Esther 6-10 (Day 358)

We left the story last time with Haman, after leaving the banquet with Queen Esther, having a gallows built so that he could hang Mordecai at the suggestion of his family.

Esther had been coy about what she wanted from the king, so maybe that’s why “that night, the king could not sleep, so he ordered the book of the chronicles, the record of his reign, to be brought in and read to him” (6:1). Maybe he’s trying to figure out what Esther wants. The king’s secretary reads the account of Mordecai discovering the plot to kill the king, and the king wants to know if Mordecai has been rewarded. The secretary says he hasn’t.

Then, “coincidentally,” Haman is in the court (to ask the king’s permission to hang Mordecai no doubt), and the king summons him. The king asks Haman what should be done for someone the king wants to honor. Haman, being the arrogant person he is, assumes the king is talking about him. So he tells the king, “For the man the king delights to honor, have them bring a royal robe the king has worn and a horse the king has ridden, one with a royal crest placed on its head. Then let the robe and horse be entrusted to one of the king’s most noble princes. Let them robe the man the king delights to honor, and lead him on the horse through the city streets, proclaiming before him, ‘This is what is done for the man the king delights to honor!'” (6:7-9). And Haman is shocked when the king tells Haman to do this to Mordecai, but he does it. Afterward, he goes home and tells his family what happened, and they’re convinced that something bad will happen to Haman, but before they can plot any strategy, Haman gets summoned back to the king for the next banquet with Esther.

So Esther has the banquet, and after a couple days of eating and drinking, the king asks Esther (again) what she wants. This time, Esther tells him, “If I have found favor with you, O king, and if it pleases your majesty, grant me my life – that is my petition. And spare my people – that is my request. For I and my people have been sold for destruction and slaughter and annihilation” (7:3-4a). King Xerxes wants to know who would do such a thing, and Queen Esther throws Haman right under the bus. The king is very, very, angry and storms out of the room. Haman is terrified, knowing that the king will probably execute him, and so while the king is out of the room, he starts to plead with Esther to save his life. Unfortunately, “just as the king returned from the palace garden to the banquet hall, Haman was falling on the couch where Esther was reclining” (7:8a). The king thinks Haman is trying to molest the queen, and that makes him even more angry. One of the eunuchs tells the king about the gallows Haman made for Mordecai, and so the king orders Haman hanged on it. Hoisted by one’s own petard, literally…

So after Haman is hanged, the king gives Esther Haman’s estate and he gives Mordecai his signet ring that Haman had. So Esther and Haman are safe, but the edict to annihilate the Jews still stands. So Esther pleads with the king to do something so that the Jews won’t be destroyed. So he has his secretaries write a second edict that allows the Jews to defend themselves on the day they’re supposed to be annihilated. And this edict goes everywhere, in each local language, just like the first one did. And there was much rejoicing among the Jews, but “many people of other nationalities became Jews because fear of the Jews had seized them” (8:17b).

And the day of destruction, as it were, comes, but the Jews triumph. They’re ready to fight, and they win partly because they’re well-armed, but also “because the people of all the other nationalities were afraid of them” (9:2b). And in the resulting melee, Haman’s ten sons are killed. News of the Jews’ victory in the outlying areas reaches Susa, but for some reason Esther asks the king to let the Jews defend themselves for another day in Susa only, and to hang the bodies of Haman’s ten sons on the gallows. The king grants all this. The author of the book explains that this is why Jews in rural areas celebrate the holiday commemorating all this on different days from those in Jerusalem.

Then “Mordecai recorded these events, and he sent letters to all the Jews throughout the provinces of King Xerxes, near and far, to have them celebrate annually the fourteenth and fifteenth days of the month of Adar as the time when the Jews got relief from their enemies, and as the month when their sorrow was turned into joy and their mourning into a day of celebration. He wrote to them to observe the days as days of feasting and joy and giving presents of food to one another and gifts to the poor” ” (9:20-22). This is the holiday still celebrated by Jews as Purim, named after the lot (pur – purim is the plural of the word) that was used to choose the date of the Jews’ (foiled) destruction.

Esther 1-5 (Day 351)

Today we read the first half of the book of Esther. Esther is a somewhat unusual book in that nowhere in it does it mention God or sacrifice or the law or anything overtly religious. Many scholars have used this to ignore or discredit the book, but the careful reader will notice that the omission of direct reference to God actually supports the idea that God is in control. There are numerous “coincidences” throughout the book that, if one believes in God and His sovereignty, can only be attributed to God. So this book is not a book meant to convert unbelievers, but rather to support believers. And it’s a pretty exciting story, to boot! Nothing is known about who the author was, and the book is difficult to date with any precision. It must have been written after the events recorded in it (so after 460 BC or so) and because of the language and writing style, some scholars think it must have been written before 331 BC. But there is no hard evidence that points to a precise date.

The book is set during the reign of King Xerxes, father of Artaxerxes, whom we read about in Ezra chapter 4 (see that post here). Xerxes is having a huge party, or perhaps he’s planning some raids (that actually don’t turn out that well). In any case, after this meeting/party, he has another party, but only for those who live in the citadel – a castle sort of place. The wine is flowing and Xerxes is feeling pretty good, so he calls for his wife, Queen Vashti, who is having her own party. He wants to show off her beauty. Apparently Queen Vashti is having her own fun, or perhaps the thought of being shown off doesn’t appeal to her, or perhaps she knows how Xerxes gets when he’s drunk and she wants no part of that. In any case, Vashti refuses to come to the King, which is quite the career-limiting move.

So, King Xerxes gets a bit irate. Or more than a bit, really. And he consults with his legal advisers about what to do about the fact that Queen Vashti has snubbed him. The advisers are worried that once all the other ladies of the court find out that Queen Vashti snubbed him, then they’ll feel free to snub their husbands. And we can’t have that, now can we? So they tell the king that Queen Vashti’s punishment should be that “Vashti is never again to enter the presence of King Xerxes. Also let the king give her royal position to someone else who is better than she” (1:19b). King Xerxes likes this idea, so he issues an edict that is sent throughout the entire kingdom, translated into each local language, of course, “that every man should be ruler over his own household” (1:22c). Take that, Vashti!

So it takes a while for King Xerxes to start looking for a new queen, possibly because he’s out doing those raids he was planning at the beginning of the story. But in any case, in order to find a new queen, he has something of a beauty contest. His advisers tell him to have his henchmen, I mean, assistants, go find a bunch of beautiful virgins and “then let the girl who pleases the king be queen instead of Vashti” (2:4a). And the king likes this idea very much and so he implements it.

Now we actually hear about Esther – the heroine of the book! She is a Jew, raised by her cousin, Mordecai, because her parents are dead. Mordecai is a wise and it seems loving parent for Esther, and he also appears to be a fairly high-ranking official within Xerxes’ government. So she’s got that going for her. And Esther gets picked to be part of the beauty contest and get the beauty treatments. And when you get picked, you don’t say no. So off she goes to the palace. But Mordecai instructs Esther not to tell anyone she’s a Jew, and she doesn’t. She wins the favor of the eunuch who is in charge of the contestants, and he gives her special treatment and special food, though there’s no reason to think that it’s kosher food, since no one knows she’s a Jew.

