As I wrote in part 1, the book(s) of Ezra-Nehemiah is about the post-exilic events. They are books about the homecoming. However, it matters again that we reflect on the past and briefly review what sparked off this home-coming.
At our fellowship (iTiS Well of Worship Fellowship John 4:24), we had a series on Biblical Parties and it is interesting to note that the event that led to the return of the exiles happened at the party in Daniel 5.
The Great Babylon Empire fell after one of the Kings of Babylon forgot the experiences of Yahweh (the God of the captives) with his grandfather, and got indulgent enough to provoke him into battle. His grandfather had contested this God of the captives and the contest ended when he was in the fields acting like a beast for seven years. The grandchild also tried his luck but unfortunately, this time-round, God brought down the great Babylonian kingdom without a battle.
The Persians and Medes combined formed what is known as the Achaemenid Empire and Babylon was the only problem between them and becoming a superpower. They had extended widely but couldn’t become a world superpower unless they captured Babylon. They had no way to do this until the God of the captives was provoked into battle by the Babylonian King.
Yahweh dressed up for battle and signalled his opponent by the writing on the wall to prepare for battle. God raised Cyrus and showed Cyrus an easy way to capture the entire Babylon Empire in just one night and without a battle. The Prophets had already seen this coming and addressed it their oracles (Isaiah 45:1-5). Babylon fell and the kingdom of Babylon was entrusted into the hands of the Mede commander Darius who became king of that territory of the Achaemenid Empire (Daniel 5: 31).
The captives (Jews) under the new superpower – the Medes and Persians – enjoyed some kind of religious freedom that they had never experienced during the reign of the Babylonians. History records that the Persians were tolerant of other religions. Certain Papyri, written in 419 B.C, report that Darius the second actually commanded the Jewish community at Yeb to celebrate certain Jewish feasts. The freedom that these captives might have enjoyed during this new reign of the Achaemenid Empire is implied in the chapters of Daniel 7-11 and the book of Esther. Although Daniel was instrumental in the kingdom of Babylon, he had never risen to the ranks he rose to during the reign of the Medo-Persian Archaemenid Empire.
The freedom that the Jews enjoyed during this reign culminated into Cyrus issuing an order to let the Jews (who wanted to go back to their land) go home. Again, the Prophets had already foreseen this Cyrus decree coming (Isaiah 44:28).
The theological implications of the prophets addressing this gentile king as; ‘Cyrus Yahweh’s anointed one’ are deep. Cyrus was a different captor from all other captors that preceded him in three ways:
- Instead of humiliating and abusing the captives, his policy was one that intended to assuage the captives.
- His policy did not dictate the gods to worship and neither did he entertain a national religion but encouraged all the people to continue in their traditional beliefs and forms of worship.
- The Archaemedin Empire policy was not one of displacing and transporting the conquered as that of the Assyrians and the Babylonians were. His policy was one of a libertarian citizenship. All people were at liberty to stay wherever they prefer.
The period from 609 B.C when Judah was captured by Babylon and the fall of Babylon in 539 B.C marks the 70 years of captivity that the Prophets had announced (Jeremiah 29:10).
Two years after the fall of Babylon, in 537 B.C, (I hope I got the dates historically correct) willing Jews were already on their way back home based on the decree issued by Cyrus (Ezra 1:2-4).
Now we get into the account of Ezra-Nehemiah which is in the period of the post-captivity era. Six books of the Bible belong to this period (after the captivity):
- Historical (1. Ezra, 2. Nehemiah, 3. Esther)
- Prophetic (1. Haggai, 2. Zechariah, 3. Malachi)
The cameras are on Ezra-Nehemiah for now. Ezra-Nehemiah is one book in the Hebrew Canon, that is why I put “S” in brackets in the title of this introduction. It is also the reason am treating them as such here. Just as Kings 1&2 and Chronicles 1&2 are one book, so are the books, Ezra and Nehemiah. The reason for their separation is one I have handled in the introduction(s) of the past books that I have presented.
