40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Ezra 7:7-8:23 (Episode 357)

Episode Date: April 26, 2023

King Artaxerxes hands Ezra a letter that gives him everything he needs to get the worship and teaching of God going. Ezra finds that he needs more Levites if he is going to complete the task before him. And when you've boasted about God, it's hard to ask for an armed escort. Chad and Daniel discuss all of this. Have a listen! Donate 1517 Podcast Network 1517 YouTube

Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. 40 Minutes in the Old Testament is a 1517 Podcast Network podcast. You can go to 1517.org slash podcast and check out all the other podcasts that are living over there. So while you're over there, make sure you check out all the new things that we're doing. By new things, I mean the same things, but they're always new. Daily articles, a new article every day. There's new videos up there all the time. Go over to the YouTube channel.

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The gas bill is still coming in. Budget bill is still coming in. I know. It's terrible. I don't know if you know this. I tried to tell the gas company, Chad. I said, hey, I'm doing the Lord's work over here trying to talk about the Old Testament. They sent me a bill anyway.

They did not care. Same thing happened to me. I tried. Same thing here in New Braunfels. Yeah. They weren't interested in sponsoring. It's like they live by the law. They do.

They have not repented and believed the gospel. So if you want to hit that donate button, we don't play any ads on the podcast. We had offers to, but we don't want to do that. We don't want to bog you down in ads. And we don't have a paywall. It's not like if you listen to this and you want to go back to see what we have to say about Exodus,

you have to get a membership and all the backlog episodes are back there. No, we don't do any of that. And that's all made possible by supporters. And you can become one by hitting that donate button. And if you are one, thank you so much for doing that. All right, Chad, we are in Ezra, of course, and we are in chapter 7. We got through the first six or so verses in the last episode, and we just finally kind of met Ezra.

We kind of got introduced to the guy who the book is named after, and we find out that he's a scribe. He's skilled in the law of Moses. And we also found out that his lineage is pretty good. Yeah, I'd say. I mean, it goes all the way back to Aaron, Moses' brother. So I'd say it's a pretty good pedigree for our friend Ezra. It's kind of funny. I think I said this in the last episode.

As you read all these six chapters, you're like, who is this Ezra that the book is named after? Then you finally meet him in chapter 7. So, yeah, he's a scribe, knows the Torah, and he's got a lot that he's going to be doing. We'll hear more about that in the ensuing chapters. But the first thing we have to do is we've got to get him from where he's at to where he's going. So he's among the—we don't know how old he is, but he's among the exiles there in Babylon. And, of course, in these previous episodes, we've seen that there's been more than one wave of exiles who have returned from Babylon to Jerusalem,

but there's still a lot of people there. In fact, throughout the history of Judaism, in Jewish history, from this point all the way for centuries and centuries, I mean, Babylon is going to have a huge Jewish population. If you're familiar with the Talmud, there's actually two Talmuds. There is the Palestinian Talmud,

and then there is the Babylonian Talmud. And the Babylonian Talmud is the one we always hear about it was called that because that's where it was compiled it was in babylon so babylon remained a center of of the jews an academic center of the jews uh for a long long time and anyway it started here but we've got to get uh we've got to get this particular guy ezra to jerusalem so he can start his work there and in verse 7 we hear that uh in the seventh year of artaxerxes the king that some of the people of israel some of the priests and levites and singers and gatekeepers and temple servants they went up to jerusalem it's kind of a foreshadowing there we got to get them there

first but that this is going to be the group that goes with ezra and so ezra is going to go to jerusalem in the fifth month the seventh year of that king we have some dates here and i don't know if i want to read i don't want to i don't know if i want to read this out of them or not but i do think it's kind of interesting first of all it says on the on the first day of the month he began to go up from babylonia so first month he starts out and then he's going to get there it says on the first day of the fifth month that's when he gets to jerusalem so first of all um so i was just curious and i don't know if this is accurate or not but this is what this is what i was able to find you know i've always wondered and maybe you have to like how fast can a group like that travel

i mean think about the wagon trains you know if you're on the organ trail or uh wherever it might be in ancient times before you had modern transportation you have a group of people And this is not like a bunch of, you know, young soldiers, but just, you know, families. So you got, you got moms, dads, grandmas, grandpas, little kids. So how fast can a group like that move? So it is, it's about 900 miles from Babylon to Jerusalem. It's a long way. I mean, that's a long drive, right?

