Or, God Moves in Political Ways
Scripture: Ezra 1:1-11
Date: October 6, 2024
Speaker: Sean Higgins
I found out after last Sunday that “for such a time as this” is considered Christian cliche. And, I can see that. If there’s one thing that describes our modern promotion machine is that everything is overused, oversold, overhyped. And yet I say, let’s make this cliche great again! Or, it’d also be fine to forget the phrase because we’re too busy building and battling with God’s blessing.
Providentially my Omnibus class started reading Of Plymouth Plantation this weekend, which is THE book that chronicles the Pilgrims, their move across The Pond (on the Mayflower) to establish Plymouth Colony and to lay the foundations of our country. One of the things that struck me the first time I read that was that founders don’t have a lot of time to journal. You’ve got to get some seed in the ground and a roof over your head before you can capture the glories of the story. Like the Reformation, it was “a period of crass and heroic trauma, of emergency living” (a description in Angels in the Architecture).
Ezra-Nehemiah is THE book that records the Re-founding of Israel, using information from the time, put together later for the encouragement of God’s people in their “such a time.” It’s still got such profit for our “such a time.”
Ezra wrote the books we call Ezra and Nehemiah probably somewhere around 90 to 100 years after Cyrus’ decree. Ezra himself returned to rebuild under Artaxerxes, the fifth Persian king after Cyrus. As a scribe Ezra was a document professional, with a special emphasis on the Book of the Law of the Lord. That said, he cared about letters and lists concerning the rebuilding of his nation.
There are three parts to Ezra 1 with a few relevant implications that stir us up even though we’re not 6th century BC captives in Babylon.
Ezra opens with the when and the why of this history. It goes back more than 70 years when the word of the LordRD by the mouth of Jeremiah prophesied that Judah would be taken captive by the Babylonians. God judged Judah’s sin, then God would judge Babylon’s sin, and bring the Jews back to the covenant land. Ezra doesn’t refer to it, but we know that Isaiah prophesied that God appointed a king named Cyrus to deliver the people.
Cyrus defeated Babylon in October of 539 so the first year is probably 538 BC when the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus so that Cyrus got the ball rolling with a proclamation, a policy to be spread throughout all his kingdom and that was put into writing. It was official, and it was recorded, which turned out to be very important proof at a later point. “The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; He turns it wherever (and whenever) He will” (Proverbs 21:1).
The decree names the The LORD, the God of heaven. How did Cyrus know these titles? Based on this proclamation one is tempted to think that Cyrus converted to worshipping Yahweh.
Archeologists found a copy of Cyrus’s foreign policy. Ezra includes the relevant part here in verses 2-4, and hold on to that idea of the “relevant part.”
The “Cyrus Cylinder” was discovered in 1879 in modern day Iraq, and it reveals a couple things. First, Cyrus’ decree applied to all the peoples who had been taken captive, not just the Jews. The decree referred to the LORD because it was “consistent policy…to use the title of the god or gods recognized by the local population” (Williamson). All peoples were permitted to return to their lands with their images and restart their worship. Second, the cylinder shows that Cyrus credited the Babylonian god Marduk for his success. So the peoples were asked to have their gods bless Cyrus’ god(s). The more the merrier, Persian pluralism at its finest.
CNN called the Cylinder policy the “Ancient blueprint for Middle East peace” (when it toured five US cities in 2013, see here, of course the same article says “After peacefully conquering Babylon in 539 B.C.”).
“The Cyrus Cylinder sets up a model to run a multifaith, multifaceted, diverse society, leaving a model of the Middle East as a unit and what it could ideally be” (Neil MacGregor, TED Talk)
One of the reasons that Herodotus may not make a bigger deal out of Israel is not only that they were a small group but, from his perspective, their return under Cyrus was nothing special. Numerous peoples were free to return to their lands. It was a political move by Cyrus, not a religious one.
Verses 2-4 are a selected part of the policy, and the divine titles used in the decree are more like bureaucratic fill-in-the-blanks.
Why did Ezra’s “copy and paste” make Cyrus sound so pro-Jew? First, because the diplomatic boilerplate filled in the relevant info for each people-group: their god(s) name and place. The house of God that is in Jerusalem probably meant little to Cyrus on a personal level.
But second, Ezra knew what Cyrus’ decree included. It didn’t have to be exhaustively Yahwehnian to be fulfilling Yahweh’s purpose. It was fulfilling the LORD’s prophetic promise. The LORD has purposeS, plural, and Ezra focused on the relevant parts for Israel’s joy. God moves in political ways.
The same key word is used in verse 5 of many as it was in verse 1 of one: stirred. The divine hand moved some men to change their lives, for the harder and more memorable mission.
Verses 5-6 introduce the a few categories of persons and some of their supplies. The houses of Judah and Benjamin were the two not-lost tribes of Israel. The northern kingdom, with 10 tribes, were taken captive by Assyria before Judah fell to Babylon. The heads of the fathers’ houses were some of the family patriarchs. All who were about them were those who were not planning to move, though many gave support.
The minority were limited to everyone whose spirit God had stirred to go up to rebuild. Again, not everyone wanted to leave “captivity,” It is reasonable that many righteous Jews remained, even if they gave aid to the adventurers (see verse 4).
Verse 6 gives a “Second Exodus” feel.
Verses 7-11 refer to the items from the temple that had been taken, and verses 9-11 in particular give the (partial) inventory. The Jews didn’t have images of their God; the LORD forbade images in the Second Commandment. But they did have consecrated and costly items that belonged with the temple worship, and Cyrus had them brought out of the archives.
Sheshbazzar is named as the prince of Judah. He’s mentioned again in chapter 5 related to this first group of returners (Ezra 5:14, 16), but otherwise we don’t have much to go on. Zerubbabel, first named in 2:2, gets more attention. Sheshbazzar must have been the first governor.
The numbers don’t add up in verse 11. We might wonder why numbers at all. There is a book of the Bible titled, “Numbers.” Ezra chapter 2 is Numbers-City. But keeping count of basins and bowls and vessels? The specifics won’t let loose that God is in the details more than the devil; He gave them their stuff back.
And God brought up the exiles from Babylonia to Jerusalem.
God hasn’t give us, as Christians in the United States, a 70 year promise that a re-founding of our country will happen. But, actually, unlike many of our Christian brothers in other nations, we can, like Ezra, recognize God’s providences in the persecutions and travels and wars and troubles and sacrifices that increase the thankfulness of those who serve God. Our country’s founding was explicitly for God’s sake, and also not everyone participated with pure hearts before God.
But Ezra’s record encouraged people to worship God, and to be thankful to God for how God moved in political ways, whether or not all those so moved knew the source of their motivation. Ezra’s record also assumes that global powers can, even should, recognize God’s power over the globe. Every king/president/governor lives and moves and has his being by God’s stirring.
God moves in political ways. He still works and wills for His pleasure. He still stirs. Doesn’t that stir you up to take heart?
The Lord, the God of heaven, is building a spiritual house of living stones to offer spiritual sacrifices through Jesus Christ. You, believers, are those stones. You are sojourners called to good deeds that glorify God, even when others speak against you as evildoers. The Lord will give you what you need.
And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. To our God and Father be glory forever and ever. Amen. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. (Philippians 4:19–20, 23 ESV)