Ezra and Nehemiah are named after individuals but these are not biographies but rather, national history. To appreciate the content in these books, it is incumbent on the reader to highlight the individuality of the individuals the books are named after.
There are actually three significant characters in these books and these are:
- Zerubbabel
- Ezra
- Nehemiah
Zerubbabel was a Jew, born and raised in Babylon during the 70yrs of captivity. Due to cultural influence, his name is not Jewish though he is a Jewish prince (grandson of Jehoiachin the second-last king of Judah). In fact, his name means; ‘seed conceived in Babel’ (1Chronicles 3:17-19, Mathew 1:12, Haggai 1:1). There is more to that name and naming but that will be for another time.
In Ezra 1:8, 11 he is called Sheshbazzar, which was his court name just as Daniel’s court name was Belteshazzar (Daniel 1:7). This was the first man to whom Cyrus entrusted the responsibility to lead the first lot of the returnees in 538 B.C (Ezra chapters 1-6).
Apart from conducting a census based on one’s genealogy (Ezra 2), the other task that the movement of Zerubbabel accomplished was rebuilding the Altar (Ezra 3:1, Nehemiah 3:20) and to the Jews and Prophets this was considered as laying the foundation of the Temple (Ezra 5:2, Zechariah 4:9).
The second character in the book is Ezra who the book is named after. His activities cover chapters 7-10 of the book of Ezra. Ezra leads the second batch of the returnees and that is after 80 years (458 B.C) since those of Zerubbabel returned. Ezra was a scholar of the Law (Torah) as well as a Priest. His genealogy reveals that he belonged to the Zadokite order rather than to the Levitical order of priesthood (Ezra 7:1-5).
By this time a lot has changed in the politics of the diaspora and it is during the reign of Artaxerxes II that Ezra comes to Jerusalem. Besides his passion to reform the religion of Judaism, his mission was legitimised by the policy of the reigning government under which the province of Jerusalem was.
Whoever didn’t heed or opposed Ezra’s teaching of the law (Torah) of Yahweh which Ezra interpreted and enforced, was at the same time opposing the Law of the King (Ezra 7:26). Ezra mission is geared not just towards the reformation of the country but also to the purity of the people of God.
In the pursuit of this he performs three important tasks in his ministry:
- He transmits the Mosaic Law (Torah), thereby reviving the Deuteronomical faith (Nehemiah 8).
- He Dissolves mixed marriages (Ezra 9-10).
- He conducts a cultic ceremony of covenant renewal
The third character I would like to conclude with is Nehemiah. While Zerubbabel was of royal blood, and Ezra a priest as well as a scholar, Nehemiah was a politician Jew in the court of Susa. He had no business at all with the Jews in Jerusalem until a delegation from Jerusalem met him at the court in Susa in 444 B.C when they had come to seek resolutions of the ongoing conflicts and divergent views on the matters concerning the Jerusalem city infrastructure (Nehemiah 1:1-3).
Nehemiah was Artaxerxes’ secretary (cupbearer) at that time. Nehemiah’s brother, Hanani, was among the delegates from Jerusalem and this motivated Nehemiah to seek audience with the king to ask for permission to go with the brothers and investigate the matter thoroughly (Nehemiah 2:1-8). The meeting turned out well, for the King actually appointed Nehemiah as the new Governor of Jerusalem (Nehemiah 5:14).
Nehemiah was a contemporary of Ezra’s and he (Nehemiah) strictly had one assignment, to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. While Ezra was working on temple construction, Nehemiah was dealing with the city walls. However, Nehemiah did his political duties in the context of national religion. The building of the wall was not a mere political project but a divine project as well. He became a forceful administrator who beat up people whom he found violating cultic traditions like the Sabbath observance (Nehemiah 5, 13).
God bless you I invoke TRUTH, REASON and FAITH (2Tim 2:7)
Pr. T.I.M WHITE
The Gospel Hawker
@iTiS Well of Worship Fellowship (John 4:24)
iTiS Well of Worship Fellowship (John 4:24) 