Ezra 1

First off, me being the odd-ball and liking to do translation and paraphrasing, I thought I'd start off here with my rendition of Chapter 1 of Ezra. I've added notes and commentary where appropriate:

1

During the first year of Cyrus, King of Persia’s reign, the LORD moved the king’s spirit, causing Cyrus to issue a proclamation (in writing, as well) throughout his entire kingdom (so that the prophecy of Jeremiah might be fulfilled):

²Cyrus, the King of Persia, says:

The LORD God of heaven has given all the kingdoms in the world to me – and He has commanded me to build Him a temple in Jerusalem (which is in Judah).

³Therefore, those of you who are His people and who are called by Him: go to Jerusalem (in Judah) and build the temple of the LORD God of Israel and of Jerusalem*.

* The text here is uncertain. Various translations render this as “… and build the temple of the LORD God of Israel (He is God), which is in Jerusalem.” The King James Version favors this translation, while others, such as the Message and the Good News Bible favor the rendered translation. Non-English versions also differ – The French Louis Segond favors the rendered translation, while the French Darby Bible favors the King James’ rendition. Among the older Bibles, both the Bishops and the Geneva translations favor the rendered version.

⁴To those who choose to remain: help those who choose to go with silver and gold, with food and supplies, and with animals. Also give them a freewill offering for the temple of God in Jerusalem.*

* I find it humorous here that the King is ordering those that stay behind to give a freewill offering to the temple efforts. Isn’t the whole point of a freewill offering to be an offering given willingly? An edict of this nature pretty much nukes any thought of not giving an offering, however willing the individual was in the giving.

⁵When the leaders_a of the fathers of Judah and Benjamin, as well as the priests and the Levites, heard this, those that were moved by God to go, rose up and went to build the temple of the LORD in Jerusalem. ⁶Those that remained helped those that went by giving vessels of silver, and gold, food and supplies, animals, and precious things, in addition to all that was freely offered.

a: (or: chiefs or principals)

^7,8King Cyrus also delivered, via Treasurer Mithredath, the vessels from the temple of the LORD that Nebuchadnezzar had taken from Jerusalem (and had subsequently stored in his own god’s temple) to Sheshbazzar, the prince of Judah. ^9-11He delivered thirty platters_b of gold, a thousand platters of silver, twenty-nine knives, thirty basins of gold, four hundred and ten silver basin duplicates*, and one thousand other utensils. Together, all the gold and silver vessels totaled five thousand and four hundred items. Sheshbazzar took all of these vessels from Babylon to Jerusalem.

b: (or: chargers)

* The original has “four hundred and ten silver basins of the second order.” According to Strong’s, the Hebrew word used here (mishneh, H4932) can be used to mean a copy or duplicate of an item. It can also be used to indicate a doubling of an amount, but in this context, duplicate or copy seems more apt.

My Commentary

In verse 1, the language indicates that God stirred or moved Cyrus to issue the proclamation that began the rebuilding of the temple. Given that we know God never forces anyone to do anything, this must mean that Cyrus had, at some point, given consideration to this idea, and God just helped him along into action. Had Cyrus been unwilling to rebuild the temple, he would not have issued the edict, regardless of the prodding of God's Spirit.

    I think that this can speak volumes to us today, as well - our action, or inaction, can result in many things, both intended and unintended, and God can prod all He wants, but only if we are attentive and willing can great things be accomplished through us.

    In verses 3 and 4, the king is clearly separating out those who wish to return to Jerusalem, and those who wish to remain in Babylon. Remember - Cyrus is talking to a people in exile - they had been forcibly removed, in disgrace, from Jerusalem many years prior. Even so, some had managed to build a life in Babylon - and so Cyrus is not ordering all the Jews to return - only those who felt led by God. Even so, the king does order those who remain to help those who are going - even to the point of indicating that they should give a freewill offering to the temple. I for one am going to give something - willingly or not - if the king tells me to do so, so I find the "willingness" of the offering somewhat funny.

    Finally in the remaining verses (7 - 11), Cyrus is making right the thievery of a predecessor - that is, he returns the spoils of war taken by Nebuchadnezzar when the prior temple was raided. To me this shows not only respect, but a willingness to help the effort along as best as he could.

Feel free to join this Bible Study!

