Exalting Jesus in Ezra-Nehemiah

James M. Hamilton, Jr., David Platt, Dr. Daniel L. Akin, Tony Merida, David Platt, Dr. Daniel L. Akin, Tony Merida

Edited by David Platt, Daniel L. Akin, and Tony Merida, this new commentary series, projected to be 48 volumes, takes a Christ-centered approach to expositing each book of the Bible. Rather than a verse-by-verse approach, the authors have crafted chapters that explain and apply key passages in their assigned Bible books. Readers will learn to see Christ in all aspects of Scripture, and they will be encouraged by the devotional nature of each exposition. Exalting Jesus in Ezra-Nehemiah is written by Jim Hamilton.

God Keeps His Promises

Ezra 1–2

Main Idea: Ezra 1–2 shows God keeping His promise and initiating the first installment of the new exodus and return from exile. God keeps His promises.

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1. God Stirs Cyrus (1:1-5)
2. Plundering the Babylonians at the New Exodus (1:6-11)
3. The New March on Canaan (2:1-70)

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Introduction

Do you know what the story of the Old Testament is like? It’s like this: Imagine God building a theater. (Really, He built the universe, but just imagine a theater.) The heavenly hosts are the audience ready for the display (Eph 3:10), and the earth is the stage. On this stage, God is going to dramatize His glory.

This means that you and I are living in the grand production of the Cosmic Artist whose masterpiece is staged in all creation, unfolding across world history. Don’t envy movie stars and famous people. You’re living in something bigger and better than what they do in those paltry little productions that can only imitate the big one that God is producing. Don’t get duped into thinking that drama and romance and excitement are only to be seen in movies. As N. D. Wilson writes in Notes from the Tilt-a-Whirl,

To exist in this poem is a greater gift than any finite creature can imagine. To be so insignificant yet still be given a speaking part, to be given scenes that are my own, and my own only, scenes where the audience is limited to the Author Himself (scenes that I often flub), . . . to have been crafted with at least as much care as a snowflake (though I’m harder to melt), and to hear and feel and see and taste and smell the heavy poetry of God, that is enough (Wilson, Notes, 38).

So God built this theater, and in one little section of the stage He planted a garden. He didn’t bother with actors. He put real-life characters on stage in the garden. This is God’s reality show. He meant for the real life characters to fill the stage with His glory. Instead they rebelled against Him, so they lost the privilege of living in the garden. God banished them from the realm of life.

As the cosmic drama continued, God chose a weak little nation, Israel, who were enslaved to a bigger, stronger nation, and He liberated them from slavery. Then He brought them into what amounted to another little garden on the stage, a land He had promised to them.

God meant for the little nation to fill the stage with His glory. On the way He had them build a tabernacle, then a temple. These were intended to be small-scale replicas of the whole theater. Temple and tabernacle symbolized the world (Ps 78:69). To show what He will do in the whole theater, God filled tabernacle and temple with His glory.

God’s people failed. Miserably. Just as God had done with Adam and Eve, He banished Israel from the little part of the stage He had given to them. When He banished them, to get at the significance of what was happening, their little replica of the whole theater was torn down. They were taken into captivity in Babylon.

As the plot had rolled toward that climactic moment when God finally threw them out, Israel’s prophets started to promise that just as God freed Israel from slavery in Egypt before, so He would save them again after He drove them out of the land. They promised a new exodus.

They promised that just as God and Israel came to an agreement at Mount Sinai, Israel would once again welcome God’s terms (Hos 2:14-23). They prophesied a new covenant (Jer 31:31-34).

The prophets promised that just as God had cleared the bad guys off the little part of the stage He gave to Israel, He would give them that part of the stage again. They prophesied a new conquest of the land. They promised that just as God had raised up David to shepherd His people, He would bring a righteous king from Judah. They prophesied a new David. They promised that just as God had filled the tabernacle and the temple with His glory, He would put His Spirit in them. They prophesied a new and greater experience of the Spirit. They promised that God would remove their hearts of stone and give them hearts of flesh. They prophesied new hearts. As the prophets described all this newness, they also described the theater’s destruction. After God tore down the theater, they prophesied, He would build a new and better one. They prophesied a new heaven and new earth: a new and better Eden.

New exodus, return from exile, new covenant, new conquest, new David, new experience of the Spirit, new hearts, in a new Eden—God promised all this and more to His people, and then He kept His word and judged their sin. He threw them out. They were taken from the part of the stage identified with the good guys to the part of the stage where the bad guys had their stronghold: Babylon.

Need

Do you ever feel that nothing you’re doing matters? Do you wonder what this world is for, what your life is about, and what you’re supposed to be doing? Do you wonder whether God is going to keep His promises?

The Bible’s story is the true story of the world. This is the story in which you have a part to play. This is the story where your role will be significant.

Preview

Ezra 1–2 is composed of three sections. Ezra 1:1-5 relates how God stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, resulting in his decree that those who wished could return to the land. This sets a new exodus in motion, and in Ezra 1:6-11 Israel plunders Babylon just as they had plundered Egypt. Then just as Israel was numbered for the march on the land in the book of Numbers, the people are numbered and prepared for a new march on Canaan in Ezra 2:1-70.

Context

Ezra falls nicely into two parts. (For an excellent discussion of the plot of Ezra, see Brown, Hope Amidst Ruin.) The first part, chapters 1–6, covers 80 years and concludes with the rebuilding of the temple. The second part takes place in just one year and concludes with the people sending away foreign wives. Both parts begin with a Persian decree, contain a list of returnees, and continue with an account of opposition overcome. In the first part the opposition is from the outside, and in the second it is from the inside.

Ezra 1–6—Eighty-Year Time Span

Ezra 1—Persian Decree

Ezra 2—List of Returnees

Ezra 3–6—External Opposition Overcome

Ezra 7–10—One-Year Time Span

Ezra 7—Persian Decree

Ezra 8—List of Returnees

Ezra 9–10—Internal Opposition Overcome

There are thus two accounts of return to the land, and we begin with the first in Ezra 1.

God Stirs Cyrus

Ezra 1:1-5

When did God build the stage? According to a strict interpretation of biblical numbers, a little before what we refer to as 4000 BC. When did He bring Israel out of Egypt into Canaan? He brought them out of Egypt in 1446 BC and into Canaan after they spent 40 years in the wilderness. David reigned around 1000 BC. The northern kingdom was destroyed in 721 BC, and the temple was destroyed and Judah exiled in 586 BC. The first exiles from Judah had been taken captive in 605 BC.

These last dates are important because Jeremiah had been one of the prophets announcing what would take place when God threw Israel out of the little garden on the stage. Jeremiah announced 70 years for Babylon (Jer 25:12; 29:10). Daniel was taken into exile to Babylon in 605 BC, and in 539 BC Daniel was studying Jeremiah and received significant revelations about Israel’s future (Dan 9, see also Dan 5). Daniel was in Babylon the night Babylon was conquered by the Medes and the Persians, bringing Cyrus to power.

All this informs what we read in Ezra 1:1(ESV):

In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom and also put it in writing.

So this is the way that Ezra begins ...

Table of contents

• Series Introduction
• God Keeps His Promises Ezra 1–2
• Pray and Act Nehemiah 1–2
• Messianic Hope in Ezra–Nehemiah
• Works Cited