EZRA THE SCRIBE

 

 

The prophet Jeremiah preached to the Kingdom of Judah for 40 years attempting to avert the impending captivity that eventually left Judah's land desolate. So steeped in sin and idolatry, Judah, like Ephraim and the 10 tribes, lost sight of the God they once promised to worship and serve.

 

It would seem they needed the experience of captivity to awaken them to their true God. The 10 tribes came to their senses quickly and were led by the hand of the Father into obscurity until such time that He would bring them back (3 Nephi 17:4). Judah on the other hand became a very zealous nation for its God whilst in captivity to Babylon. They realised that the prophets were right all along and that they needed to abandon image worship and return to the one true and living God.

 

So zealous were they in their devotion to Jehovah's law that they became slaves to the numerous rules of conduct that went beyond the law itself. Out of this zeal different religious factions were born such as Pharisees and Sadducees which ensured strict observance to the overwhelming number of laws and rules that were invented. Up until the Babylonian captivity, scriptures were only read on special occasions and on the sabbath. Once Judah was taken into captivity this changed and scriptures began to be taught to the general public on regular basis by another factious group called scribes.

 

Over time the Jews in Babylon began to adopt the language and culture of the Chaldeans forgetting the Hebrew language. This necessitated the assistance of scribes who read and interpreted the scriptures to them. "Through the years, each religious group - scribes, Pharisses, Sadducees and others referred to the written word, quoted it, enlarged upon it, interpreted it, and in other ways continued to add to what their fathers had established. The commentaries, explanations, interpretations, and inferences became known as ‘oral tradition’.

 

In time, these traditions, written and oral, took on so much importance that they often overshadowed the law and became a stumbling block for the Jews" (Old Testament Student Manual, 1 Kings - Malachi, p. 262). This is the condition in which the Saviour found the Jews when He made His appearance as the awaited and promised Messiah.

 

Ezra, a scribe and a captive in Babylon, was charged by the Persian king, following the completion of the second temple, to teach the Jewish people in Jerusalem of the law and then set up a judgment system for the lawbreakers (see Ezra 7:25-26).

 

Under King Artaxerxes I (465-424 B.C.), Ezra and Nehemiah led the second wave of Jewish exiles back to Jerusalem. Nehemiah, a royal cup bearer to the King, and a man of unselfish patriotism and personal integrity assumed the position of Jerusalem’s governor. Together with Ezra, a righteous and dedicated priest, they succeeded in restoring and reviving a Jewish community in Jerusalem and effected great reforms amongst the congregation.  

 

The spiritual reformation of Jerusalem became the first and greatest importance. During the span of three generations between the first and second group of returned exiles, many of the people including the priests and the Levites had intermarried with people of different cultures and religions (Ezra 9:1,2). Ezra was devastated to say the least when he learnt of this and offered a heart rendering prayer to God for forgiveness of the direct violation of God’s command against inter-marriage at the time of the entry into the promised land (Ezra 9:6-15).

 

Inter-marriage carried a serious risk of idolatry and spiritual decay for God’s chosen people. So acute was Ezra’s awareness of this that in his grief he refused to eat, tore his clothes and cast himself down before the temple. Makes you want to weep and weep the people did before him acknowledging that they had trespassed against God and were willing to renew their covenant with Him by promising to put away their ‘strange’ wives (Ezra 10:1-16). As a woman who was a single mother for 20 years, I don’t know how I feel about this. I have always wondered what happened to those poor women and their children who were left husbandless in the worst time and place to be so. 

The situation does make twos things obvious here: 1.There is a consequence to pay for every sin and 2. Repentance comes at a high price. Either way, disobedience is not worth it…..

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Artist Unknown)