Yeah. 900 miles. And it takes them about four months. So leave the first month, get there in the fifth month. so that average is about seven and a half miles a day which is just wild to think about you talk you talk about slow progress i mean that's uh i mean i can run i can run seven and a half miles uh you know at a pretty good clip and you're and you're and you're old yeah and i'm old i'm 52 years old so these people this group that takes some long time because

yeah they're not even going eight miles a day i i did look up estimates and estimates range anywhere from like i don't know like 8 to 15 miles a day is what they estimate for groups like this but anyway thanks to these people seven and a half seven and a half miles per day uh long time to get there now another thing i want to point out too so i was only able to find whether one other occurrence of something that happened on the first day of the fifth month and this might be a tie-in because on the first day of the fifth month is when aaron that ezra is related to ezra went up on the mount hor and died so aaron passes on the first day of the fifth month and then we have a descendant of Aaron arriving there at Mount Zion, there at Jerusalem on the first day of the

fifth month. I don't know if I want to make anything out of that, but it is an interesting parallel between Aaron and our friend Ezra. But anyway, we'll hear more about their journey and some delays in just a minute, but they're able to make this journey because we were told the good hand of his God was, was on him, which is a typical kind of a metaphor picture here in Ezra for God prospering their journey. And then verse 10 kind of echoes what we saw earlier back in verse six, that Ezra had set his heart to study the Torah of the Lord. So the verb that's used there is derosh in Hebrew, which is kind of searching out, seeking out. If you've ever heard of midrash which is jewish uh the the hebrew word for uh interpretation and application

uh of a text midrash is formed there's a noun formed from derash so you derash a text you search it out to do midrash so he studies he he searches out he seeks to know the torah of the lord and not only to did he study it but to do it and to and to teach his statutes so you kind of had this idea of he's uh he's he's studying but he's also doing and he's teaching this then to the rest of the israelites so that's a little bit about ezra uh and then we have another letter we have a lot of epistles that are kind of woven into the fabric of ezra so we have here a copy of the letter that king artaxerxes gave to ezra the priest the scribe a man learned in matters of the commandments of the lord and the statutes for israel and then a copy of that letter is is

printed is is listed here for us written here for us in verses 12 and following artaxerxes king of kings to ezra the priest the scribe of the law of the god of heaven peace and now artaxerxes says and now i make a decree that any one of the people of israel or their priests or levites in my kingdom who freely offers to go to jerusalem may go with you because this kind of has echoes of the decree of cyrus right he's allowing people to hey if you want to go uh we're in charge now and even though you were brought here as exiles now we're we're we're making the decisions uh we're not like the uh we're not the babylonians and we're having a lot less a lot more of a free reign and so if you want to go go and then it goes on verse 14 you are sent by the king and his seven counselors

to make inquiries about judah and jerusalem according to the torah of your god which is in your hand and also so you're going to make these inquiries that's what the official proclamation is and also you're going to you're going to carry some silver and gold that the king and his counselors have freely offered to the god of israel whose dwelling is in jerusalem with all the silver and gold that you shall find in the whole province of babylonia and the free will offerings of the people and the priest vowed willingly for the house of their god that's in jerusalem so you're free to go and whoever wants to go with you ezra and you're going to have a lot of silver and gold that's gonna i guess it's kind of the idea they they did kind of a general

collection right so maybe you don't want to go to babylon so maybe uh dan you're going you're gonna go with ezra but my family and i you know we're we've been here for a while maybe we're farmers we got lands we're gonna stay but you're gonna go uh so yeah we want to support our people back in jerusalem so what do we do we give to you a donation or say here take this for us you know When you get to Jerusalem, please pass on our contribution to the temple. So this is our way of ongoing support for what's happening back in Jerusalem. Yeah, and that would have been a thing. I mean, if you're a believer in God and you're going to stay behind, you could see how you might be like,

