AN INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK(S) OF EZRA-NEHEMIAH (Part I)

Glory to God for we have finished reading the books of Kings and Chronicles. We thank the Lord for it is him who has brought us this far. We are now in a new section as presented to us in the book(s) of Ezra–Nehemiah that entirely addresses another period in the life and history of Israel.

It matters, however, that I give a brief background that shapes the events that are addressed in this section.  As we finish the books of Kings and Chronicles, we appreciate that three significant events happened in the course of their history:

• The fall away from their God.
• The Exile.
• Ten Tribes get Lost and are no more

If you have been reading the Bible carefully and following the events in the word of God, you will realize that God has always been the centre that holds. Israel prospers and thrives based on the health of their relationship with God. It is a relationship that I would call the SWITCH RELATIONSHIP. Lights are on as long as man does not tamper with the wires or the switch itself.

Whenever Israel messed with their spiritual relations with Yahweh, lights went off in all their sociological and political life and it was darkness all-over. When they tampered with the divine wires that held the twelve tribes together to form the monarchy, the monarchy broke into two, leaving two tribes (Judah and Benjamin) in the South with Jerusalem as their capital and ten tribes in the northern region having Samaria as their capital.

This divided family could not stand long for this division materialized into not only spiritual desertion but also launched captivity. The exile is the dark ages of Israel as a nation. This darkness was not God’s will and neither was it Israel’s conscious choice but rather an inevitable consequence of their behaviour. We leave the book of Chronicles when the Promised Land has been extremely depopulated in quality and quantity of its rightful citizens (2Kings 24:14-17).

The 10 tribe monarchy was called the Israel Kingdom (Israelites) and the 2 tribe monarchy is the one that is known as the kingdom of Judah (Jews).

Let me address something that I shared with my brother Pedson who wanted to know the fate of all the tribes in the Bible.

Perhaps you have heard of the idea that the 10 tribes of Israel were lost and are officially no more. This is true, however, this is not to say that these tribes were lost to the extent of not having any remnants.

What is meant by them being lost is that these tribes were lost in both their communal and civil sense (Exodus 18:25, 1Chronicles chapters 4-9). The Northern Kingdom (10 tribes) was turbulent from 734 B.C and Samaria was down in 721 B.C. They are the 10 Israel lost tribes in two senses:

• They were scattered but not distributed: deported by the Assyrians (the then superpower) the Israelite tribes were scattered all-over the nations under the Assyrians (2Kings 15:19-29, 17:1-6, Jeremiah 50:17).
• Specific 10 tribes’ member migrants to Judah: Some families, groups and individual members of some of the 10 tribes of Israel (like Ephraim, Simeon and Manasseh) migrated to Judah for religious and safety reasons (2Chronicles 15:8-15, 1Chronicles 4:24-43).

As you can see, when the Israelites tampered with their spiritual wiring with God and their switch relationship with God, lights went off, and the 12 tribes were no more but just scattered refugees and fugitives.

Jerusalem, on the other hand, learnt nothing and forgot nothing about the fall of Samaria for after 116years (721-605 B.C), Judah was also deported and distributed in Babylon. However, Nebuchadnezzar, unlike the Assyrian King in 721 B.C (2Kings 17:24, Ezra 4:2) did not bring in foreigners to take the place of the exiles among the native population. Before we look at the life of the Jews during the exile, it is important that we point out the actual reasons that resulted in the exile. According to me, Judah and Israel were exiled and deported out of their Promised Land because of two violated and fractured relationships:

• Vertical Relationships: They deserted their God in faith and automatically in action. The first cause of the exile was a religious one. They held a wrong religion and a deceptive faith. It is important that we understand that we are destined for the exile if we get everything correct but get our relationship with God wrong. Israel and Judah had the right God but theologically got him wrong and their relationship with this God was fractured. Now imagine those who (to begin with) are actually worshipping idols! Please investigate your vertical relationships from now henceforth.
• Horizontal Relationships: Israel and Judah did not merely have poor public relations, but they were politically dumb. King Saul, David and Solomon managed to maintain Israel as a regional power without compromising their religion and faith in Yahweh because they had a balance between their spiritual world and their social world. They knew what to do when and how. The kings that followed, however, were imbalanced and at best extremists. So the second reason that led to the exile was a political failure. I wish I had space to demonstrate these two failures in relation to your family, community and country today.

The crème de la crème of Judah was taken and the poor remnants struggled to even raise the tax to Nebuchadnezzar. Eventually, during the reign of Zedekiah as the ruler of the remnant Jews, a coalition was formed by some of the neighbouring rulers of other Babylon vassal states like Moab, Edom. Tyre, Ammon and Sidon. This alliance was geared to concerting a united revolt and rebellion against suzerainty of Babylon (Ezekiel 17:11-20, Jeremiah 27:1-4).

It did not succeed and things deteriorated. One King died in exile and another one stayed in prison until he was granted a presidential pardon (2Kings 25). Life in the exile was not very easy for two reasons: the first was a theological controversy and the school of thoughts that emerged between the Prophets (Jeremiah 23:13-14). Some prophets insisted there was some kind of misunderstanding and that Yahweh had not deserted his chosen people.

They had positive and optimistic messages to those in the exile and encouraged them that in no time Yahweh was coming for them (Isaiah 40:1-3). This school of thought further argued that even the scattered lost tribes of Israel were about to be restored and gathered back together (Ezekiel 34:12-22).

But on the other hand, there was another prophetic school of thought led by Jeremiah and Deutero-Isaiah, who insisted that the exile was the new home for the people of Yahweh to settle for the next 70yrs (Jeremiah 23:13-17, 6:13-14, chapter 29).

While some oracles told people what they wanted to hear, the other group of oracles was the bitter truth.

The second difficulty was about how to practically live as a Jew in a foreign land (Psalms 137:4). Here the point centred on the cost of compromise. The menu was not in favour of these captives and neither was the national religion (Daniel 1:3-16, 3:1-30). Even after a very long time, the Jews were still considered as expendables (Esther chapters 3-4).

Times were hard but lo and behold another superpower (Medes and Persians) took the stage and overthrew the Babylonian empire. The supreme leader was Cyrus and he decreed that the Jews were free to return to their Land. It is at this POINT that we have the book(s) of Ezra & Nehemiah.

God bless you I invoke TRUTH, REASON and FAITH (2Tim 2:7)

Pr. T.I.M WHITE

The Gospel Hawker

@iTiS Well of Worship Ministries (John 4:24)