Year 2, Week 27, Day 2 Bible Reading Observations

Year 2, Week 27, Day 2

I have a brief observation for today’s reading of Ezra 9-10.

Today’s reading completes the Book of Ezra. Ezra 1-6 covered a period of time from about 538 BC to 515 BC recording the first group of returnees and the work they accomplished in rebuilding the Temple. As we return to Ezra 7, which unfolds about sixty years after Ezra 6 or about 458 BC, Ezra is a part of the second group of returnees. While the first group of returnees rebuilt the Temple, Ezra, as a part of the second group of returnees, will seek to rebuild the people—to rebuild them in accordance to covenant faithfulness. Ezra 9 highlights an immediate issue that prevented those once again living in Jerusalem, to live obedient to the LORD: “The people of Israel and the priests and the Levites have not separated themselves from the peoples of the lands with their abominations, from the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites. For they have taken some of their daughters to be wives for themselves and for their sons, so that the holy race has mixed itself with the peoples of the lands. And in this faithlessness the hand of the officials and chief men has been foremost” (Ezra 9:1b-2). Israel had long been forbidden to marry foreigners, not for ethnic reasons, but for spiritual reasons: “When the LORD your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites…You shall make no covenant with them and show no mercy to them. You shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons, for they would turn away your sons from following me, to serve other gods” (Deuteronomy 7:1-4a). Ezra 10 records the repentance of the people: "We have broken faith with our God and have married foreign women from the peoples of the land, but even now there is hope for Israel in spite of this. Therefore let us make a covenant with our God to put away all these wives and their children, according to the counsel of my lord and of those who tremble at the commandment of our God, and let it be done according to the Law” (Ezra 10:2b-3).

One of the things that struck me from today’s reading was Ezra’s corporate prayer: “And at the evening sacrifice I rose from my fasting, with my garment and my cloak torn, and fell upon my knees and spread out my hands to the LORD my God” (Ezra 9:5). As Ezra assessed the situation of intermarriage among the Israelites and the nations, he first mourned and grieved over the tragedy: “As soon as I heard this, I tore my garment and my cloak and pulled hair from my head and beard and sat appalled. Then all who trembled at the words of the God of Israel, because of the faithlessness of the returned exiles, gathered around me while I sat appalled until the evening sacrifice” (Ezra 9:3-4). Ezra’s mourning and grieving expressed itself through coming before the LORD in prayer. A closer look at the shape of Ezra’s prayer provides important insight into honestly acknowledging sin, but also humbling appealing to God’s mercy.

Ezra opens his prayer with a statement of his person shame over the situation in which the returnees placed themselves: “O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift my face to you, my God, for our iniquities have risen higher than our heads, and our guilt has mounted up to the heavens” (Ezra 9:6). Ezra’s personal confession of guilt, which was expressed on behalf of the people, was acknowledged as a breaking of God’s standards and thus was a guilt before the LORD Himself. Ezra added a retroactive dimension to his confession: “From the days of our fathers to this day we have been in great guilt. And for our iniquities we, our kings, and our priests have been given into the hand of the kings of the lands, to the sword, to captivity, to plundering, and to utter shame, as it is today” (Ezra 9:7). Israel’s sins against the LORD was not a recent phenomenon, but a long standing one. Israel should have been ashamed and blushed long before their exile: “Were they ashamed when they committed abomination? No, they were not at all ashamed; they did not know how to blush. Therefore they shall fall among those who fall; at the time that I punish them, they shall be overthrown” (Jeremiah 6:15).

Ezra’s prayer includes an acknowledgement of God’s grace: “But now for a brief moment favor has been shown by the LORD our God, to leave us a remnant and to give us a secure hold within his holy place, that our God may brighten our eyes and grant us a little reviving in our slavery. For we are slaves. Yet our God has not forsaken us in our slavery, but has extended to us his steadfast love before the kings of Persia, to grant us some reviving to set up the house of our God, to repair its ruins, and to give us protection in Judea and Jerusalem” (Ezra 9:8-9). The LORD had judged them but also preserved them. The very fact that they were regathering back in Jerusalem is evidence that the full penalty of their guilt was withheld from them: “And after all that has come upon us for our evil deeds and for our great guilt, seeing that you, our God, have punished us less than our iniquities deserved and have given us such a remnant as this” (Ezra 9:13). And against the backdrop of God’s mercy, Ezra confesses words of repentance: “shall we break your commandments again and intermarry with the peoples who practice these abominations? Would you not be angry with us until you consumed us, so that there should be no remnant, nor any to escape? O LORD, the God of Israel, you are just, for we are left a remnant that has escaped, as it is today. Behold, we are before you in our guilt, for none can stand before you because of this” (Ezra 9:14-15). When it is truly understood, the mercy of God stimulates a repentance from sin.

What struck you in today’s reading? What questions were prompted from today’s reading?

Pastor Joe