well, I'm going to stay behind because I got this or that thing going on here. but i don't want god to be like upset or anything so i mean at least i could do is help fund his house right so i do some of that you know uh it's like you maybe just go to church on easter and that's it and uh that's when you write that big check you know like and just so you know the support supporting the you know the church and uh and you gotta i mean you gotta remember i mean having the temple rebuilt yes it's like a religious thing of course but it's a pretty big identity thing for your people too so this is something that even if you didn't live there you would still this is still a big deal yeah yeah yeah it's a it's a symbol and it's symbols

by the very nature are multifaceted right so it's a religious symbol for sure but it's uh it's cultural it's a it's political it's sociological it's historical it's all those kind of i mean the temple is up until its destruction in 80 70 i mean that is the uh the hub of the wheel for for the jews it's the it's the very center of things it's like if the white house was also a church and you know something happened and it got destroyed and then you were living in a different place a part of the world and they said hey we're going to rebuild the white house and you'd be like the white house is sort of like central to like my heritage and it's like a big big deal right uh to me like the temple is kind of like that it's

it's not it's a church yes but it's also i mean it is the building right like if they had if they had money that's the building that's not it yeah and there's i mean there's some theology behind this too because so even if uh so let's kind of go back before the babylonian exile if you're living up in the galilee area or if you're living in jerusalem or if you're anywhere in the holy land, then you know that even if you're at home working in the fields, it's not like you're in Jerusalem, there's the temple, but wherever you're at, there is a morning offering and an evening offering that are, I mean, these are offered for you. So, I mean, it's very different from our idea.

You know, when we send people, it's not like, you know, if we stay home on Sunday morning and uh sleep in we say to ourselves well it really doesn't matter because what is happening in church is done for me it doesn't work that way but what's happening in the temple that lamb that was offered in the morning in the evening that was for you because not you in the sense of you as a as a independent individual but you are part of the corporate body of israel and so you know that when you offer your morning prayers and you face jerusalem to do it that a sacrifice is actually being made there for you morning and evening so uh yeah i mean so even if in this case if you're staying behind and you're in babylon or you know in later years when you have the diaspora

and jews are spread all over the roman empire they knew yeah that still in jerusalem there were sacrifices being being offered for them so anyway they gather all this stuff together all the silver and gold all the free will offerings and then verse 17 verse 17 kind of expands on this it says and this is more of the decree of artaxerxes with this money then you shall with all diligence buy all these animals for sacrifice bulls rams lambs and also grain offerings drink offerings and then you shall offer them on the altar of the house of your god that's in jerusalem whatever seems good to you and your brothers to do with the rest of the silver and gold you can do according to the will of your god so you got some leftover well you know maybe the temple needs to be repaired or

whatever it might be use it for that the vessels that have been given to you for the service of the house of your god you shall deliver before the god of jerusalem and whatever else is required for the house of your god what which it falls to you to provide you may provide it out of the king's out of the king's treasury and i art of xerxes the king make a decree to all the treasurers in the province beyond the river whatever this is great ezra probably when ezra read this he's like oh yeah whatever ezra the priest the scribe of the law of the god of heaven requires of you let it be done with all diligence up to 100 talents of silver and 100 cores of wheat and 100 baths of wine and 100 baths of oil and salt without any kind of measurement whatever is decreed by the

god of heaven let it be done in full for the house of the god of heaven lest his wrath against the realm of the king lest his wrath be against the realm of the king and his sons okay we got uh i'm almost done with this section we also notify you that it shall not be lawful that is to impose tribute custom or toll on any of the priests levites singers doorkeepers temple servants and other servants of this house of god there's a little bit more to it we'll we'll stop there because uh there's a few things in there worth worth talking about so all this all these things that are listed here according to their measurements uh some commentators think that that's enough probably to keep the temple going for like two years yeah it's a lot of sacrifices

so ezra's basically i mean he's given a lot of a lot of leeway here a lot of authority to basically make sure that when he gets to jerusalem with all the stuff he has that if he needs more he can contact whoever's in charge over there and say hey you know artist Xerxes said that you are to provide such and such for the temple in Jerusalem because Artaxerxes is really serious about making sure that the temple of our God is in operation, full, full operation. Because, hey, these guys, they want, they believe in a multiplicity of gods and they're fine with your God, you know, being prayed to for them or your God being prayed to for them. They They want all the people praying to their own gods for their benefit.