I just wanted to reiterate that this blog is open to anyone who wants to be a part of it! Please feel free to email me posts or leave thoughts and discussion in the comments section. I have always enjoyed studying the bible with a group of people. Getting other's perspectives, ideas, questions, knowledge and wisdom can be a great help in studying the bible. So please feel free to join us on our Bible Study quests!
--Mindy

Below this post are the first two posts on Ezra 1

Ezra 1 - Mindy's Post

Here is a summary of Ezra 1:
God guides Cyrus, King of Persia, to build a temple for Him in Jerusalem in Judah. (This happens in Cyrus' first year which places it around 538-537 BC.)

Cyrus decrees that God's people need to come to Jerusalem to build the temple and that the "survivors" need to support those who are going with silver, gold, goods, livestock and freewill offerings.

The family head of Judah and Benjamin, the priests and Levites, and everyone who's heart God had moved prepared to go build the temple - the house of the Lord in Jerusalem. Their neighbors assisted them with articles of silver, gold, goods, livestock, valuable gifts and freewill offerings.

King Cyrus had the articles belonging to the temple of the Lord (which Nebuchadnezzar had taken and placed in the temple of his god ("It was the custom for conquerors to carry off images of the gods of conquered cities. Since the Jews did not have an image of the Lord, Nebuchadnezzar carried away only the temple articles." -The NIV Study Bible)) brought to Mithredath by Sheshbazzar (the treasurer.) In all Sheshbazzar brought 5,400 articles of gold and silver.

My thoughts:
I guess what I find really amazing in this chapter is how God's prophecy is being fulfilled. The Jews, who have been deported from their land - approximately 70 years (the first deportation happened in the third year of Jehoiakim - 605 BC), are finally returning to Jerusalem (in 538 BC). It's amazing to see the fulfillment of scripture:


Isaiah 44:28
"who says of Cyrus, 'He is my shepherd and will accomplish all that I please; he will say of Jerusalem, "Let it be rebuilt," and of the temple, "Let its foundations be laid." (45:1) This is what the Lord says to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I take hold of to subdue nations before him and to strip kings of their armor, to open doors before him so that gates will not be shut."

Jeremiah 29:10 -14
"This is what the Lord says; "When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my gracious promise to bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found in you, "declares the Lord, "and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you," declares the Lord, "and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile."

It think it may be important to go back and review the exile of the Jews before journeying any further in Ezra. That will be next week's project! =) I actually have a few more thoughts and discussion questions on this chapter - but need a little more time to mull them over. So I'll post this for now - and then try to post again this week.

Ezra 1 - Cherry's Post

I noticed that in verse 1 it says “the Lord moved the heart of Cyrus king of Persia”. Which made me wonder what kind of man Cyrus was before? I would assume he was a righteous man in the eyes of God otherwise he may not have listened when God told him to make the proclamation to the people that he was to build a temple. On the other hand God is all powerful and could have changed his heart dramatically before he “moved his heart”.


Verse 5 says, “Then the family heads of Judah and Benjamin, and the priests and Levites—everyone whose heart had been moved—prepared to go up and build the house of the Lord in Jerusalem.” Does this mean that not all the Israelites were moved to do as God had instructed them? To rebuild the temple? Or were they to do other things for the kingdom?


The last thing to catch my attention was how much responsibility Sheshbazzar was given. Not only was he to bring back the exiles from Babylon to Jerusalem, but he had to bring back 30 gold dishes, 1,000 silver dishes, 29 silver pans,30 gold bowls, 410 matching silver bowls, and 1,000 other articles. How safe was the road that they were traveling on? Granted they made up a rather large party, but still wouldn’t a thief be tempted to make off with some of the goods? Sheshbazzar must have proven himself worthy of such a task many times before.

Ezra anyone?

Soooo...I guess our study on Genesis had trouble taking flight. I know it's not for lack of interest - just lack of time to put into such an extremely in-depth study.

So....why don't we start a little lighter and then work our way back to Genesis? How about we try Revelation...JUST KIDDING!!! =) Though it would be very interesting...that too is an incredibly in-depth study...

What I was really thinking was the Old Testament book of Ezra...I know it's a bit random - but I think it would be a great book to launch us all back into Bible Study mode.

So what do you think? Shall we try again? =)

The first thing you do is...

I love to watch craft shows. I also teach others how to make crafts at our church’s Scrapbooking and Crafts group. I, and all of the other instructors I have listened to, start out with something like this: “The first thing you do is…”

So, I am thinking that this is exactly what is being said in Genesis 1:1. (“In the beginning…” ) In other words, the first thing that God did when He began creating our universe was to form the heavens and the earth. The word “beginning” has nothing to do with “when”…..it just means it was the first step in creation.

