Ezra 6

Ezra 6:1

H. Completion of the Temple through a Favorable Decree of Darius (Chap. 6)6:1-5 After diligent search, the decree of Cyrus was found in what used to be his capital city, Achmetha (or Ecbatana, NKJV marg.). (The edict was much more detailed than is summarized in chap. 1.) In it, the specifications of the temple were given along with an order to return all the gold and silver articles taken by Nebuchadnezzar. 6:6-12 Darius then spelled out to Tattenai and his colleagues their responsibilities toward the Jews. They were not to hinder the work but were to pay for the cost of the temple out of the royal treasury from collected taxes. Provisions for the temple service were to be supplied upon request of the priests (v. 9) so that the Jews might find favor in the eyes of God and hence be effectual in their prayers for the . . . king and his family. Darius put some teeth into his edict by making it a capital offense to hinder the work. He called on God to deal with anyone, kings included, who might try to destroy this house of God in the future. 6:13-15 The king’s orders were quickly obeyed and the work on the temple surged ahead. With encouragement from God’s prophets and provisions from Darius’s treasury, the temple was completed four years later, but nineteen or twenty years after the laying of the foundation. Artaxerxes actually lived later; he contributed to the maintenance of the temple, not to its building. 6:16 The Israelites and their leaders celebrated the dedication of the temple with joy. Dennett observes: It was but natural that they should rejoice at such a moment, for the house of their God was the expression of all the blessings of the covenant in which they stood. And at length, after weary years of failure, difficulties, disappointments, and sorrow, it stood completed before their eyes. It was for this that they had been brought up out of Babylon, and if any of them had sown in tears they now reaped in joy. 6:17-22 They offered sacrifices. If we compare this dedication with Solomon’s22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep plus innumerable oxen and sheep sacrificed before the ark (2Ch_7:5; 2Ch_5:6), it pales into a poor and feeble event. Fortunately, they did not dwell on this. Today in many churches, fellowships, denominations, schools, and even whole countries of Christendom, a comparison not unlike the decline from Solomon’s time to Ezra’s is apparent. Dennett has an encouraging application that is worth quoting at length: Faith, however, has to do with unseen things, and it could thus recall to the mind of this feeble remnant that Jehovah was no less mighty and no less merciful for them than for Solomon. The house might be less glorious, and they themselves but poor subjects of a Gentile monarch, but if God was for them, as He was, the resources available to faith were as unbounded as ever. This truth cannot be too deeply impressed on our minds, that Christ remains the same for His people in a day of difficulty as in a season of prosperity. To be in the power of this raises us, as nothing else can, above our circumstances, and gives us courage to press on, whatever the perils of the path. Afterward the Passover was observed and the Feast of Unleavened Bread was kept . . . with great joy, for the people clearly saw God’s hand behind the favors they had obtained from Darius. Darius is called the king of Assyria here because he was ruling over the old Assyrian empire.