This is the thing. When you get the kind of wealth that these kings had, when you're talking about Cyrus and now Artie Zersky, there's this king of kings kind of stuff, right? Which is how he introduced himself. I noticed that Ezra didn't say blasphemy. That's blasphemy, so I reject all this. He's just going to roll with it.

But, I mean, why not? This is all wins. These people are super happy with you, and is their God real? I don't know. But if he is, I've helped his people out, I've got his temple built, and people are going to say, you know, they're going to pray prayers for me, and, you know, I got so much stuff. It's not a big deal for me to hedge my bets in this way to say,

I don't know, but if that God's real, I'll buy him off. I'm going to pay all this stuff, and that way I won't have to worry about the wrath of this God if the wrath of this God is a real thing. And this is what makes them sort of smarter than a lot of the kings that were before them, because, again, you can only have so much stuff, man. This is not a big deal for him. well it also you know in the bigger picture of the salvation story it it's a great contrast to with pharaoh you know who comes across as a total idiot hard-hearted you know dummy politically

speaking because what happens to him is he gets destroyed yeah i mean completely wiped out through the plagues and i mean is that that's not bad enough then his country still you know has a hand over gold and silver you know all these egyptians are uh they call it the plundering of the egyptians but the egyptian families were just like here take take it take it go go so the tabernacle was built in the desert with all the things that were taken from the egyptians so the same thing is happening here the difference is that the persians are like no we're all on board with this so they're the persian king and the persians themselves are doing the same thing that the egyptians did except they're doing it willingly yeah either way all the silver and gold

and the other things that are needed for worship are being provided by god through those who are non-israelites which is which is amazing which is pretty striking god is taking care of his people and he's using gentiles to do it uh and then you know we also have here this uh reference to basically the fact that if you're uh if you're working to the temple either as a priest or levite or a musician or you know you're you're guarding the doors or your menial servant whatever you're doing at the temple then hey uh no taxation yeah it's pretty good pretty pretty pretty good deal and we know from some other persian documents that this was not isolated it wasn't like you know the Israelites were in a special class and the Persians are like, no, no, no.

You know, everybody else gets taxed, but you don't know. This is, you know, it was pretty common in the ancient world for those who were serving some sort of cultic office, some sort of, you know, priestly office, whatever it might be. Well, you get the tax break. So no income tax for you. This is a great incentive to, you know, go to work for the church. Yeah. That's why, that's why everybody's going to seminary these days. That's right.

all right we're almost done with the letters so verse 25 says yeah we have this is uh verse 25 is it's going to be uh uh the first time possibly first time that something happens here so here's the way it starts out and you as according to the wisdom of your god that's in your hand i'm going to come back to that that's what i want to point out according to the wisdom of your god that's in your hand appoint magistrates and judges who may judge all the people in the province beyond the river all such as know the laws of your god and those who don't know them well teach them whoever won't obey the law of your god and the law of the king notice we got two different laws going on here whoever will not obey the law

of your god and the law of the king let judgment be strictly executed on him whether for we have a list of four different things that could happen if you don't obey death which of course is the worst banishment confiscation of his goods or imprisonment so let me uh let me explain what i was gonna gonna point out here about this this wisdom passage so if you if you look at some popular jewish literature uh later on such as the wisdom of jesus min sirach which is part of the apocrypha and not just there but a lot of other places in kind of the the jewish popular literature leading up to the new testament even and even certainly after that very frequently you have the torah equated with the wisdom of god and many people think that this is the very first place

this happens why because if you go back to verse 14 it says it makes mention of the law of god which was in ezra's hand now here in verse 25 it says according to the wisdom of your god that's in your hand so this might be the first time that where the torah is equated with equated with wisdom it's something that that happens all over the place in in later literature but anyway according to either like the fact that you are wise or according to that torah that's in your hand whatever is meant here then ezra is to do all these things and uh those who don't obey well they're going to face the penalty whether that's the death penalty or a lesser a lesser penalty so these are all uh similar penalties that we still have except for the banishment

