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This is a difficult passage, particularly as the ending of this book. This is a pretty hard burden to bear. Does God really want all of the wives from other cultures and their children sent back to Persia?

Consequences are difficult, and make no mistake, that’s what this is. God is very, very clear with His people that they shouldn’t intermarry with people who don’t follow Him. This is for good reason: when God’s people intermarry with pagans, it does not go well for them. See Genesis through Malachi for more. In this case, it’s evident that God’s people haven’t listened. 

Ezra is an interesting figure. We don’t get as complete of a sense of his character as we do with David or Moses or Paul. What we do see from him here and in Nehemiah is what he does best: seeking to change the hearts of God’s people with God’s Word. He’s looking for transformation and restoration, and he’s looking to the Word to provide it. Smart move! 

There’s an overwhelming conviction on the part of God’s people that they’ve been disobedient to God. They’re almost unanimously willing to accept the consequences of their actions. As an aside, most scholars tend to agree that those sent away at the end of this book do not represent everyone that could be sent away. The elders of the people spend three months interviewing families, and given the prevalence of intermarriage, it’s clear that not every foreign wife is sent away—just those that refuse to forsake their foreign gods to follow the One, True God.

So what do we see from God’s people that we can take and apply to our lives? It’s not that if we’re in a “pagan marriage” we should be looking for a divorce (1 Corinthians 7:12-17). It’s that disobedience to God draws us away from Him. Marrying pagans drew His people away from Him. They confessed, they repented, they faced the consequences, and they were absolved. What disobedience in your life is drawing you away from God? What do you need to confess to your community? What repentance is God calling you to? 

“If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”

1 John 1:8-9.

Thanks be to God for Jesus Christ, in whom we have this forgiveness!

In this chapter of Ezra, he receives word that the Israelites who had started the work of rebuilding the temple and the city of Jerusalem had gotten distracted from their mission. They had disobeyed the Lord’s command by intermarrying with the surrounding cultures, acculturating to them and participating in practices that were detestable in the eyes of the Lord. 

Ezra is absolutely devastated by the news. His anguish should cause us to pause as we reflect on how quickly and easily our own hearts, lives, and faith journeys intermingle with the culture we are immersed in and are called to follow Christ in. 

Acculturation, or cultural assimilation, is so dangerous to our faith. Seemingly harmless practices lull our spiritual senses and desensitize us to the potential dangers and evil practices present within our cultures (although not all cultures are inherently evil, elements of them may be). Practices that start as being rationalized, become tolerated, and what we tolerate for long enough, becomes normal. Soon enough, what is normal and “what we’ve always known” becomes “the way things are” and we are nearly blind and numb to how our faith is sterilized and compromised as a result. 

We need to notice what is at stake. The first group of Israelites sent back to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple and the city were led by Zerubbabel sixty years earlier. The same group of people who had disobeyed God’s command and assimilated into the cultures around them also suffered spiritual apathy, which led the work they were called to in the first place to be left undone. Disobedience, acculturation, spiritual apathy, and abandonment of Kingdom work all run in the same crowd. 

Unchecked acculturation hurts our relationship with God, our relationships with one another, and our families. It jeopardizes the healing and redemptive work God wants to do in our communities. Ezra models an appropriate intervention: repentance. He acknowledges the extent and the severity of what our apathy may tempt us to gloss over. He also places our gracious Father at the center of his prayer, just as we ought to keep Jesus at the center of our faith. Despite all of our failings—those that we see and those that we are still blind to—He is faithful, and He, not our culture, is the true and only measure of righteousness and holiness we are to measure our lives and faith against.

Ezra embarks on his God-ordained mission to lead exiles from Babylon to Jerusalem. He gathers exiled families, collecting a group of as many as 4,000-5,000 people. As Ezra assembles the group, he discovers no priests are journeying with them. He sends men to recruit Levites and “because of God’s gracious hand” (v. 18), 38 priests and 220 temple servants join the travelers.