Now, in this beauty contest, each young virgin spends a year getting beauty treatments, so she can look her best for the king. And then when her turn comes, “in the evening she would go there [to the king’s palace] and in the morning return to another part of the harem to the care of Shaashgaz, the king’s eunuch who was in charge of the concubines. She would not return to the king unless he was pleased with her and summoned her by name” (2:14). OK, so I’m pretty sure you know what a concubine is. And the girl goes to the king in the evening and doesn’t come back until the morning, and then she goes to live with the concubines. I don’t think they’re playing backgammon all night…

But eventually it’s Esther’s turn and she pleases the king: “Now the king was attracted to Esther more than to any of the other women, and she won his favor and approval more than any of the other virgins. So he set a royal crown on her head and made her queen instead of Vashti” (2:17). So she won the contest! But in all this, there is an undercurrent of the action being directed from “above” if you will. Esther being chosen in the first place, winning the favor of the eunuch and then winning the favor of the king probably required a little help from God.

So Esther’s queen and Mordecai’s a high-ranking official. And high-ranking officials hang out at the king’s gate. It’s where business, legal and otherwise, gets done. So, in the course of this business, Mordecai overhears a plot to assassinate King Xerxes by two of the king’s officers. Mordecai tells Queen Esther, Queen Esther tells the king, the king investigates and finds out that it’s true, they were plotting to assassinate him, and he has the officers executed. And Mordecai doesn’t get so much as a thank you for saving the king’s life. Ah well. It does pay off for him later…

Then we hear about Haman. He’s an even higher-ranking official than Mordecai. The king really likes Haman, so he was probably a big brown-noser. He was certainly extremely arrogant, which we’ll see later. In any case, King Xerxes really liked him and gave “him a seat of honor higher than that of all the other nobles” (3:1b). Haman expects everyone to bow down to him, because he’s so important, but Mordecai won’t. It may be because Jews aren’t supposed to bow down to anyone but God (or their own king), or it could be that Haman is an Amalekite, a people who were long-standing enemies of the Jews, and so there’s no way Mordecai is going to bow down to him.

So Haman finds out that Mordecai is a Jew, and Haman for some reason decides that it’s not enough just to destroy Mordecai, he’s going to destroy all the Jews. So they cast the pur (lot) and choose a day almost a year hence to destroy the Jews. And Haman goes to the king and tells him, “There is a certain people dispersed and scattered among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom whose customs are different from those of all other people and who do not obey the king’s laws; it is not in the king’s best interest to tolerate them” (3:8). Like Nehemiah, Haman doesn’t identify the ethnicity of this people – just tells the king what they’re doing, though, unlike Nehemiah, what he says is only half true. They do have their own customs and laws, but they’re not disobeying the king. In any case, this convinces the king to issue a decree that all Jews should be destroyed, and all their belongings plundered, on the day chosen by the lot (pur). Haman had offered to put about 2/3 of a year’s revenue into the king’s treasury for the destruction of the Jews, but the king doesn’t want the money. And the edict gets sent out to the whole kingdom (just like the one about Queen Vashti).

So Mordecai hears about this edict and he’s naturally a bit perturbed, as are all the other Jews in the kingdom, as you might imagine. Queen Esther seems to be the only person in the kingdom that doesn’t know about the edict, or at least she’s not mourning over it. Mordecai is in sackcloth and Queen Esther tries to get him to take it off and put on regular clothes (she sends him some to wear), but he won’t. So Mordecai has a go-between tell Queen Esther about the edict and to try and persuade Esther “to go into the king’s presence to beg for mercy and plead with him for her people” (4:8b). (A go-between is needed because Mordecai can’t be in the king’s gate in sackcloth, and typically random men aren’t allowed to talk to the queen).

But Esther reminds Mordecai that you can’t just walk in to the king’s presence. You have to be summoned. If you’re not summoned and you go in to the king’s presence, the punishment is death, unless the king issues an immediate pardon. So Mordecai is asking Queen Esther to risk her life. But Mordecai, wise man that he is, cautions Queen Esther, “Do not think that because you are in the king’s house you alone of all the Jews will escape. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?” (4:13-14). Here we see Mordecai’s faith that God’s purposes will be accomplished, through Esther or through someone else, and his confidence that Esther has been put where she is by God, even though he doesn’t come out and say it.

So Esther tells Mordecai to get all the Jews in the city to fast for three days, and she and her maids in waiting are going to fast, too. And she also makes a statement of steely resolve that I find inspiring, “When this [the fast] is done, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish” (4:16b). This is the kind of resolve and trust in God that martyrs have. I would hope that were I in such a situation, I would have that kind of resolve, too.

So after the fast, Esther gets all dressed up in her queen clothes and goes to see the king. Luckily, he’s happy to see her and issues her the immediate pardon she needs so she’s not executed. He asks her what she wants, and says he’ll give it to her “even up to half the kingdom” (5:3b). But Esther gets kind of coy then. She asks the king to come to a banquet she’s giving, him and Haman (Mordecai’s arch-enemy and the man who wants to destroy the Jews). So they come to her banquet and thoroughly enjoy themselves, and so the king asks her what she wants again. And Esther tells him that she wants the two of them to come to another banquet the following day, and then she’ll tell the king what she wants. She’s a clever girl, because I’m sure the king’s interest was piqued at this point. He’s intrigued by her intrigue.

Then we see Haman’s reaction to all this. He thinks he’s just the cat’s meow, because he’s been invited to these two private banquets by the queen. “Haman went out that day happy and in high spirits” (5:9a). But then he sees Mordecai, his enemy, who won’t give him any honor. But he’s in such a good mood that he doesn’t do anything rash to Mordecai. And so Haman goes home and starts boasting to his wife and his friends about how important he is, but how “all this gives me no satisfaction as long as I see that Jew Mordecai sitting at the king’s gate” (5:13). So his wife and friends give him this advice “‘Have a gallows built, seventy-five feet high, and ask the king in the morning to have Mordecai hanged on it. Then go with the king to the dinner and be happy.’ This suggestion delighted Haman, and he had the gallows built” (5:14b). Cue the dramatic music…

Nehemiah 10-13 (Day 344)

Today we finish the book of Nehemiah. Last time, after a long prayer of history and confession, the people made an agreement to keep the Law of God.

The reading starts with a list of those who put their seals on the agreement from last time. Nehemiah is first on the list. Then come the priests, then Levites, then “the leaders of the people” (10:14a). And they and all “the rest of the people – priests, Levites, gatekeepers, singers, temple servants and all who separated themselves from the neighboring peoples for the sake of the Law of God, together with their wives and all their sons and and daughters who are able to understand – all these now join their brothers the nobles, and bind themselves with a curse and an oath to follow the Law of God given through Moses the servant of God and to obey carefully all the commands, regulations and decrees of the Lord our Lord” (10:28-29). And they promise specifically not to intermarry with non-Jews, to observe the Sabbath, to pay the temple tax, to bring the first fruits to the temple, and to bring the tithe to the Levites, all as dictated by the Law.