we really don't have the penalties sort of went away not so much not so many people getting banished no it was a big it was a big thing i mean you had people banished all the time leaders even banished right yeah you could be banished from a roman city uh you know if if you uh were causing problems and you were you were banned people banished islands i mean this banishment was a was kind of a big can we bring that back i think is it yeah i guess there's just not anywhere to banish people to now the only kind of banishment that happens these days is self-banishment where you you go hide out in russia or something yeah yeah yeah and then you're not really banished because the internet so you you can be just as visible as you as you want to

be but banishment yeah that was a kind of a kind of big deal um now wrapping up the chapter this is uh verse 27 and uh in 28 we uh we have the first person the the first first person reference so ezra writes blessed be the lord the god of our fathers who put such a thing as this into the heart of the king to beautify the house of the lord that's in jerusalem and who extended to me so this is the first i or me that we have in uh in ezra this is him actually speaking so god has extended to me his his hesed his steadfast love his loving kindness before the king and his counselors and before all the king's mighty officers i took courage because the hand of the lord my god was on me and i gathered leading men from israel to go up with me so ezra himself

is giving thanks to god blessing god who he understands has is the one who's responsible for all this put such a thing as this into the heart of the king into the heart of artaxerxes So, I mean, one of many, many references throughout Old Testament history where a king ends up doing something for reasons that the king is unaware. It's not like Artaxerxes woke up one morning and he thought, you know, Yahweh has just really put on my heart to do this thing for Ezra and the Israelites. Artaxerxes had no idea whatsoever. He thinks he's doing it for political reasons. but Ezra knows the real reason. So it's a great example where you can look at the same action

from very different perspectives, one from kind of a worldly practical perspective and one from a very theological perspective where we know, oh yeah, the reason this happened is God put that into the heart of the king to make this happen. And he's going to beautify the house. That's language that's actually used in Isaiah chapter 60,

kind of a vision of people returning from exile and God's house is going to be beautified. So this is echoing Isaiah here, and then Ezra understands this all happens because of the steadfast love, the chesed of his God. Yeah, you feel like this sort of letter from this king here is like, not the fulfillment of, but like a really clear example of Proverbs 21, where it says, the king's heart is in the hand of the lord like the rivers of water he turns it wherever he wishes that oh that's good that's what that that's what we just read right yeah that's great yeah yeah

you just picture god he's like changing his direction of the river flow yeah because yeah he's the one who's in charge of the the hearts of the kings yeah it's great great great example of that i mean it's really when you when you step back from it it's uh it's a shocking case really of how God uses these people who have no faith in him, like Artaxerxes and others. God is just kind of manipulating them. He's using them in a way that's going to benefit his people, as he's done over and over throughout the history of the Old Testament.

And, you know, as he'll do. Why was Jesus born in Bethlehem? It wasn't like Joseph and Mary thought, man, we know. We've got to fulfill this prophecy. yeah we got to fulfill this prophecy we got it we can't stay up here in nazareth i mean we got we got to get down to bethlehem no the only reason they're there is because a decree went out from caesar augustus that all the world should be taxed so god was using uh he was he was in the hearts of

kings roman kings as well he was manipulating events to make sure that his will for his people for us was was done i mean what if you're in a congregation that confesses the creed i love the line crucified under a political figure right yeah punches pilot yeah so i mean another case where god was using uh god was using a leader outside his own people to make sure that what happened was actually for for our salvation i mean it's very unlikely that mary and joseph even connected to bethlehem dots i mean we don't get that from their mouth so they they i don't even think i think it's very unlikely that they were even like oh bethlehem of course like because you know you know isaiah or whatever that's not uh that's not a thing dude i don't think they're

doing that that comes like herod has to go and ask some like you know some learned scribe dude like hey where do you guys think it's gonna be i mean this is easy for us because like we know the whole thing but you had to go to a studier of the prophets and say what do you think yeah it was like you know when when mary had her baby shower somebody gave her uh a book that listed all the messianic prophecies so she and joseph could like you know take those off one by one all right got that or when they flee to egypt they weren't like of course yeah i know right yeah we read these events i mean after they've all happened and we're like of course but they're just well they're trying to get away from yeah stay alive or they're going now because of the senses yeah

