefully figure out who had intermarried with the nations. A list of some of the offenders are found in. 18 through 44, and this book ends on a relatively hopeful note. Israel is back in the land. They repent of their sin.

But we see in Nehemiah, the following book, that Israel still has, they’re still sinners. and they still have their problems. Though Jeremiah’s prophecy of the 70 years of the reign of Babylon is now over and fulfilled, the promise that Jeremiah gave of the new covenant hasn’t been fulfilled yet. And where his God’s law would be written corporately on the nation of Israel’s hearts. And we also see here that of Zerubbabel, that he was a Davidic heir and he was ruling, but he wasn’t reigning. And to fulfill the promises of the seed of the woman, the scepter that wouldn’t depart from Judah, the coming Davidic king that would reign forever, that has yet to be fulfilled, which leaves Israel with more promises to await to see the fulfillment in God’s faithfulness.

Let’s pray. Lord, thank you for your word. We thank you that even in times where we speed through it, just seeing it from a bird’s eye view shows your faithfulness. That, Lord, that you are the God, even though you are the God who exiles and chastens. but also the Lord that restores. And Lord, just as the nation of Israel was disciplined by being placed into exile to point them to you, in a similar way, Lord, you love us so much as believers that you discipline us when we are wayward, and we thank you for that. that, Lord, you will never let anything snatch us out of your hands, that nothing can separate us from your love. And so, Lord, we pray that you would help us to remember that as we go into our week. We thank you for the new covenant that you personally indwell us. for your work in us not only individually but also corporately as the church and pray Lord that we as the church would adopt the example of Ezra and that we would be diligent to study your word and not only to study your word but also to do your word. We love you and praise you. It’s in your name we pray these things. Amen. So I did my best to try and get this around 30 minutes. I didn’t get there. I apologize.