Then, apparently, Jerusalem was not particularly well-populated, and so they encouraged people living elsewhere to relocate to Jerusalem, but not many people wanted to take them up on it. So they drew lots to see who will go, 10% of them. And then comes a list of “the provincial leaders who settled in Jerusalem” (11:3), and of the various other villages in which the returned exiles settled. We then get a list of “the priests and Levites who returned with Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel and with Jeshua” (12:1) – the “first wave” of exiles returning.

So the Temple has been rebuilt (by Zerubbabel) and the wall has been rebuilt (under the direction of Nehemiah). And so the wall needs to be dedicated. and “at the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem, the Levites were sought out from where they lived and were brought to Jerusalem to celebrate joyfully the dedication with songs of thanksgiving and with the music of cymbals, harps and lyres…When the priests and Levites had purified themselves ceremonially, they purified the people, the gates and the wall” (12:27, 30). It was quite a celebration. And Nehemiah puts people “in charge of the storerooms for the contributions, firstfruits and tithes” (12:44). And we get another reading of the Law and the removal of the foreigners from the midst of the Israelites.

And at some point, Nehemiah goes back to King Artaxerxes’ court and while he’s gone, things go a bit awry. The people don’t honor the agreement they made and put their seals on – they don’t really do any of the things they say they’re going to do. Eliashib the priest has given Tobiah, Nehemiah’s enemy, rooms in the temple, which is forbidden, and the people were not paying their tithes. So Nehemiah threw Tobiah out of his temple rooms, and dressed down the leaders for not enforcing the tithe. Nehemiah then makes the leaders do their job and the people bring their tithes.

Nehemiah’s next order of business is when he notices that people are not observing the Sabbath as they said they would. They are treading grapes for wine and bringing grain and such into the city to sell it on the Sabbath, and are letting foreign merchants come in to sell things on the Sabbath. So Nehemiah orders the gates of the city shut just before sundown (the boundary between days in the Jewish culture) as the Sabbath begins and keeps them shut until the following sundown when the Sabbath ends. Some merchants still come a few times, but when they realize Nehemiah is serious, they stop coming.

Nehemiah also notices that people have, despite their oath, married non-Jews. Nehemiah gets most upset that one of the priests has married a non-Jew and even worse, he’s married the daughter of one of Nehemiah’s enemies from building the wall. So Nehemiah sends him away.

And the book ends with Nehemiah purifying “the priests and the Levites of everything foreign, and assigned them duties, each to his own task. [He] also made provision for contributions of wood at designated time, and for the firstfruits” (13:30-31a). And we find out the focus of Nehemiah’s efforts: “Remember me with favor O my God” (13:31b).

Nehemiah 5-9 (Day 337)

Today we continue reading about Nehemiah’s efforts to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem and the things that occurred during and after they are rebuilt.

Last time, we read about all the opposition that Nehemiah faced from other local governors who were threatened by the re-fortification of the city. Today’s reading begins with a bit of a sidebar. “Now the men and their wives raised a great outcry against their Jewish brothers” (5:1). It’s so bad that even the wives are getting involved. And there are three main problems: those who had no land did not have enough food, those who did have land had to mortgage it to buy grain during a famine that had struck, and some had to borrow money and were being charged exorbitant rates by their fellow Jews (which was prohibited by the Law).

This makes Nehemiah very angry, and he calls out the leaders and the wealthy: “You are exacting usury from your own countrymen!…As far as possible, we have bought back our Jewish brothers who were sold to the Gentiles, Now you are selling your brothers, only for them to be sold back to us!” (4:7b, 8a). And those he is accusing have no answer for him, because they know they’re wrong. So Nehemiah orders them, “Give back to them immediately their fields, vineyards, olive groves and houses, and also the usury you are charging them” (5:11). And the wealthy agree to do so. Nehemiah makes them take an oath that they will do this, which they do, and he says that even though he is governor, he never takes the governors “tax” on people – he won’t burden them any further than they already are. In addition, Nehemiah feeds more than 150 people in his house every day, making sure that people have enough to eat.

Then finally the wall is built, but there are no gates in it. The word about this reaches those who had been opposing the building project, and so they decide to try and entice Nehemiah away from Jerusalem, so they can kill him and prevent the wall from being finished (a wall with no gates is pretty useless as a fortress). First they try to get him to meet them in ostensibly neutral territory, but Nehemiah recognizes it as a trap, and refuses to go. They try this four times, and four times Nehemiah refuses. Then they try and spread a rumor that Nehemiah plans to make himself king, thus trying to bring Artaxerxes’ wrath on him, but that doesn’t work either. So then they try and get a prophet to entice Nehemiah to shut himself up in the Temple (with the prophet) to avoid being killed. Nehemiah knows that this would be an act of cowardice and would demoralize the people, so he refuses to go. So all their plans are thwarted.

So the wall is finally done and the gates installed, and gatekeepers and singers and such are appointed (necessary since the Jews had been away from Jerusalem for 70 years, so the former ones likely would have died out). Then comes a list of the exiles who returned from exile, which is basically the same list as that found in Ezra 2.  So once all the exiles are settled, everybody who is capable of understanding the Law gets together in a square by one of the gates, and Ezra reads the Law to them (proof that Ezra and Nehemiah were contemporaries). There are also Levites there that interpret (or translate, depending on how the word is translated) the Law for them, so that they can understand it fully. When the people hear the Law, they begin to weep, but “Nehemiah the governor, Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who were instructing the people said to them all, ‘This day is sacred to the Lord your God. Do not mourn or weep'” (8:9). And so they all go out and party.

The reading of the Law continues for a second day, where they find the command to keep the feast of booths, and so they celebrate that as they should. As a matter of fact, “from the days of Joshua son of Nun until that day, the Israelites had not celebrated it like this. And their joy was very great” (8:17b). This doesn’t mean that they hadn’t celebrated the Feast of Booths since then, only that this was quite a celebration!

Then there is a great fast,, where “the Israelites gathered together, fasting and wearing sackcloth and having dust on their heads” (9:1), all signs of penitence. And there is a long prayer of praise and thanksgiving to God, for His patience with His people. This prayer relates the entire history of Israel, in summary, from Abraham until Nehemiah’s time, showing the cycle of Israel’s rebellion, followed by some kind of punishment/exile/oppression, their crying out to God, and His deliverance of them. And they again cry out to God for deliverance: “Now therefore, O our God, the great, mighty and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love, do not let all this hardship seem trifling in your eyes – the hardship that has come upon us, upon our kings and leaders, upon our priests and prophets, upon our fathers and all your people, from the days of the kings of Assyria until today…But see, we are slaves today, slaves in the land you gave our forefathers so that they could eat its fruit and the other good things it produces. Because of our sins, its abundant harvest goes to the kings you have placed over us. They rule over our bodies and our cattle as they please. We are in great distress” (9:32, 36-37). And they make a binding, written agreement and have the leaders, priests, and Levites put their seals on it. It’s a renewal (yet again) of their commitment to keeping the covenant.

Nehemiah 1-4 (Day 330)

Today we begin reading the book of Nehemiah. It is an account of the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem, just after Ezra came to Jerusalem to help get things straightened out in the newly rebuilt Temple.

