Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us,
Psalm 90:17
I go through seasons when I LOVE the Old Testament. I love the words of Jeremiah and Isaiah. Also, a part of Nehemiah captured my heart a few years ago. But last week, I decided that I wanted to re-read Nehemiah. Mostly because the ESV Study Bible says the theme of the book is "the Lord's protection of his people and the need for their faithfulness in keeping the Torah (Mosaic law) and their faithfulness in worship". It says the theme of Ezra is "faithfulness to the Lord, both in worship (hence the building of the new temple) and in keeping the Torah, the Mosaic law)." So worship and obedience are the themes of these books and I am interested to see how the Lord shows himself to the Israelites in this time when they were just freed from the oppression of the Babylonians. Worship and obedience are what the Lord loves from us too! And it is ALWAYS good to reflect on His faithfulness!
Something that stood out to me from Ezra chapters 5-6: [this is my brief and very simple summary] The other nations were wanting to stop the rebuilding of the temple and the Israelites from building their place of worship. They were given permission to return to Jerusalem to rebuild their temple by King Cyrus (who was for the Israelites). He commanded that they be allowed to rebuild. When the other nations were trying to stop the rebuilding years later, the new king - King Darius stood up for the Israelites, too. He had the records searched for the original decree from King Cyrus. When he found the original decree - he himself made a decree for the people of Israel. It's pretty awesome. Ezra 6:1-12
"Keep away. Let the work on his house of God alone...let them rebuild. AND pay the men the cost w/o delay; and give them whatever they need day by day without fail, so they can offer pleasing sacrifices to the God of heaven and pray for the life of the king and sons." [I paraphrased some, so go to Ezra 6 to read it for yourself].1. So not only were the other nations not to interfere with the rebuilding - they were also commanded to supply the Israelites anything they needed to worship their God and to rebuild the temple!! I imagine that was NOT the response the opposing forces were wanting. Then, King Darius follows that decree with this one...even more mind blowing
"If you alter this command, a beam shall be pulled out of his house and he shall be impaled on it and his house will be a dunghill."2. That seems crazy to me! The King was so adamant that the Israelites rebuild their temple - he threatened the lives of those who wanted to interfere. The LORD had provided through the King the support they needed to obey the Lord and to have their place of worship back.
3. This is a side note - but I love that King Darius included the phrase 'day by day' - in his decree. The Lord himself provides for us daily and it is a way to show that the Lord would provide daily the resources and even animals needed to worship God faithfully!
4. I just really love that the Lord used the Kings ( FYI: the ESV study Bible says the Kings may not have believed that the God of Heaven was the only God - so they themselves may not have even been believers in Yahweh (the Israelites God), to rebuild the place of worship and the needs of His chosen people and nation.
How it applies:
The Lord will provide! Amen. And He may even use people you wouldn't expect to defend you as a chosen one of God and provide for you to accomplish His work.
Psalm 33:8-12 seems to reflect what happened here:
Let all the earth fear the Lord;
let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him!
For he spoke and it came to be;
he commanded and it stood firm.
The counsel of the Lord stands forever,
Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord,
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