GOD RESTORES HIS PEOPLE
When you were younger, have you ever broken something like a vase, statue, or table decoration because you were doing something you were not supposed to be doing? Then you tried to “hide” the “crime” by gluing the object back together. Were you finally discovered? I heard a story where two young boys were throwing a football in the house and knocked a special vase off of the table. When it fell the boys figured it would shatter into many pieces, but it broke cleanly into two pieces. With the help of some good glue, they repaired it and returned it to the table. A few days later their dad brought home some flowers for their mom. Guess where the flowers were placed? That’s right- and the vase leaked. They were busted and their dad disciplined both of the boys. Fortunately, their dad gave them many other chances to get things right. God is that way too. When we mess up, He disciplines us as a loving Father (Prov. 3:12). He restores us. Last week, we learned or were reminded how God disciplined the Israelites. Now we are going to see how God restores His people.
Read Jeremiah 29:10-14 The Promise of God
God continued to carry out His plan for His people. God is sovereign and faithful –and this lesson focuses on how God kept His promise to restore a “remnant”. This is the remnant that returns from a 70 year exile in Babylon to rebuild the temple. Scholars differ on the exact dates of this 70—year period in Babylon. However, it seems most likely to refer to the 70 years between the fall of Assyria and the fall of Babylon (609-539 BC). This seems to be what Jeremiah was saying when he connected the 70 years to Babylon (v.10). But some can make a good case for time being 586-516 BC, the overlapping period that Jerusalem was without a temple. Remember, the temple was the visible symbol of God’s presence. Regardless, all agree that God sent His people to Babylon for a long time, not the short captivity predicted by the false prophets. Jeremiah, in verses 5-9, encourages the “remnant” to prepare for the 70 year exile by building houses, plant gardens, marry, raise children, allow the children to marry, seek Babylon’s welfare (while they were in that land), and finally not to heed the false prophets and diviners. Jeremiah knew the long exile would take its toll on the Jews if they did not try to live as normal lives as possible- because many of them would not live to return from exile. Why do you think it was important that God told Jeremiah the length of the exile? (Think about sitting in constant preparation, likely doing nothing, for a return trip to Jerusalem.)
So why 70 years? First, the land (Jerusalem) would have a Sabbath rest (2 Chron. 36:21) – after being “destroyed”. Second God would then “attend to” and “confirm” His “promise” to the people (v.10). God would visit His people and also would confirm His promise, literally His good Word. Notice “you” is plural in verse 10, as God spoke through Jeremiah to His people, not to an individual. The promise was to restore them “to this place” – Jerusalem. We are all encouraged by a leader who stirs us to move ahead, someone who believes we can do the task given and who will be with us all the way. God is that kind of leader. He knows the future and His plans for us are good and full of hope. The “remnant” was being prepared for the heart of God’s Story- the earthly presence of Jesus.
God did not forget His people, even though they were captives in Babylon. He planned to give them a new beginning with a new purpose- to turn them into new people. In times of dire circumstances, it may appear as though God has forgotten us. But God may be preparing us, as He did the people of Judah, for a new beginning with Him at the center. They could call upon Him with confidence. Although the exiles were in a difficult place, they need not despair because they had God’s presence, the privilege of prayer, and God’s grace. If we seek Him wholeheartedly, He will be found. Neither a strange land, sorrow, perception of problems, nor physical difficulties can break our fellowship with God. We know God restored the “remnant” and He will restore us when we search for Him with all our hearts. This is yet another promise filled in God’s Story.