The story begins with Nehemiah “in the citadel of Susa” (1:1b), asking one of his brothers who has just come from Jerusalem how things are going. The brother does not have good news – “the wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been burned with fire” (1:3b). This is probably not a reference to the destruction of the wall by the Babylonians, but rather to the work stoppage ordered by Artaxerxes himself, whom Nehemiah serves, recorded in Ezra 4:7-23. Nehemiah is so distressed by all this that he sits down and weeps. He mourns and fasts and prays, and finally confesses his own sins, the sins of his entire household, and the sins of all Israel before God. He “reminds” God that according to the Covenant, if His people reject Him and are exiled, but later turn back to Him, “even if your exiled people are at the farthest horizon, I will gather them from there and bring them to the place I have chosen as a dwelling for my Name” (1:9b), and then Nehemiah asks God to “give your servant success today by granting him favor in the presence of this man” (1:11b), meaning the king. Nehemiah, the king’s cupbearer, has resolved to take action regarding the ruined walls of Jerusalem.

So while Nehemiah is serving the king, his sadness becomes evident to the king. This is not how things should be – the king’s servants were to always present a cheerful face to the king, but Nehemiah’s face was sad. The king asks him about it, and Nehemiah, too clever to reveal the name of Jerusalem says, “Why should my face not look sad when the city where my fathers are buried lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed by fire?” (2:3b). The king asks Nehemiah what he wants, and, after praying a quick prayer to God, Nehemiah asks the king if he can return to Jerusalem (though he just calls it “the city in Judah where my fathers are buried” – 2:5b) and rebuild it. The king agrees to send him, though temporarily (he expects Nehemiah back).

This encourages Nehemiah, so he also asks for letters of safe conduct, and also a letter allowing Nehemiah to take timber out of the king’s forest to rebuild the city gates, the wall, and his own house. The king grants it, as Nehemiah says, “because the gracious hand of my God was upon me” (2:8b). Nehemiah also gets an armed escort. Not bad. But this action does not make some of the local (non-Jewish) officials happy, as you might imagine. Most of their issue is political, though, not religious. They’re suspicious of a new governor, fearing he might take territory or power from them.

So Nehemiah very shrewdly plays his hand close to his chest and inspects the walls under cover of darkness and practically alone. After his inspection, Nehemiah then says to the people in Jerusalem, “You see the trouble we are in: Jerusalem lies in ruins, and its gates have been burned with fire. Come, let us rebuild the walls of Jerusalem and we will no longer be in disgrace” (2:17). So they start rebuilding. This just makes the other officials quite unhappy, and “they mocked and ridiculed us. ‘What is this you are doing?’ they asked, ‘Are you rebelling against the king?'” (2:19b). But Nehemiah is unafraid. He trusts in God: “I answered them by saying, ‘The God of heaven will give us success. We his servants will start rebuilding, but as for you, you have no share in Jerusalem or any claim or historic right to it” (2:20). They’re not Israelites, so they don’t deserve to be there and have no right to ridicule them.

Then the book records the various people that were helping to rebuild the wall. The account begins at the Sheep Gate (where sheep markets were, and sometimes still are, located) and goes counter-clockwise around the city, telling who was fixing which part of the wall or which gate, ending up back at the Sheep Gate. Many people fixed the parts of the walls that were near their houses, which seems logical. There’s a sense of everyone pitching in, with the exception of the nobles of Tekoa, who “would not put their shoulders to the work under their supervisors” (3:5b). Apparently they were too good for manual labor, but the men of Tekoa fixed two sections (3:5, 27). The idea that everybody pitched in is shown with this: “Shallum son of Hallohesh, ruler of a half-district of Jerusalem, repaired the next section with the help of his daughters” (3:12). You go, girls!

But all this rebuilding just makes the non-Jewish officials even more angry, and they continue to ridicule the people, wondering if there’s any way “those feeble Jews” (4:2) can do what they say they’re going to do. They’re trying to undermine the workers’ confidence. One of them even says that the walls are so poorly constructed (so far) that a little fox running on top of them will topple them. Nehemiah’s response? Prayer. “Hear us, O our God, for we are despised. Turn their insults back on their own heads. Give them over as plunder in a land of captivity” (4:4). And the rebuilding continues.

But this makes the other officials so mad that they start plotting to fight against the Jews and to prevent the rebuilding from continuing. But again, Nehemiah prays and posts a guard. Trust in God, but lock your car. Nehemiah hears of a plot to infiltrate Jerusalem and attack it, and so he posts guards at the weakest (and most conspicuous) points in the wall, so that it’s obvious Nehemiah knows of the plot, and he has everyone armed, so that if the officials do attack, they’re ready. The officials realize they’ve been found out and don’t attack, and the rebuilding continues, but the builders stay armed, and Nehemiah has those who are from outside Jerusalem stay in the city, so that they can help with guarding the city. He’s not taking any chances. And he’s ready, too: “Neither I nor my brothers nor my men nor the guards with me took off our clothes; each had his weapon, even when he went for water” (4:23). They’re ready for anything, and the building continues.

Ezra 6-10 (Day 323)

Today we finish the book of Ezra.

Last time, the reading ended with some officials getting suspicious about the rebuilding of the Temple, and writing to King Darius to check out the Israelites’ story about Cyrus having issued a decree allowing them to rebuild the Temple. Today, the reading begins with the results of that search, which are positive: “a scroll was found in the citadel of Ecbatana in the province of Media”  (6:2a) which contained Cyrus’ decree. So Darius writes back to the suspicious officials and tells them to not only leave the Israelites alone and let them finish their work, but also tells them that “the expenses of these men are to be fully paid out of the royal treasury, from the revenues of Trans-Euphrates, so that the work will not stop” (6:8b). And Darius isn’t messing around with this, because he ends his letter like this: “Furthermore, I decree that if anyone changes this edict, a beam is to be pulled from his house and he is to be lifted up and impaled on it. And for this crime his house is to be made a pile of rubble. May God, who has caused his Name to dwell there, overthrow any king or people who lifts a hand to change this decree or to destroy this temple in Jerusalem” (6:11-12). Yikes! He’s serious!

And so the temple gets rebuilt and they dedicate it, but the amount of sacrifice offered at this dedication is far lower than that at the dedication of the first temple, and it just seems a lesser event overall. But it does get dedicated, and the Israelites (and those Gentiles in the area who follow God rather than the pagan gods) celebrate the passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread, “because the Lord had filled them with joy by changing the attitude of the king of Assyria, so that he assisted them in the work on the house of God, the God of Israel” (6:22b).

Now Ezra (finally) enters the picture. His genealogy is given, which shows him to be a direct descendant of Aaron through his son Eleazar, so Ezra is a priest along with being a scribe (teacher). “He was a teacher well versed in the Law of Moses, which the Lord, the God of Israel, had given. The king had granted him everything he asked, for the hand of the Lord his God was on him” (7:6b). Ezra has a sort of “safe passage” letter from Artaxerxes, saying that anyone who wants to go with him to Jerusalem can go, and that they should take the silver and gold that the king and his advisers have given him, along with whatever they can get from the people of Babylon and whatever the exiles not accompanying him would give him. The letter directs Ezra to use that money “to buy bulls, rams and male lambs, together with their grain offerings and drink offerings, and sacrifice them on the altar of the temple of your God in Jerusalem” (7:17), and then they can do whatever they want with any money that’s left over – and they’d acquired quite a bit of money. The letter also orders “all the treasurers of Trans-Euphrates to provide with diligence whatever Ezra the priest, a teacher of the Law of the God of heaven, may ask of you” (7:21).