In the past (and I can talk about “the past” because I am the oldest one writing on this blog) we thought that this word “beginning” meant the beginning of everything. We overlooked the obvious contradiction that was staring at us in the very next word. That word was “GOD”. For there to be a creation there had to be a Creator. God was there before the heavens and the earth. In fact, someone else was there, too. The Hebrew word for God that is used in this verse is plural. MORE THAN ONE! A good translation is: Eternal Powers. Doesn’t that sound awesome! And, later on, in the same chapter we have God talking to these “others”.

Genesis 1:26 says “And God saith, `Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness…” Some of the ancient Jewish writings have some very interesting ideas about this. In “The Legends of the Jews” we have the following.( Here is an online link to this interesting book… http://www.sacred-texts.com/jud/loj/loj103.htm )

In the beginning, two thousand years before the heaven and the earth, seven things were created: the Torah written with black fire on white fire, and lying in the lap of God; the Divine Throne, erected in the heaven which later was over the heads of the Hayyot; Paradise on the right side of God, Hell on the left side; the Celestial Sanctuary directly in front of God, having a jewel on its altar graven with the Name of the Messiah, and a Voice that cries aloud, "Return, ye children of men."

Here we have creation going on in the Heavenly realm two thousand years before the creation of our own universe!

Another interesting idea is that there have been several worlds (or ages) before our present one. Each of these ages sinned and had to pay a terrible price, that is, until Jesus offered to be the Supreme Sacrifice. He became Mercy. Mercy added to God’s Justice gave us a way out. Can’t you just see Jesus having a deep discussion with God right after the destruction of a sinful age. He is pleading with God to let Him be the one to pay the price of death for us, God’s new creation. Aren’t we privileged to be the first Age to be redeemed by God’s own Son!

Here is just a part of one of the writings. There is much more but there is not room in this blog for all of it!

Nor is this world inhabited by man the first of things earthly created by God. He made several worlds before ours, but He destroyed them all, because He was pleased with none until He created ours. But even this last world would have had no permanence, if God had executed His original plan of ruling it according to the principle of strict justice. It was only when He saw that justice by itself would undermine the world that He associated mercy with justice, and made them to rule jointly. Thus, from the beginning of all things prevailed Divine goodness, without which nothing could have continued to exist.

Isn’t it mind-boggling? It is so vast the human mind cannot comprehend it. BUT!!!!! it is sure fun to try!

בראשית : "Beginning"

1 In the beginning^H7225 God^H430 created^{H1254 (H853)} the heaven^H8064 and the earth.^{H776 2}And the earth^H776 was^H1961 without form,^H8414 and void^H922...

^{(Genesis 1:1, KJV)}

NEARLY every single English translation of the Bible begins in exactly the same way: "In the beginning God created...". But this familiar opening is not the only way to render this phrase. So at the very beginning of our study we are presented with different possibilities for what the very first few words in the Bible mean!

The problem of translation from one language to another is that languages express ideas, thoughts, and concepts differently. Not only are the grammars different, but so are the words, and so are the meanings of the words. Certain concepts are idiomatic in nature and have no bearing to the actual words used, and these in particular are very difficult to translate.

Generally a translation must accept a "best match" for the target language, and that means that the version we receive isn't quite what the original author intended. (Of course, we believe that the translators are led by the Holy Spirit in order to render the best rendition with as much of the concepts intact as possible. In this way the path of salvation and the basic nature of our relationship with God is maintained.)

This "best match" translation, however, tends to lose the subtleties of the original work, and some concepts simply cannot be easily expressed, and so the "best match" is either overly simplified or several times more "wordy" than the original (and correspondingly more dense and difficult to understand).

Such is the case with the very first word in the Bible: בראשׁית (ray-sheeth'). As said before, most translations render this word as "In the beginning," but there's something odd about the form of this word^[1], as mentioned by Robert Alter, author of "The Five Books of Moses". Here the Hebrew uses the indefinite article, rather than the definite, and this causes the ambiguity in translation^[2]. A similar comment is made by Orlinsky^[3] (from the New JPS Translation of the Torah), though rather more forcefully insists that the standard translation is simply wrong and no ambiguity exists when it is translated correctly.

When translated using the indefinite article, we get something rather like this:

¹At the beginning of God's creating of the heavens and the earth, ²the earth then being without form and void...

Further alternate readings go like this:

"When God set about [to create] the heaven and the earth - the world being then a formless waste,..." (E.A. Speiser, The Anchor Bible: Genesis New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell.)