Ezra is keenly aware of God’s hand on the mission. He reveals his humble dependence and faith in God by calling on the people of God to fast and pray, asking God to provide a safe journey. Ezra reveals his immense trust in God’s protection when he denies King Artaxerxes’ offer to send soldiers to accompany them. Ezra wholeheartedly trusts that “the gracious hand of our God is on everyone who looks on him” (v. 22). Ezra records that the exiles fasted and petitioned God, and God answered.

One reason Ezra sought the Lord’s protection is because the exiles were returning to Jerusalem with approximately 33 tons of silver and gold. Ezra distributes the wealth among the priests as it was consecrated (set apart) to the Lord for use in Jerusalem’s temple. Imagine the weight, both physically and spiritually, God’s people carry as they make this trip. Ezra reports that “the hand of God was on us and protected us from enemies and bandits” (v. 31). Because of God’s presence and protection, Ezra and the exiles return safely to Jerusalem and worship in the temple. They make it home! Maybe they even proclaim Psalm 122:1: “I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the Lord.” 

Gathering Babylonian exiles and bringing them to Jerusalem was not an easy task. Yet, Ezra dedicated himself to the Lord’s work with humility and faith. As Ezra prayed, fasted, and walked in obedience, God made it possible for His people to return home. God preserved His people while they were in exile, He provided priests for the journey back, and He protected the people as they traveled. Not even one piece of gold or silver was lost along the way. 

Ephesians 2:10 reminds us we are “God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for us.” As Christ-followers, God’s gracious hand is on us. We can humbly and boldly trust God to accomplish His work in and through us. Ezra exemplifies this well. Let’s follow Ezra’s example.

The events of today’s reading take place roughly 60 years after chapter six. We finally meet Ezra! King Artaxerxes commissions Ezra, who is estimated to be only 22 years old at this point, to lead any of the Israelites in exile who desire to go back to Jerusalem. King Artaxerxes is beyond generous. He entrusts Ezra with silver and gold for the temple, encourages offerings for the temple, and even offers “whatever else is required for the house of your God… you may provide it out of the king’s treasury” (v. 20). It doesn’t stop there. He appoints Ezra to select judges that will enforce God’s law. He encourages Ezra to teach the Scriptures to all the exiles in Jerusalem. Not only is this a huge responsibility and honor for Ezra, but also unheard of for the king to make these sorts of commands!

Immediately after reading the letter, Ezra responds by praising God for moving in the king’s heart. He knows God is working in every single detail of the king’s commissioning (Proverbs 21:1). Ezra proclaims in verse 28: “I took courage, for the hand of the Lord my God was on me!” He gives all credit to God! We see Ezra’s courage come not from his status as a gifted scribe, his approval from the king, or his age—but from the Lord. 

Ezra sets an incredible example for believers. We see in verse 10 that “Ezra had set his heart to study the Law of the Lord, and to do it and to teach his statues and rules in Israel.” He was determined to know God’s Word, to do what it says, and to teach it to others. His time with the Father overflowed into all he did. Even King Artaxerxes noticed Ezra’s godly wisdom and entrusted the leadership and finances of Jerusalem into his hands. Today, may we be spurred on by Ezra’s faithfulness and devote ourselves to spending time with God in His Word, doing what He says, and teaching it to others. May our confidence and identity be rooted in Christ instead of our age, status, or circumstances. Finally, today may we take heart, because the same God who was working in all the details in Ezra 7 is on the move in our lives and world today!

If Ezra 6 was a movie we’d be on the edge of our seat, leaning in, waiting for the fist-pump-in-the-air celebration of the ending. On first reading it, we might miss the drama of it all, but look again: a lost letter of declaration found; the powerful opposition rendered powerless becoming the solution and resource to accomplish the work of the Israelites; an unlikely, ungodly advocate and defender of God’s people; a 21-year project completed; and a 70-year-old prophecy fulfilled. Sit with the drama, the weight, the excitement of it all.

To understand the excitement of it all, we need a little background. Psalm 137 reminds us of the despair of the exiles. The pain of being away from their home. “By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion (Jerusalem)…how can we sing the songs of the Lord while in a foreign land?” They lived as aliens and foreigners in a place that was not their home. Yet, they longed for home and for God to fulfill His promise to them—that He would bring them back to Jerusalem. 

