A Building Fund. Work starts, and stops! – by Joyce Voysey

O dear!  Jeremiah is in the prophesying act too, and gets all the credit in those first verses of Ezra.  See also Jer. 29:10, 25:11-18.  Is he perhaps repeating Isaiah’s prophecy?  What period were they writing about? Isaiah:  742-687BC; Jeremiah: 626-580BC.  Of course, Jeremiah was there in plain view all the time – in verse 1!

Will I ever get past those first four verses?  Now I notice that the people were very well off in Babylon, seeing that they could contribute from their silver and gold, goods and beasts towards the effort of rebuilding Jerusalem, even if they were not part of the actual expedition.

What a restoration this was
from the beginning, with Cyrus restoring all the vessels of the house of the Lord – 5,400 of them in gold and silver.  Fascinating that they just seemed to have sat there over 50 years – “in the house of his gods”!

The listing in chapter 2 of those children who came back, with its couple of queries (2:59 & 2:62) [Ed: The Message tells us “they weren’t able to prove their ancestry” and “They had thoroughly searched for their family records but couldn’t find them.”], makes me wonder if some outsiders tried to be part of the exodus from Babylon.  There were 42,360 in all.  Surely they didn’t go all at once?

All that recording of numbers.  It seems to go back to Moses during the Exodus and the book of Numbers.  How did they record them?  Who were the recorders?  Were they ‘scribes’?  Dummelow says Ezra was a prominent scribe – one who “copied, taught and explained the law.”

I find that David appointed Levites to record – I Chron. 16:4.  Record what?  I had wondered about the Levites, who were the priestly lot.  We find so many long, long lists with numbers attached in a lot of passages.

Chapter 3 indicates that these Jews were an emotional lot.  (Ed. Ah yes, see verses 11 – 13: lots of singing, weeping, shouting for joy!)

In Chapter 4 we read that there is opposition to the building effort.  One is reminded of course of Nehemiah’s story and Sanballat and Tobiah, the opposition in his somewhat later time.  Dummelow says that the opposition “…were the Samaritans, who, in the main, were the descendants of the immigrants who, to replace the Israelite population that had been deported after the fall of Samaria, had been introduced, first of all by Sargon, from Babylon, Cuthah, and other places, and also at a later date by Esarhadden and Asshurbanipal.  But there must likewise have been mingled with them a certain number of native Israelites, who had been left behind in the country by their Assyrian conquerors.”

[Ed. The Message indicates that “these people started beating down the morale of the people of Judah...They even hired propagandists to sap their resolve.  They kept this up for about fifteen years, throughout the lifetime of Cyrus king of Persia and on into the reign of Darius king of Persia.” They wrote to the king that “that city is a rebellious city, a thorn in the side to kings and provinces, an historic center of unrest and revolt.”]*

It is noticeable to this reader that the leaders still found it necessary to be subordinate to Cyrus.  Subordinate, but having his blessing, so to speak. 

[Ed. By the end of Chapter four, all the promise of rebuilding had evaporated and the work ceased.  By this time Cyrus was no longer on the throne.]

*Interesting note from Clarke's Commentary on the Bible on Ezra 4:5

“Hired counsellors” - They found means to corrupt some of the principal officers of the Persian court, so that the orders of Cyrus were not executed; or at least so slowly as to make them nearly ineffectual.

“Until the reign of Darius” - This was probably Darius the son of Hystaspes.