they're they're not sitting around i mean mary yeah pondered all these things in her heart but it wasn't like she was thinking okay that messianic prophecy fulfilled right now this is going to be fulfilled they couldn't even be like joseph go get me go grab the bible off the shelf i think it says somewhere in here about like that's not how things were no no yeah i don't know if anybody in israel had like in their own house a copy of all the old testament scrolls yeah i seriously seriously seriously doubt that was anywhere but in well i don't even know if synagogues had all of the scrolls but certainly the temple had that but i don't even know if i don't know if we have any evidence in fact if synagogues had all the copies of all the scrolls

of all the old testament books in first century uh first century israel maybe they did i'm not saying they didn't but i don't i don't know that we have any evidence of that but the temple did but individual people wasn't like you you know you got up morning and you uh you're living there in galilee you pour your cup of coffee and then you you know you open up your your bible and you're going to read Isaiah this morning or something. No, you went to synagogue, and you heard the Bible read to you. Yeah, you didn't go and say, I'm going to take my messianic prophecy handbook off the shelf here,

since I know that my wife's got the Son of God in her to see if I can connect all these dots. You just don't possess this stuff. I mean, the only book we know they read for sure was Chad Bird's Christ Key. That's right. Definitely a bestseller there. definitely yeah that's the one that's how that's the one first century galilee yeah everybody had a copy of that all right that's the end of chapter seven uh chapter eight is uh exciting where we are

yeah so the these are we got it we got a genealogy here uh stick with us folks do not do not stop the podcast uh we're gonna breeze through this these are the heads of their their father's houses so This is the genealogy, Ezra says, of those folks who went with me from Babylonia in the reign of Artaxerxes the king. And I am not, I promise, I'm not going to read those. The only thing I'm really going to point out is two things. First of all, there's mention of a Hattush, who is of the sons of David. Now, one of the remarkable things, and it's kind of easy to miss, but one of the remarkable things in much of Ezra and Nehemiah is how little is made of the descendants of David. You know, we heard all about the descendants of David in 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, which is all, of course, centered around David and his sons who reigned after him.

Well, here's a mention of one just kind of, you know, thrown in there in this list of other people. and then verse three and following has a list of 12 different lay families about probably 1500 men or so so if you add to their if you add their families to that we're probably looking around maybe 5 000 people which is a pretty sizable group that's going to be going up going up with ezra so uh then so jumping down to verse 15 after the list of all their names ezra says that i gathered these people to the river that runs to Ahava. So Babylon was built on the Euphrates River, and there were a lot of artificial canals

that are just all over the place for defensive purposes and other purposes too, and this is probably one of those. We don't know where this Ahava is, but it's got to be pretty close to the city. In fact, I think the NIV translates this about they gather them to the canal that runs to Ahava, but either way, that's where they're there. They camp three days.

and it's like i don't know what happened but i guess they're getting everything ready and somebody somebody's like hey are there any levites here so they're like i don't know did you look over there ask them nope no levites here check some other place so they go you know 5 000 people not a single levite in the in the bunch which is a problem because this this whole ezra-led group that's going to journey from babylon babylonia to jerusalem this is like exodus 2.0 like so ezra is a moses figure he's got the torah and he's got these people and it's like they're leaving egypt uh 2.0 but it's babylonia and they're going to make this long journey and they're going to do it right this time only problem is they can't really do it right

because they've got some priests uh they don't have any levites and what do levites do well Levites carry the holy stuff of God, and they got some holy stuff that has to be carried. So it's like everything is put on hold. This is such a weird problem. How are we going to carry this stuff? We have no Levites. For us, it's like, well, I don't know,

get some 18, 19-year-old dudes who can carry anything for all day and let them carry it. But you can't because these are holy things. And the Levites were the guys who they had the wide shoulders, the broad shoulders. They carried all the stuff, all the holy things. And so it's got to be a little bit frustrating because if you're Ezra and you're all these other people, you're like, are you serious? Like not a single Levite wants to go with us. The Levites are probably thinking, why would I want to go?

