God is at work! (Ezra 7:11-28)

Waiting for the promises of God can be hard when the fulfilment takes years, and we wonder if God is really on our case at all or has forgotten us entirely. The psalms in particular are full of longing for the Lord to act and some even boldly cry to God to wake up and not doze on the job (Ps 35:23; 44:23)! The exiles, too, waited for the fulfilment of God’s promise to restore their kingdom and send the Davidic king (Messiah) who would establish a righteous rule according to God’s law (Isa 9:6-7). As the years slipped by, they must have wondered if that would ever happen. Yet, as their story continues, we see evidence that God is very much at work behind the scenes through historic circumstances and by shaping the intention of pagan rulers.

God’s purposes – His worship

As Ezra sets off on a three-and-a-half months’ journey to Jerusalem, he carries the authorisation for his activity in a letter from the Persian king, Artaxerxes I. He is taking with him royal donations, as well as moneys given by local Jews in Babylon to be used for buying sacrificial animals (Ezra 7:15-17). Anything left over from this fund is to be used in the service of the temple according to the leadership’s discretion (Ezra 7:18). Further, he is given temple utensils (Ezra 7:19) and these must have been newly made specifically for this purpose, since the original vessels carted off to Babylon at the beginning of the exile have already been returned (Ezra 1:7-11). Moreover, the treasurers of the larger province ‘Beyond-the-River’ (i.e. the trans-Euphrates region) are instructed to provide further funds for use in the temple; the money and goods are generous though carefully circumscribed (Ezra 7:21-22).[1] Finally, temple personnel are made exempt from paying taxes (Ezra 7:24).

God’s purposes – living according to His will

To these are added two specific tasks for Ezra. One is to inquire into the local situation in Judah and Jerusalem based on the Mosaic law (Ezra 7:14). This probably refers to sacrificial practices specifically since it is followed immediately by the list of contributions for the temple service.[2] Secondly, he is to appoint officials in the wider trans-Euphrates region who can ensure the upholding of God’s laws among Jewish communities settled further afield from Judah and Jerusalem (Ezra 7:25).

What humans intend and what God does

Once again, a pagan king’s concern with a subjugated people’s worship and laws may seem odd to us, but in the historic circumstances this makes good sense. The Persians were known to allow local peoples the practice of their own laws to some extent and encouraged the worship of their deities as a way of appeasing these local gods (cf. Ezra 7:23) and gaining the co-operation of those worshipping them. We know that around the time Ezra returned to Jerusalem, Egypt was in revolt led by a Lybian and supported by an Athenian navy.[3] Given the turmoil there, the Persian king may have particularly wanted to ensure that unrest did not spread further north in the region.

Yet, what is historic expediency for the king, is God’s purpose that His people may worship and live by His laws and be in His will. This is clearly recognised by Ezra and is evidenced in the repeated phrase in this chapter and the next that God’s hand was on him (Ezra 7:6, 9, 28; 8:22, 31). Full restoration was a long way away, but God was at work on behalf of His people. In fact, Ezra’s unusual phrase that God prompted the king ‘to beautify’ the temple (NASB ‘adorn’; Ezra 7:27) is the same Hebrew word used in Isaiah 60:7, 13 and it reflects the understanding of these historic events as the fulfilment of prophecy (see also Hag 2:7). The people who struggled with economic hardship and wondered in Haggai’s time how they could invest in the temple when they could hardly make ends meet themselves (Hag 1:1-11) would have found God’s strange economy at work: when we give God first, He supplies our needs. The exiles’ story also teaches us that God often works quietly behind the scenes and sometimes we get a glimpse of it to encourage our trust in the larger outworking of His will.

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[1] It is difficult to estimate what the measurements equal to in our context. The NLT, which is translated by eminent modern scholars, gives the equivalents as 3,400 kg of silver, 22 kilolitres of wheat, and 2.1 kilolitres of wine and olive oil respectively, as well as unlimited supplies of salt. H.G.M. Williamson cites scholarship that the food and drink quantities are estimated to have covered about two years’ worth of sacrificial offerings. Ezra, Nehemiah, WBC 16 (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1985), 102-103.

[2] Ibid., 101.

[3] Joseph Blenkinsopp, Ezra-Nehemiah, OTL (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1988), 150.

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