"At the beginning of God's creating of the heavens and the earth, when the earth was wild and waste,..." (Everett Fox, 1983, The Schocken Bible, Volume I: The Five Books of Moses pages 11-13)

"When God began to create the heaven and the earth - the earth being unformed and void,..." (W. Gunther Plaut, ed., 1981 The Torah: A Modern Commentary. New York: Union of American Hebrew Congregations, page 18)

"In the beginning of God's preparing the heavens and the earth, the earth hath existed waste and void,..." (Young's Literal Translation)

While the alternate readings don't seem all that different from the traditional reading, at a second glance we can begin to see subtle differences in understanding depending upon which version we choose to follow.

In the traditional sense, God creates the universe at the beginning of time. Nothing came before; only God existed prior to the creation of the universe, and as far as we mortal humans are concerned, it is an inconceivable realm (again, one of those mind-boggling thoughts). It is also stated in the tradition form that the Earth was desolate - a wasteland - totally empty of anything. Since the Earth had not existed prior to God's creating it, this means that God intentionally created Earth first as a barren rock having only the ocean as its surface. (And God has every right to create Earth in this manner, God being God, after all.)

However the sequence of events gets a little more muddled when using the alternate readings. Here we find the story beginning at the start of God's creative act. Time may have been in existence prior to the start of God's creative act - we don't know - but nothing precludes it. Nor does anything indicate (or limit) the amount of time prior to the beginning of the story. It is also indicated that by the time the story begins, the Earth has already been around for awhile - and is currently in a state of desolation and emptiness. Nothing indicates how long the Earth was in this state, nor if it was in any other state at some time long past. Nothing indicates if life existed on this Earth prior to its becoming desolate, though the language makes pretty clear that the Earth was uninhabitable by the time God began His creative act.

There are two obvious differences here: in the traditional reading nothing existed prior to the beginning of the story - therefore Earth is created as a barren world and then later transformed. In the alternate form, Earth already exists in an uninhabitable state and is then transformed. Small difference, but it sure does open up the mind to some fantastic, mind-stretching, and possibly insane ideas!

But, there may be a catch, and thus a very good reason why nearly every other translation uses "In the beginning": the Hebrew word used for "created". The Strong's definition of bara(create) is this:

A primitive root; (absolutely) to create; (qualified) to cut down (a wood), select, feed (as formative processes): - choose, create (creator), cut down, dispatch, do, make (fat).

In addition, the definition found in Brown-Driver-Briggs’ is as follows:

1) to create, shape, form:

1a) (Qal) to shape, fashion, create (always with God as subject); 1a1) of heaven and earth; 1a2) of individual man; 1a3) of new conditions and circumstances; 1a4) of transformations

1b) (Niphal) to be created; 1b1) of heaven and earth; 1b2) of birth; 1b3) of something new; 1b4) of miracles

1c) (Piel); 1c1) to cut down; 1c2) to cut out

2) to be fat
2a) (Hiphil) to make yourselves fat

The key phrase in the Strong's definition is "(absolutely) to create", and from BDB it is "1b3) of something new". Some consider this meaning of the word bara to mean that prior to God's creative act there was no cosmos or Earth - that is to say, God created the cosmos and the Earth ex nihilo (from nothing). Therefore the alternative reading ultimate means the same thing as the traditional reading.

There may be some wiggle room here, though; the definitions aren't restricted to meaning the creation of something new, as is obvious above. The same bara can mean cutting down trees, feeding animals, doing something, and even transforming something (BDB, 1a4) and so my being most definitely not a Hebrew Scholar, I can neither say yea nor nay to the alternate translation. Obviously many consider it valid - and many don't - and those many are far more gifted in Hebrew than I am.

While it is most fascinating that there is the possibility of something having come before our time on this Earth, it is also good to remember this: the author of Genesis thought the most important thing was this, our story - of how God created us, of our relationship with God, of our failures - and God's forgiveness, which is why the story begins here - and does not indicate if something came before. (That is not to say that the discussion of what came before, if anything came before, is not a good idea - there is a great deal of other literature and ideas that are worth a good, hard look - and I'm sure someone will initiate that discussion here...)

Ultimately that is the intent of Genesis. From here springs our entire theology: that God created us to be in a relationship with Him - we rebelled - and God had to send His Son in order to repair the damage caused by that rebellion. Without Genesis, we have no base for the single most important part of our faith: that God can save us.

Regardless of the difficulties in making a translation, that core tenant survives intact. God has made sure that it is crystal clear that even though we rebelled, He is still willing to forgive and to save us. Isn't that in itself an awesome thought?