Read Ezra 1:1-5 The Return of God’s People
While His people languished in exile, God prepared the next chapter in His Story, determining to restore His people to the covenant land of Judah. Yet how would they escape their captors, navigate the 800 miles from Babylon to Jerusalem, and arrive safely? God had a new exodus in mind. Rather than fight the Babylonians Himself through miraculous plagues as He did in Egypt, God replaced the Babylonians with the Persians. Enter Cyrus the Great, a fierce, warrior-king whom the Lord referred to as “His anointed” (Isa.45:1). A year after defeating the Babylonians, Cyrus issued a proclamation freeing the exiled peoples, allowing them to be repatriated to their homelands, and encouraging them to build temples to their gods (Persian wording). We are told in verse 1 that this was all God’s doing. Cyrus’ proclamation appears in Ezra 1:2-4 and it spread from Persia in the east to the region of modern Turkey in the west and down along Egypt. Thus Cyrus’ proclamation extended over the entire promise land, enabling him to free the captives and allowing them to return safely to their homeland.
Amazingly, the proclamation begins with “The Lord, the God of heaven…” and ends with a call for financial support from acquaintances of those who would make the journey. Now what was left was for the correct response from God’s people. Why was God’s way of fulfilling His promise, in this case, so amazing? ((Cyrus was a Gentile, in what is today’s Iran, shown had shown leadership and mercy in unifying the Medes (one of the kingdoms in Daniel’s prophecy) and the Persians. Now God used him to permit the Jews to return by defeating the Babylonians (in Today’s Iraq)!) Cyrus even instructed those of the exiles who chose to remain in Babylon to support the efforts of their returning Jewish brethren. Ezra made no reference to the irony of a Gentile king having to instruct his Jewish subject to help each other. However, the emphasis does not lay so much on Cyrus’ tolerant attitude toward his conquered subjects as on the power of God.
Read Nehemiah 8:1-6 The Response of God’s People
Nehemiah describes a magnificent scene at the square in front of the Water Gate. Ezra, the scribe and priest, was to read the “Book of the Law of Moses that the Lord had given Israel”. We are told the reading took something like 6 hours- daybreak to noon. However, at the end of Ezra’s reading, they all bowed down and worshipped the Lord wholeheartedly. This was the scene to celebrate the completion of Jerusalem’s walls. Nehemiah, the governor, returned to Jerusalem from Persia to rebuild the walls and it took only 52 days (Neh. 6:15).
An important account of an event involving Ezra and the rebuilding of the temple is not in our lesson material, likely because the issue was to recount the people’s response to God in this amazing scene by Nehemiah. During Ezra’s efforts to get the people to rebuild the temple, he had to contend with a lot of opposition from those already in and around Jerusalem. As you may recall, the people who had returned from Babylon in the early groups, lost focus and were building for themselves- not God. Ezra finally got their attention back on the temple and got it completed. Also as a side note here, it may be helpful to say that even though the Book of Jeremiah appears later in the Old Testament chronologically than the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, Jeremiah describes events that historically preceded them. There is also some questions among scholars that maybe the writing of the books of Ezra and Nehemiah appear out of order chronologically- but it doesn’t change the events. What is certain is that Ezra’s life and Nehemiah’s life overlapped and they were contemporaries (8:9). Ezra was much older and Ezra’s journey to Jerusalem from his exile appears to happen sixty years from Cyrus’ proclamation. Nehemiah’s return was another 13 years later and as we see in verses 1-6, he was successful in getting the walls rebuilt. Ezra had been successful in getting the returning “remnant” to rebuild the temple, prior to Nehemiah leading in rebuilding the walls. This seems a very good reason why the book of Ezra is placed first in the Bible.
Many of God’s people returned to Jerusalem and many more remained in Babylon. Many who stayed back had made their homes in Babylon and had family they did not want to leave. Some of these had married outside of their Jewish religion and did not want to leave their spouse and children. Ezra had told them that to return to Jerusalem they must leave these “outsiders’ behind or they would violate God’s law. This was not an easy choice. Many times we seem to face hard choices but we need to make them for God. Those who returned were the faithful “children” of God and had responded as God wanted- many leaving spouses and even children behind.
These verses in Nehemiah again were describing only those who had returned to Jerusalem and had helped in building the walls. Therefore, these were the “remnant” people who set the stage for the lineage that led directly to Jesus, His life, His death, and His resurrection.