In this letter, Darius also gives Ezra some pretty extensive judicial powers: “And you, Ezra, in accordance with the wisdom of your God, which you posses, appoint magistrates and judges to administer justice to all the people of Trans-Euphrates – all who know the laws of your God. And you are to teach any who do not know them. Whoever does not obey the law of your God and the law of the king must surely be punished by death, banishment, confiscation of property, or imprisonment” (7:25-26). It’s pretty surprising that the king would give Ezra this much power.

This is followed by a list of the heads of the families that are returning with Ezra. Ezra assembles these people (more than 1500) and gets ready to go to Jerusalem. He notices, however, that there aren’t any Levites, so he puts out a call for Levites and about 40 Levites join them. Ezra then proclaims a fast and indicates that all the people should pray for God’s protection on the journey (remember they’re carrying a large amount of money with them), since Ezra has told the king that God will do so. They do make it safely to Jerusalem (it takes them four months) and after resting for three days (which I’m sure they well needed) they hand over the money to the temple officials. After that, they offer quite a few burnt offerings and sin offerings, and deliver the king’s letter to the government officials in the area.

Then the other shoe drops. Some people come to Ezra and tell him that there are those who have returned to Jerusalem that have married foreign women. This is a serious issue, a serious rebellion against the Law, and Ezra is quite distressed by it. He says, “When I heard this, I tore my tunic and cloak, pulled hair from my head and beard and sat down appalled” (9:3). And he sat this way for the better part of the day. And during the course of the day, “everyone who trembled a the words of the God of Israel gathered round me because of this unfaithfulness of the exiles” (9:4).

At the time of the evening sacrifice (about 3 pm and the time for worship and confession), Ezra gets up and prostrates himself and prays a long prayer of confession of his sin and the sin of Israel. The prayer shows his distress, the seriousness of the situation, but also Ezra’s trust in God’s mercy: “O my God, I am too ashamed and disgraced to lift up my face to you, my God, because our sins are higher than our heads and our guilt has reached to the heavens…But now, O our God, what can we say after this? For we have disregarded the commands you gave…What has happened to us is a result of our evil deeds and our great guilt, and yet, our God, you have punished us less than our sins have deserved and have given us a remnant like this…O Lord, God of Israel, you are righteous! We are left this day as a remnant. Here we are before you in our guilt, though because of it not one of us can stand in your presence” (9:6, 10, 13, 15).

The people around Ezra are, of course, listening to this prayer, and one of them realizes that they need to dissolve these unlawful marriages. This might seem really, really harsh, but there are consequences to sin. This is a kind of object lesson that our sins can in fact, hurt others. Sin causes grief. And, this is an example of the fact that God needs to come first in our lives. God comes before everything – mother, father, children, spouse. Our covenant with God trumps any other covenant in our lives.

So Ezra gathers all the men of Judah and Benjamin to investigate who has foreign wives and send the wives (and their children – the wives got custody of the children in most of the cultures of the day when a marriage was dissolved) away. And the men come and stand before Ezra, and wouldn’t you know it, they’re standing in a torrential downpour. Nice. So they ask Ezra to appoint men to handle the details of dissolving the marriages, which he does. And there are so many of them that it takes 3 months to handle it all. The book ends with a list of all those men who had married foreign women, and some of them are priests. So it was a pretty endemic problem, with a very painful resolution. But Ezra is doing his job of teaching the people not only the Law, but its consequences, and helping to purify them to be the holy people of God.

Ezra 1-5 (Day 316)

Today we begin the book of Ezra. The book of Ezra has, at different times throughout canonical history, been combined with the book of Nehemiah. They were very likely originally two separate books, however. The book begins with a summary history of the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem, first authorized by Cyrus, king of Persia. Ezra doesn’t even enter the picture until chapter 7. The book was most likely written around 440 BC, 76 years or so after the completion of the rebuilt Temple, which happened in 516 BC. The author/compiler of Ezra and Nehemiah is thought by many scholars to be the same person as The Chronicler, due to the similar literary style and fondness for lists presented in all these books.

The book begins with an almost exact copy of the text found at the very end of 2 Chronicles (and in some scholars’ opinions helps support the idea of Chronicles and Ezra having been written by the same person), where King Cyrus of Persia issues the decree allowing the Jews to rebuild the Temple at Jerusalem. This was actually not all that unusual for Cyrus. He liked to allow his subjects to worship their gods wherever they had historically done so, in hopes of placating those gods, as opposed to the Babylonian and Assyrian practice of looting the temples and carrying the idols elsewhere. Cyrus also allowed the Babylonians to do something similar to what he allowed the Jews to do.

But the Jews don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, and according to the prophecy of Isaiah, Cyrus was the king God was going to use to allow the temple to be rebuilt, so many of the Jews take Cyrus up on his offer that “anyone of his [God’s] people among you – may his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem in Judah and build the temple of the Lord the God of Israel, the God who is in Jerusalem” (1:3). The wording of this decree makes it obvious that Cyrus didn’t believe in the God of Israel as the One True God, because he calls God “the God who is in Jerusalem.” In the pagan belief system of the time, each town or city or nation had its own god, and so Cyrus, in his mind, is just letting the former residents of Jerusalem go back to that city and worship the God of that city there. So Cyrus isn’t doing this because he believes in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the great I AM, but rather because it’s just his policy. But Cyrus is generous to the Jews (as he was to other peoples) and gives them the temple furnishings that Nebuchadnezzar had carried off, since there weren’t any idols or images of God to give back to them (which Cyrus did to other peoples who did have images of their gods). But the Jews get the temple furnishings back anyway, which is the point.

Then the author lists (he loves lists!) the exiles, or at least a summary by family and/or town of the exiles who returned. The list of towns (vv. 21-35) shows a wide variety of places from which people came. So it was the reunion of a very scattered people, just as God said it would be. And according to the list here, there was quite a dearth of Levites, but this may be because their jobs were somewhat menial, and so many of them found other more “comfortable” occupations during the exile and chose not to return. And there is a discrepancy between the total given in 2:64 and the sum of the numbers preceding it, but it could be that the difference is the women and children and/or those of unproven ancestry mentioned in 2:61-63. In any case, a significant number of people returned to Jerusalem/Judah, and each settles into their ancestral towns, including the priests and Levites.

The first thing the returned exiles do after settling in is to build an altar to the Lord and to begin “to offer burnt offerings to the Lord, though the foundation of the Lord’s temple had not yet been laid” (3:4b). So they start offering sacrifices right away, before they’ve even got the foundation of the temple laid, let alone having built the temple. They realize how important the sacrifices are, and so they start them right away, which is good, because it takes them about a year to even start laying the foundation of the temple.

