23 May

Bible In 365 Days                                                                          

Ezra 8-10

Ezra 8

In this chapter we have, first, a representative list of those who joined Ezra when he went up to Jerusalem. First in order, members of the priestly and royal houses are named (Ezra 8:1-2). Then follows the register and number of the people (Ezra 8:3-14). Before the actual march commenced, Ezra gathered together at Ahava those who were to accompany him in order to review them and prepare for the journey. He found that none of the sons of Levi was in the company. Recognizing the necessity for their presence, he paused, and sent to Iddo, who perhaps was in charge of some school of the Levites.

In response to his appeal, certain of their number joined him. The journey before them was full of peril, and the character of Ezra is remarkably revealed in his action at this point. Conscious of the perils, he was yet ashamed to seek help in the way from an earthly king; and therefore proclaimed a fast in which, in humiliation, they waited upon God for His guidance and protection.

In this story there is a h e illustration of the independence and dependence of those who follow the Lord. Of greatest importance to Ezra was the honor of the name of his God. That honor he would not sully by seeking help from an earthly king. The voluntary gifts of the king were welcome, and for this Ezra was thankful. To ask for soldiers would have been tacitly to confess questioning the ability or willingness of God to help. God never fails those who act in full dependence on Him and independently of all others. At last, after a long journey, they arrived in safety at Jerusalem, and made their offerings.

Ezra 9

On Ezra's arrival at Jerusalem complaint was made to him of the failure and sin of the people. What an appalling story it was, that during these sixty years, even though there had been no return to heathen idolatry, God's law against intermingling with the people of the land had been willfully broken, the chief offenders being the princes and rulers.

The picture of Ezra in the presence of this confession is very fine. It is that of a man so stirred with righteous indignation that he had rent his garments and plucked off his beard. As the storm of his passion subsided he sank in silent astonishment until the evening oblation. Then he fell on his knees before God, and poured out his soul in prayer. It was a wonderful prayer. Beginning with confession of his personal shame, he at once gathered into his outcry the whole of the people, identifying himself with them as he spoke of "our iniquities . . . our guiltiness," and so forth. He went back over all the history in imagination as he knelt before his God, and clearly saw that it had been one long story of failure and of consequent disaster. He then spoke of his consciousness of the grace of God manifest in making possible the return of a remnant of the people through favor of the kings of Persia. Then the surging sorrow of the new failure found expression in free and full confession, until at last, without any petition for deliverance, he cast the people before God with a recognition of His righteousness and of their inability to stand in its presence.

It is a fine revelation of the only attitude in which any man can become a mediator. There is first an overwhelming sense of sin. This is accompanied, and perhaps caused by, that deeper sense of the righteousness and grace of God. It finds expression in agonized and unsparing confession. The passion of the whole movement is evidence of its reality. No man can really know the righteousness of God, and in its light see sin, and remain quiet and calculating and unmoved.

Ezra 10

The sincerity and passion of Ezra's vicarious repentance produced immediate results. The people had gathered about him through the long hours of the day, and it would seem that they became conscious of the enormity of their sin as they saw how this man was so affected by it.

At last, one of their number spoke to him, acknowledging the sin, and suggesting the remedy. Then immediately Ezra became a man of action. He first called the people into sacred covenant, that they would put away the evil thing from among them; and then proceeded to lead them in carrying out their covenant with strict and impartial justice and severity. All the marriages contracted with the women of the land were annulled, and thus by drastic measures the people were brought back to the place of separation. How widespread the evil was is gathered from the list of the names with which the record closes. Priests, Levites, and people had been guilty. None of them was exempt from the reformation, which was carried out with great thoroughness.

The man who sets himself to seek, to do, to teach the law of God invariably brings himself to where sorrow will be his portion and intrepid courage his only strength. If such devotion issue in such experiences, it also is the secret of strength, enabling a man to stand for God, and realize His purpose; and thus, moreover, to be the true friend and deliverer of the people of God.