God always pays for what He orders. About 70 years prior, God said (through his prophet Jeremiah), “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place.” Ezra 6 is the culmination of years of waiting. God is a promise-keeping, way-making God, who is faithful to the faithless and rebuilds places, dreams, and people out of ruins. Imagine the wonder and the buzz and the excitement when the final stone was put in place and the people of God were home again. No wonder the word joy is mentioned so often in this chapter. 

What can we learn from Ezra 6? God is faithful to keep His promises. He hasn’t forgotten us. The work we get to do on this side of heaven is met with opposition and obstacles, but God will often use unlikely and unexpected people and circumstances to fulfill the work He has for us. Our faithfulness to sacred work matters and it will often be harder and require more patience than we thought. And one day, we, too, will experience the joy of being home. Until then, let’s do the work and trust Him to complete it. 

In order to better understand this chapter, we need to first remember how the previous chapter ended. King Artaxerxes had just ordered the people of God to stop rebuilding the temple, and, for about 10 years, the project had come to a “standstill” (v. 24). However, chapter 5 begins with a brand new hope for the rebuilding efforts. Haggai and Zechariah have prophesied to the Jewish people and encouraged them to restart on the mission of building the temple. But once the project begins again, the project once more runs into opposition from the governing authorities. This external threat is a discouraging reminder of what kept the temple from being built in the first place. This obstruction effort is an essential lesson for the people of God. As we seek to faithfully follow God, we should not expect to live our lives unopposed by the enemy.  When God calls on His people to complete a task, we should expect Satan to do whatever he can to keep the task from reaching its fulfillment. 

In Ezra, the opposition comes in the form of the ruling government. But even those leaders who stood in authority weren’t the ones in ultimate control.  While the governor tried to shut the project down, “the eye of their God was watching over the elders of the Jews, and they were not stopped” (v. 5). Upon receiving push back, the Jewish people could have easily put down their tools just as they did 10 years before. However, this time they decide to continue, in courageous faith, with their mission. 

An essential lesson from this chapter that can impact our lives today is that resistance doesn’t mean something is wrong. If it feels difficult to obediently follow Jesus, remember that it should be expected more than it should be surprising. While Jesus promised that His burden is easy, He also asks us to pick up our cross each day. Even though we may encounter external or internal opposition to following God, we have the assurance that the eyes of God are watching over us. Today, we have an opportunity similar to that of the Jewish people: In the face of resistance, we don’t need to put faithfulness on pause. Instead, we can double down on obedience and choose to follow God even when it’s difficult.  

Why do you think the Jewish people were willing to continue working on this mission in the face of resilience? 

We all know what it’s like to face distractions that pull us off task. Sometimes, the distractions come from things like social media, phone calls, and text messages. We can’t seem to focus on the task in front of us because of the constant barrage of thoughts in our heads. Other times, they come from people who seem to interrupt us at the most inopportune times (all parents immediately think of their children!).

We also know what it’s like to face opposition. There are days when it seems like the universe is conspiring against us as we seek to get through the list of demands we have on any given day. Even the writing of this Bible Reading Plan devotional was delayed multiple times by random distractions and points of opposition!

We’re no different than God’s people. In Ezra 4, we see they have returned home from exile and are on task to rebuild the wall (Nehemiah) and temple (largely Ezra). As promised, God allowed His people to return from captivity to the Promised Land. Now that they’re back home, the people hope to resume the normal day-to-day activities of life in their homeland.

As they begin rebuilding the temple, God’s people face distraction and opposition from both internal and external sources. In Ezra 4:1-5, we see God’s enemies initiate a fake friendship with the exiles. They pretend to want to help rebuild the temple. Israel’s leaders wisely told their enemies they didn’t want or need their help. During their rebuilding efforts, internal opposition seeks to pull them off course. These enemies of God showed their true colors by discouraging the people of Judah, raising fears, and bribing officials to work against them. God’s people also faced opposition from the outside. Letters were written that led to what was probably a 16-18 year delay in the rebuilding of the temple.

Any good and worthy deed faces distractions and oppositions. What can you do today to deal with any distractions and opposition in front of you so that you can do the good works God has prepared in advance for you to do (Ephesians 2:10)?