I mean, they carry all this stuff. I got to carry all this stuff. I'm fine here in Babylon. on but anyway they he says i reviewed the people and the priest and i found there are none of the sons of levi so uh he he remedied the situation pretty quick he he gathers together a group of guys uh men of insight they're called and he sends them to this place called uh itto it must have been a bunch of levites there and so they go there and uh they start looking around and he says again once more the good hand of our god was upon us uh because they found a bunch of found a bunch of

levites they found uh 38 i mean it's not a bunch but at least i got 18 from one group 20 from other groups now they got i got 38 levites all right these guys can be doing a lot of work a lot of carrying yeah and a bunch of temple servants 220 temple servants that we're not told really much about but anyway they're descendants of the i mean these guys weren't like servants at the temple before the the exile because they'd be way too old for that but these are maybe their sons or grandsons so we got 38 levites we got 220 temple servants and uh now we're almost ready almost ready to go so verse 21 says before they take off they're gonna they're gonna have a fast so ezra says that he proclaimed a fast there at the river ahava they're gonna humble themselves

can be translated afflict themselves but there is built kind of built into the idea of fasting that you're humbling yourself before god or you're you're you're lowering yourself before him and they're gonna they're gonna pray to seek from him it says we're gonna look from him seek from him in prayer a safe journey for ourselves our children all our goods and this next verse cracks me up. The next verse says this, this is verse 22. Ezra says, for I was ashamed to ask the king for basically an armed escort, a band of soldiers and horsemen to protect us against the enemy our way. Why? Because I had told the king, the hand of our God is for good on all who seek him and the power of his wrath is against all who forsake him so they fasted and they they implored

they they sought the god of israel and were told that he listened to listen to their entreaty i like this honesty here like he's like all right it's kind of a welcome human side of of of these characters isn't it yeah they're like hey this journey could be dangerous this king is really just like giving us whatever i bet you he just like send some guards you know he'd probably give an escort he's he seems all in on this thing and that's just like yeah here's the thing i told him you know like he's you know he's is about all this and one of the reasons he's probably about all this is now i told him uh you know the hand of our god is is on people for good if they seek him and uh his wrath is against all who forsake him and really implied that

you know this god is really powerful and so i think asking him for an armed escort is really probably gonna chip away at the things that i've already said it's kind of an embarrassing moment for us you can tell he's like regretting his decision i don't know if he he spoke in haste or if he was so excited when he found out that you know they were going back he's like oh this is great because god is going to watch over us i mean we're we're going to be safe we don't have to worry about anything because we have such a powerful but super human too because the implication here is just like i'd really rather have that arm escort yes but i guess we're gonna have to just go with god yeah it is it's a superhuman moment because i mean we've all been

in somewhat similar situations you know where we god is fine with us uh trusting him and also using very practical means chad we were talking about we got some crazy weather going on over here we were talking about tornadoes before we started recording and uh imagine uh there's a tornado uh coming right at you and someone's like okay what would you rather have you can have faith in god or you can have this storm cellar and you're like ooh I mean the hand of the hand of

our god for good is on all who seek him but that shelter is looking pretty attractive right now it's a way to do both of these things can we have both that was probably an either or thing so

in this case I was just like yeah Yeah, we can't have both, so we're going to have to just go this route. Thus the fast before they took off. I don't know that they would have had a fast in this big prayer service if they had a Persian armed guard that was traveling with them. I mean, it's a long journey, right? Like I said, it's 900 miles. It's going to take them four months.

There's a lot of chance for some bad people to attack them all the way. Yeah, you got the Persian army with you. People are like, should we fast? No, I don't think so. I'm pretty sure we're going to make it. Yeah. So, lesson learned, I suppose, on the part of Ezra. Yeah, that's awesome.

Well, all right, man. Well, we have to leave it right there. The fast has happened. They're going to get after it next week when we continue. And so, we will check out how the Levite carrying goes next episode. I'll see you then. All right. See you then.

We'll see you next time.