But the foundation eventually gets done, and “when the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, the priests in their vestments and with trumpets, and the Levites (the sons of Asaph) with cymbals, took their places to praise the Lord, as prescribed by David king of Israel…And all the people gave a great shout of praise to the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid. But many of the older priests and Levites and family heads, who had seen the former temple, wept aloud when they saw the foundation of this temple being laid, while many others shouted for joy” (3:10, 11b-12). Most people say that the old-timers are weeping because the new temple is not as good as the old one, and I’m sure that’s part of it, but I think that in some ways the weeping from the old-timers is also because they remember the temple being destroyed – in their minds’ eyes they can still see it, and this makes them weep over what was lost those many years ago, and maybe they realize they can never have such a glorious temple again, because of their sin. But that is speculation on my part.

The building of the temple arouses suspicion on the part of Jerusalem’s non-Jewish neighbors, though. The author then summarized the various times when such opposition occurred through the reign of Artaxerxes (465-424 BC). The first time was immediately after the exiles returned (around 537 BC), when “the enemies of Judah and Benjamin” (4:1) offer to “help” rebuild the temple. Probably what they intend is sabotage, but the Jews are smarter than all that and they refuse to let them help. So these “enemies” try and discourage and frighten the Jews, partly through intimidation and partly through the ancient Persian version of voodoo, and it seems to work. And the opposition continues in the (much later) reigns of Xerxes and Artaxerxes. A brief history of the correspondence between Artaxerxes I and some of his local spies, er, officials is recorded in chapter 4. It’s a bit confusing, because there’s a time shift from Cyrus, through Xerxes and Artaxerxes (who came after Darius), and then back to Darius. So 4:24 really follows, strictly chronologically, 4:5. 4:6-23 is a digression which includes the future frustrations of the plans of the Jews under Xerxes and Artaxerxes.

So in chapter 5, we “rejoin” the history during the reign of Darius (522-486 BC), with the foundation of the temple having been laid, but nothing else having been done since. We recently read Haggai, and here we see the “historical” account of his prophecy, along with Zechariah’s (which we start in a few days). Haggai and Zechariah were sent by God to encourage the Jews to resume work on the Temple, which had ceased during Cyrus’ reign. (For my blog post about the book of Haggai, click here). And they listen to Haggai and Zechariah, and “then Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel and Jeshua son of Jozadak set to work to rebuild the house of God in Jerusalem. And the prophets of God were with them, helping them” (5:2). I think it’s nice that Haggai and Zechariah actually helped rebuild the temple. It seems very appropriate somehow – putting their muscle where their mouth was, I guess.

But again, the work on the temple arouses suspicion on the part of the Jews’ neighbors in Jerusalem, and some of the local officials question them, “‘Who authorized you to rebuild this temple and restore this structure?’ They also asked, ‘What are the names of the men constructing the building?'” (5:3b-4). They probably asked for the names so they could send them to the king, since the officials were pretty much spies for the king, assuming those men would need to be punished somehow. The Jews won’t give them names, though, but they do tell the officials that “we are the servants of the God of heaven and earth, and we are rebuilding the temple that was built many years ago, one that a great king of Israel built and finished. But because our fathers angered the God of heaven, he handed them over to Nebuchadnezzar the Chaldean, king of Babylon, who destroyed this temple and deported the people to Babylon. However, in the first year of Cyrus king of Babylon, King Cyrus issued a decree to rebuild this house of God” (5:11b-13). So the returned exiles “get it” – they understand why the exile happened and they’re determined not to let it happen again. And the officials allow the Jews to keep building the temple until they can investigate their claim with the current king, Darius, which is nice.

So the officials compose a letter detailing what is going on and what the Jews told them and asking, “Now if it pleases the king, let a search be made in the royal archives of Babylon to see if King Cyrus did in fact issue a decree to rebuild this house of God in Jerusalem. Then let the king send us his decision in this matter” (5:17).

And you’ll have to wait until next time to find out what King Darius says…nothing like an old-fashioned cliff-hanger in our journey through the Bible!

2 Chronicles 33-36 (Day 309)

Today we finish the book of 2 Chronicles. It includes the reigns of the last seven kings of Judah, before they went into exile, with a little coda at the end talking about the return to Jerusalem seventy years later.

The reading begins with the reign of Manasseh, Hezekiah’s son. And in the same way that Hezekiah was exactly opposite his father Ahaz, Manasseh was exactly opposite Hezekiah. Where Hezekiah did was God wanted, Manasseh “did evil in the eyes of the Lord, following the detestable practices of the nations the Lord had driven out before the Israelites. He rebuilt the high places his father Hezekiah had demolished; he also erected altars to the Baals and made Asherah poles. He bowed down to all the starry hosts and worshiped them. He built altars in the temple of the Lord, of which the Lord had said, ‘My Name will remain in Jerusalem for ever'” (33:2-4). And that wasn’t everything. Pretty much every “detestable thing” that you can think of, Manasseh did it. In summary: “Manasseh led Judah and the people of Jerusalem astray, so that they did more evil than the nations the Lord had destroyed before the Israelites. The Lord spoke to Manasseh and his people, but they paid no attention” (33:9-10).

So God sends the Assyrians against Manasseh, and they take Manasseh captive and send him to Babylon. This wakes Manasseh up, and “in his distress, he sought the favor of the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers. And when he prayed to him, the Lord was moved by his entreaty and listened to his plea; so he brought him back to Jerusalem and to his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord is God” (33:12-13). And after this, Manasseh does some housecleaning in the temple, removing all the idols and such that he had put there.

Manasseh’s repentance isn’t mentioned in Kings, but I think it’s a very powerful moment – even though The Chronicler treats it very briefly. And there is a book that Protestant Churches don’t consider to be part of the Bible but Roman Catholics do called “The Prayer of Manasseh.” It’s a beautiful prayer of repentance and is actually included in part in The Episcopal Church’s Book of Common Prayer as a penitential collect in Morning Prayer (Rite II). I encourage you to read it. Here is a link to it. Whether it is actually the work of this particular king is somewhat immaterial. It’s just a lovely prayer of repentance that I use frequently in my daily devotions.

In any case, Manasseh goes the way of all people and his son Amon succeeds him. Amon doesn’t do what is right in God’s sight and doesn’t last long on the throne – only two years. He is assassinated by some of his officials, but the people don’t take too kindly to their king being assassinated, so they kill the assassins and make Amon’s son Josiah king.

Josiah “did what was right in the eyes of the Lord and walked in the ways of his father David, not turning aside to the right or to the left” (34:2). Josiah was responsible for further housecleaning in the Temple after what Manasseh (and probably Amon) had done. “In the eighth year of his reign, while he was still young, he began to seek the God of his father David. In his twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of high places, Asherah poles, carved idols and cast images. Under his direction the altars of the Baals were torn down; he cut to pieces the incense altars that were above them, and smashed the Asherah poles, the idols and the images. These he broke to pieces and scattered over the graves of those who had sacrificed to them” (34:3-4). He even extended his reforms into the Northern Kingdom. He also began the repair of the Temple after years of neglect.

And while they were repairing the Temple, really while they were getting the money for the repairs, Hilkiah (a priest) found the book of the Law and gives it to Shaphan, who takes it to the king. The king has Shaphan read the book aloud (which was common practice then). Once Josiah hears all that is written there, he is very upset and has Shaphan, Hilkiah, Ahikam and Asaiah talk to a prophetess to find out what’s in store for Israel since they have sinned so gravely. The prophetess tells them that they are in for it, for lack of a better term. But, she tells them, “Because your [Josiah’s] heart was responsive and you humbled yourself before God when you heard what he spoke against this place and its people, and because you humbled yourself before me and tore your robes and wept in my presence, I have heard you, declares the Lord. Now I will gather you to your fathers, and you will be buried in peace. your eyes will not see all the disaster I am going to bring on this place and on those who live here” (34:27-28).

And in response to this, King Josiah gets everybody together in the temple and he rededicates himself to the keeping of the covenant. This is important, because the king is seen as the religious head of the people – as the king’s faith goes, so goes the faith of the people. We’ve seen this over and over again in both Kings and Chronicles. And then after rededicating himself, King Josiah has the people rededicate themselves to God. “Josiah removed all the detestable idols from all the territory belonging to the Israelites, and he made all who were present in Israel serve the Lord their God. As long as he lived, they did not fail to follow the Lord, the God of their fathers” (34:33).

And since they’ve now rededicated themselves to keeping the Covenant, they need to celebrate the Passover, which they do, under Josiah’s direction. And it’s a grand celebration. “The Passover had not been observed like this in Israel since the days of the prophet Samuel; and none of the kings of Israel had ever celebrated such a Passover as did Josiah, with the priests, the Levites and all Judah and Israel who were there with the people of Jerusalem” (35:18). Quite a party, apparently! But all for the worship and honor and praise of God, as it should be.

There was one slip-up in Josiah’s reign, though. Pharaoh Neco of Egypt goes to fight and Josiah prepares to fight Neco. But Josiah’s not supposed to fight Neco – that’s not what God wants. And Neco tells Josiah as much: “But Neco sent messengers to him [Josiah] saying, ‘What quarrel is there between you and me, O king of Judah? It is not you I am attacking at this time, but the house with which I am at war. God has told me to hurry; so stop opposing God, who is with me, or he will destroy you'” (35:21). But Josiah won’t stop. He doesn’t believe Neco, so Josiah disguises himself and goes to battle anyway. But Josiah is mortally wounded in the battle and his men take him back to Jerusalem, where he dies. He is buried with honor though.

Then comes a very brief synopsis of the reigns of the last four kings of Judah. Jehoahaz succeeds Josiah, but only for three months, after which Neco dethrones him and makes his brother, Eliakim (Jehoiakim) king. Jehoiakim lasts longer on the throne, but “he did evil in the eyes of the Lord his God” (36:5b). Then Jehoiachin, Jehoiakim’s son, succeeds him. He only lasted three months, too, being deposed by Nebuchadnezzar and replaced by his uncle/brother/relative Zedekiah, under whom “all the leaders of the priests and the people became more and more unfaithful, following all the detestable practices of the nation and defiling the temple of the Lord, which he had consecrated in Jerusalem” (36:14). Not cool.

And then The Chronicler records the fall of Jerusalem, brought on by all the wickedness and idolatry and general turning away from God of the last few centuries. Jerusalem is destroyed and many people killed and those not killed sent to Babylon in exile. But the book ends on a note of hope, because as Jeremiah prophesied, the exile will only last seventy years. The Chronicler records “In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah, the Lord moved the heart of Cyrus king of Persia to make a proclamation throughout his realm and to put it in writing: ‘This is what Cyrus king of Persia says: “The Lord, the God of heaven had given me all the kingdoms of the earth and he has appointed me to build a temple for him at Jerusalem in Judah. Anyone of his people among you – may the Lord his God be with him, and let him go up'” (26:22-23).

2 Chronicles 29-32 (Day 302)

Today we read all about the reign of Hezekiah – start to finish.

Hezekiah was a complete about-face from his father Ahaz. Not only did Hezekiah do “what was right in the eyes of the Lord, just as his father David had done” (29:2), he re-opened the Temple and re-established all of the sacrifices and other rituals that his father Ahaz had stopped. And it’s the first thing he does: “In the first month of the first year of his reign, he opened the doors of the temple of the Lord and repaired them. He brought in the priests and the Levites, assembled them in the square on the east side and said, ‘Listen to me, Levites! Consecrate yourselves now and consecrate the temple of the Lord the God of your fathers. Remove all defilement from the sanctuary. Our fathers were unfaithful; they did evil in the eyes of the Lord our God and forsook him. They turned their faces away from the Lord’s dwelling place and turned their backs on him…This is why our fathers have fallen by the sword and why our sons and daughters and our wives are in captivity” (29:3-6, 9). Hezekiah gets it – when the people don’t keep their end of the Covenant, they are scattered from the land, as God said He would do to them, but if they repent, God will restore them.

So the priests and Levites, at Hezekiah’s command, purify the Temple. “They brought out to the courtyard of the Lord’s temple everything unclean that they found in the temple of the Lord. The Levites took it and carried it out to the Kidron Valley. They began the consecration on the first day of the first month, and by the eighth day of the month they reached the portico of the Lord. For eight more days they consecrated the temple of the Lord itself, finishing in the sixteenth day of the first month” (29:16b-17). It took them sixteen days to purify the temple of all the desecration that Ahaz had done. Wow.

And then commences the sacrifices, which are many. “…seven bulls, seven rams, seven male lambs and seven male goats as a sin offering for the kingdom, for the sanctuary and for Judah…The number of burnt offerings the assembly brought was seventy bulls, a hundred rams and two hundred male lambs…The animals consecrated as sacrifices amounted to six hundred bulls and three thousand sheep and goats” (29:2132a, 33). And there is much singing and celebrating and worshiping going on. “So the service of the temple of the Lord was re-established. Hezekiah and all the people rejoiced at what God had brought about for his people, because it was done so quickly” (29:35b, 36).

Then Hezekiah decides that they need to celebrate the Passover, because it has not been done by large numbers of people for a while. And since the actual day of Passover was during the purification of the Temple, Hezekiah postpones it for a month. But what this ends up doing is putting the Judean celebration of Passover at the same time as the Samaritan celebration. King Jeroboam of Israel had moved the celebration of Passover a month, from the first month to the second, to differentiate the Northern Kingdom celebration from the Southern Kingdom celebration (and possibly to keep the Samaritans away from Jerusalem). So now, all of Israel can celebrate the Passover together for the first time in centuries.

And the king sends a message out to all the tribes of Israel to come celebrate the Passover. “The couriers went from town to town in Ephraim and Manasseh, as far as Zebulun, but the people scorned and ridiculed them. Nevertheless, some men of Asher, Manasseh and Zebulun humbled themselves and went to Jerusalem. Also in Judah the hand of God was on the people to give them unity of mind to carry out what the king and his officials had ordered, following the word of the Lord” (30:10-12). And lots of people come to Jerusalem, and while they’re there, they tear down all the altars to other gods that Ahaz built in Jerusalem. But some of the people who come are not ceremonially clean. Hezekiah lets them eat the Passover, but he prays to God to pardon them. And God does. Because for God, faith and obedience beat empty ritual any day. And so they celebrate the Passover for seven days, and because it’s such a great celebration, they celebrate for seven more. “There was great joy in Jerusalem, for since the days of Solomon son of David king of Israel there had been nothing like this in Jerusalem. The priests and the Levites stood to bless the people, and God heard them, for their prayer reached heaven, his holy dwelling-place” (30:26-27). Just as it should be, and just as Solomon prayed it would be (2 Chronicles 6:21, 30, 33, 39).

And everybody’s feeling very good towards God, and as the Israelites are leaving, they destroy all the things and places dedicated to worshiping other gods and the high places all over the place. And Hezekiah contributes the sacrificial things he is supposed to according to the Law, and orders the people living in Jerusalem to give the priests their due so they can “devote themselves to the Law of the Lord” (31:4b), which they do in grand fashion. They give so much that Hezekiah has to build storerooms to hold the surplus beyond what the priests and Levites and their families can eat.

But things are not all good in Judah. Sennacherib, King of Assyria, decides he wants to conquer Judah. So he lays siege to it. But Hezekiah sets up an army and encourages them: “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or discouraged because of the king of Assyria and the vast army with him, for there is a greater power with us than with him. With him is only the arm of flesh, but with us is the Lord our God to help us and to fight our battles” (32:7-8). And God still fights for us, too, though it is more a spiritual battle now.

And Sennacherib’s men taunt the people of Judah, saying that he’s destroyed all the other towns and their gods couldn’t protect them, so why should Judah’s God be able to protect them? But Hezekiah and Isaiah pray, “and the Lord sent an angel, who annihilated all the fighting men and the leaders and officers in the camp of the Assyrian king. So he withdrew to his own land in disgrace. And when he went into the temple of his god, some of his sons cut him down with the sword” (21:21). That’s what you get for taunting the faithful people of God, Sennacherib!

And The Chronicler treats very briefly Hezekiah’s illness and recovery through Isaiah’s prayer, mentioning a sign, but not saying that it was the shadow moving back ten steps. And he also treats very briefly Hezekiah showing off his treasuries to the Babylonians, not really giving any details other than to say “God left him to test him and to know everything that was in his heart” (32:31b). But we got a more complete story in Kings, so that’s OK.

And, as happens with all people, “Hezekiah rested with his fathers [died] and was buried on the hill where the tombs of David’s descendants are. All Judah and the people of Jerusalem honored him when he died” (32:33a). He was, overall, a good king and was buried with honor.

2 Chronicles 25-28 (Day 295)

Today we read about four more kings of Judah, three of whom were mostly good, one of whom was very bad.

We start the reading with Amaziah. The Chronicler sums his reign up with “He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, but not wholeheartedly” (25:2). He followed the Law in not executing the children of the officials who had murdered his father, and when a prophet tells Amaziah that he is not to have men from the Northern Kingdom in his army, Amaziah tells them to leave and go home, and that they can keep the money he has paid them. And because Amaziah is faithful to God, he wins his battle against the men of Seir, the Edomites, even without the men from the Northern Kingdom.

But Amaziah makes a grave mistake. “When Amaziah returned from slaughtering the Edmoites, he brought back the gods of the people of Seir. He set them up as his own gods, bowed down to them and burned sacrifices to them” (25:14). And, understandably, “the anger of the Lord burned against Amaziah, and he sent a prophet to him, who said, ‘Why do you consult this people’s gods, which could not save their own people from your hand?'” (25:15). For the people of the time, wars between nations were really proxy battles for their gods. So why in the world would Amaziah defeat a nation (thus “proving” that his God was the more powerful one) and then bow down to their gods? It makes no sense. But Amaziah shuts the prophet up, and the prophet tells Amaziah that God is going to destroy him. Amaziah doesn’t listen however, and engages Israel in battle, which ends with Amaziah being defeated and parts of the city walls being destroyed. That’s what happens when you’re a king of Israel and you don’t follow God!

So Amaziah is succeeded by his son, Uzziah. Uzziah was faithful to God at the beginning of his reign, too. He defeated the Philistines and the Ammonites brought him tribute “and his fame spread as far as the border of Egypt, because he had become very powerful…But after Uzziah became powerful, his pride led to his downfall. He was unfaithful tot he Lord his God, and entered the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense” (26:8b, 16). The priests try to stop him, but he tries to go ahead and he is struck with leprosy. This is a detail about the source of Uzziah’s leprosy that was not included in Kings. And Uzziah’s leprosy forces him to separate himself from society and basically turn the kingdom over to his son Jotham until Uzziah dies. And it is in the year of Uzziah’s death that Isaiah is called to be a prophet (Isaiah 6:1).

Jotham succeeds Uzziah. Jotham “did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, just as his father Uzziah had done, but unlike him he did not enter the temple of the Lord. The people, however, continued their corrupt practices” (27:2). This might be why not much is said about Jotham in Kings or here, though the Chronicler sums Jotham’s reign up by saying “Jotham grew powerful because he walked steadfastly before the Lord his God” (27:6). Jotham even gets buried in Jerusalem.

Jotham is succeeded by his son, Ahaz. Ahaz was the exact opposite of his father. “he did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord. He walked in the ways of the kings of Israel and also made cast idols for worshiping the Baals. He burned sacrifices in the Valley of Ben-Hinnom and sacrificed his sons in the fire, following the detestable ways of the nations that the Lord had driven out before the Israelites. He offered sacrifices and burned incense at the high places, on the hilltops and under every spreading tree” (28:1b-4). So God makes sure that Ahaz got defeated by the alliance between the Arameans and the Samaritans (the Northern Kingdom).

Then God did an interesting thing. He sent a prophet to the soldiers who were carrying back the prisoners of war and the prophet tells them, “Because the Lord, the God of your fathers, was angry with Judah, he gave them into your hand. But you have slaughtered them in a rage that reaches to heaven. And now you intend to make the men and women of Judah and Jerusalem your slaves. But aren’t you also guilty of sins against the Lord your God?” (28:9b-10). So the people of Samaria do an about face. They clothe the naked and heal their wounds and bring them back to Jericho, and then go back home. It’s a very touching story, really, and interesting that these really very apostate Israelites listen to the prophet and have such mercy on their brothers from Judah. Some scholars think this story might be a kind of source for Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan.

But even after this mercy, Ahaz decides to try and ally himself with the King of Assyria to gain back some power. But the King of Assyria does not help him long-term. And rather than seeing this as a reason to turn back to God, “In his time of trouble King Ahaz became even more unfaithful to the Lord. He offered sacrifices to the gods of Damascus who had defeated him; for he thought, ‘Since the gods of the kings of Aram have helped them, I will sacrifice to them so that they will help me.’ But they were his downfall and the downfall of all Israel” (28:22-23). So at least Ahaz was logical about it, unlike his great-grandfather Amaziah.

Ahaz even goes so far as the shut down the temple. The lamps were extinguished and the table for the Bread of the Presence was ignored and the furnishings were desecrated. It was this temple activity that distinguished Judah from Israel under the reign of Abijah. So now Judah is no better than Israel. But Ahaz goes even further. He “set up altars at every street corner in Jerusalem. In every town in Judah he built high places to burn sacrifices to other gods and provoked the Lord the God of his fathers, to anger” (28:24b-25). And it does not end well for him, in that “he was not placed in the tombs of the kings of Israel” (28:27b). And that’s a pretty big snub for a king.